Heads up: grand LANL plans finally being unveiled, should be hitting newspapers tomorrow

Aug 9, 2019

Nagasaki Day

Dear New Mexico activist friends --

Yesterday two of us attended a LANL subcontractor forum, at which some of Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL's) grand plans were unveiled to more than 700 attendees representing potential contractors from 30 states.

We have not yet distilled all we learned into a form suitable for this list and many mysteries remain. We did however supply some of what we saw to the newspapers. We expect at least tomorrow's Albuquerque Journal to carry just a little of this news. The first take on these grand plans will be followed by more detailed stories, in the news media and from us.

What LANL is planning is far, far larger than the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, in fiscal terms.  

Tomorrow, you may read about LANL's plans to spend $5.5 billion (B) on capital projects (construction, basically) in the next 5 years, and $13 billion over the coming decade. You may read about new facilities for plutonium production workers -- a cafeteria, 6-story parking garage, and training center. You may read about plans to transfer land for construction of new housing for the 1,500 or so new workers that will be needed to prepare for this mission.

You will read about two or three new highways LANL is proposing, one to shorten travel time from Albuquerque and another one or possibly two to shorten the commute from parts of Santa Fe, all coming together to cross the Rio Grande south of White Rock at Ancho Canyon.

Part of the idea is to tap into the bigger pool of workers in the Albuquerque area for the tremendous construction program at LANL and the industrial plutonium mission to follow.

Words we did not hear in 5 hours of presentations were "Espanola," "Chimayo," or "Rio Arriba County."

We heard that construction accidents had recently doubled and tripled, depending on the measure, at LANL. LANL is desperate to solve its safety and management problems, and desperate to show it has a plan to succeed at the plutonium mission.

LANL has been meeting secretly with the Governor and her cabinet to further these grand plans, as well as with our congressional delegation.

At present, the full scope of these plans is secret.

No environmental impact statements are planned, as yet.

We have written the Governor and delegation requesting specific planning documents as well as national and regional EISs.

As we wrote in Bulletin 262, our senators are preoccupied with making sure:

a) the pit production mission is as large as possible (namely at least 80 pits per year, the same as Trump; Heinrich has joined with Sen. Lindsay Graham to get that requirement into statutory law and is likely to succeed next month); and

b) no other site shares in that mission.

Neither the Governor nor either senator has responded to our requests to meet.

We urge you to read, learn, and if you wish, ask how you can help. We have our own plans but our resources aren't huge.

Friends, more plutonium processing is the exact opposite of what New Mexico needs. More nuclear weapons are the exact opposite of what humanity and the United States need.

These grand plans can be stopped, as they have been stopped before.

If you don't want to stop them, you shouldn't be on this list.

The billions of taxpayer funds LANL plans to spend will not create prosperity or improve the region in any way. Inequality will increase. Housing costs will increase. The labor market will be distorted. Politicians will continue to dream vain dreams about the coming "high-tech triangle" between Los Alamos, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe, losing precious time and opportunities to actually benefit the region.

Need we remind you that every site, in every country, that has hosted the plutonium pit mission has become an environmental sacrifice area? In the neoliberal "development" model, pollution is just another saleable asset.

That's enough for tonight. Get ready. We need your help.

Greg