Reminder: Important LANL hearing TOMORROW EVENING in Santa Fe, 5 pm

March 21, 2016

(Letter to local members; tell us if you want off this exclusive list. We usually send fewer emails to this list than of late.)

Re: Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Hearing to be held tomorrow (agenda), Tuesday March 22, from 5:00 - 6:30 pm (Session 1) and from 6:45 - 9:00 pm (Session 2) at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 201 West Marcy Street (map).

Dear friends --

This is a reminder about tomorrow evening's DNFSB-hosted hearing in Santa Fe, which nominally concerns transuranic (TRU) waste management at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

We think it is important. For why, see:

LASG friends ltr (03/11/16)
Senior DOE nuclear officials coming to Santa Fe for public hearing; more

LASG friends ltr (03/14/16)
Why the March 22 hearing on LANL safety is critically important

LASG friends ltr (03/15/16)
Pre-register by March 18 to reserve a speaking slot at the March 22 hearing re LANL; other updates

We hope you will invite your friends to this meeting if you have not done so already.

Besides TRU waste, this hearing will also be a forum on pit production at LANL and its expansion, LANL cleanup, the future of WIPP, and the management and future of LANL.

There will be no further opportunity for public input, or for NNSA senior officials to gauge public opinion, on the question of whether or not this administration should commit to building a multibillion-dollar underground plutonium foundry and associated manufacturing works at LANL. It would be far better, at a minimum, to postpone this decision to the next administration and the next contractor* while reviewing alternatives and also reviewing the question of whether or not these investments are needed. (They are not.) Such a review is underway right now, but it will be peremptory if it is forced to conclude in the few months remaining in this administration's budget process for next year.

Best,

Greg

*LANS has been fired, effective in late 2017 or 2018 -- we don't know which.