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October 26, 2024
Dear friends and colleagues --
Unusually, I am sending this published comment and the short article which prompted it to this listserve, as the most efficient way to keep you up to date on this matter.
Published comment:
It is important for readers to understand that this lawsuit aims to delay pit production in South Carolina while allowing it to proceed unimpeded in New Mexico. The New Mexican and some other journalists are badly remiss in not pointing this out; the more experienced nuclear trade press has however done so (see NNSA, antis, get more time to negotiate agreement after agency loses pit lawsuit, Exchange Monitor, Oct 8, 2024).
The goal of the plaintiffs including Nuclear Watch is to concentrate all U.S. pit production at LANL. That should be obvious at a glance from the lack of other New Mexico plaintiffs, the decision to file this lawsuit in South Carolina instead of New Mexico or Washington, DC, and from the conspicuous lack of opposition to pit production at LANL from Nuclear Watch. To the extent this is possible -- more sober heads will almost certainly prevail -- this would mean even greater plutonium investments and operations at LANL than we are seeing right now.
As the plaintiffs said to the judge, “vacatur [annulment of the decisions supporting the dual-sit pit production mission, requested by plaintiffs] would not disrupt activities at [LANL]." NNSA immediately agreed, saying “Plaintiffs’ NEPA claim challenges only the decision to produce pits at a second site; thus, any remedy should be limited to the second production site...this Court should not order relief that blocks previously authorized production at Los Alamos." As a result, Judge Lewis is at the moment awaiting joint draft remedies that allow pit production at Los Alamos to proceed.
In a level of detail only lawyers and parties involved will want to read, see the discussion and references in LASG Memorandum to Judge Lewis and the Parties in the South Carolina Plutonium Pit case, Oct 18, 2024, and the "Joint Reply on Alternative Remedies," Aug 23, 2024, & "Memorandum Opinion and Order," Sep 30, 2024 from the case.
The policy goal of seeking even more nuclear weapons money and plutonium for New Mexico allows these organizations to remain on good terms with the 100% pro-nuclear-weapons New Mexico congressional delegation. It was in fact primarily Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich who demanded this mission be brought to LANL, with the help of then-congresspersons Michelle Lujan Grisham, Ben Ray Lujan, and Steve Pearce.
Concentrating all the plutonium pit production in Los Alamos has been an explicit goal of many national organizations for two decades. The main forces of nuclear colonialism in New Mexico are Democratic. There's a lot of money behind it.
We at the Los Alamos Study Group have requested consent or non-opposition from all the parties including Nuclear Watch to submit a friend of the court (amicus) brief similar to the memorandum above. We believe the Court has received a skewed version of reality, and we certainly do think New Mexicans are not being adequately represented in this lawsuit. We'll see what happens.
Most peace-and-justice-oriented New Mexicans still have a kind of deer-in-the-headlights approach to the vast nuclear weapons enterprise being brought into the state, equivalent in size (as NNSA has said) of an entire new national laboratory.
Only it's not a lab. It's a production plant, for the new warhead LANL's pit production will enable, adding to -- not just maintaining -- the U.S. arsenal. Fortunately, it can be stopped and eventually will stop. But when, with what spirit, what renewal, and will it be before or after the widespread impacts and inevitably, the accidents?
There's a lot going on just now. Don't panic or despair, please. It is enough to be awake. "Stay calm, have courage, wait for signs." (Craig Johnson)
Greg
PS Trish has posted the video of this past Thursday's town hall we conducted at the SALA in Los Alamos. We'll put up the briefing slides separately in a day or so. If your business or better still your organization or religious community has not yet signed the Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production please do so. Recruiting others to endorse is one of the easiest things we can all do right now, even in this tense pre-election atmosphere.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/court-extends-deadline-for-agreement-in-federal-lawsuit-over-nuclear-pit-production/article_380dac68-8fb6-11ef-9b3b-776b05e0ef32.html
Court extends deadline for agreement in federal lawsuit over nuclear pit production
The deadline for a federal agency and a nationwide group of anti-nuclear organizations to agree on remedies in a lawsuit tied to plans for plutonium pit production has been extended — again.
Originally, U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis gave the National Nuclear Security Administration and groups including Nuclear Watch New Mexico 14 days to agree on the next steps, including the request for injunctive relief.
The initial deadline was Oct. 15. The groups filed a joint motion Oct. 5, which was granted, to extend the deadline until Friday. A few days earlier, the deadline was extended once again to Nov. 4.
In September, Lewis ruled the NNSA had not appropriately considered alternatives to the plan to produce plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and Los Alamos National Laboratory or the combined effects of the two-site plan on the environment.
"We've reviewed the Court's ruling and are supporting the Department of Justice as it prepares to meet and confer with the plaintiffs, as ordered," wrote Milli Mike, public affairs specialist with the National Nuclear Security Administration, in an email to The New Mexican.
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