March 17, 2020

From: LYDIA CLARK
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2020 4:41 PM
To: Renee Villarreal; Signe Lindell; Michael J. Garcia; Carol Romero-Wirth; Chris Rivera; Roman Abeyta; Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez; JoAnne Vigil Coppler
Cc: Greg Mello ; Trish Williams-Mello

Subject: Resolutions proposed to Santa Fe City Council

Dear Santa Fe City Councilors:

On February 26th, the Los Alamos Study Group submitted two proposed resolutions to the Santa Fe City Council for review and implementation. Both of these resolutions are extremely important in preserving the long-standing position of the City of Santa Fe as a City of Peace, opposing nuclear weapons use and nuclear weapons production, and preserving the safety of the people and the environment in Santa Fe and surrounding areas.

We hope that you have had an opportunity to review these documents and ask for a timely response from each of you regarding your support and sponsorship for these resolutions.

Both of these resolutions address matters which are very time-sensitive and require immediate attention in order to be effective.

A decision for the master developer for the Santa Fe Mid-town Campus project will be proposed to you, as we understand, by April 1st, and we understand now that there will be an Executive Meeting on March 25th for clarification and questions before the evaluation committee moves forward with an exclusivity agreement. This may well include NNSA/DOE/LANL as a potential partner or tenant in this project. As you are aware, these agencies are involved in the development and production of nuclear weapons. One of the resolutions submitted to you asks that the City be prohibited from entering into any agreement with nuclear weapons agencies. This is a matter that should be addressed immediately.

The second resolution also requires immediate attention regarding a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) regarding the proposed extensive expansion at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, This expansion will have far reaching effects on Los Alamos and the surrounding area, including Santa Fe. Requesting this SWEIS is necessary to protect the safety of all living creatures and the environment in Northern New Mexico.

This is now more important than ever. A March 13 article in the South Carolina Aiken Standard ("NNSA study: Los Alamos National Lab could boost pit production to meet national needs") described the push at Los Alamos to produce 80 or more plutonium warhead cores ("pits") per year here by 2030. It will have a devastating effect on Los Alamos and the surrounding areas, most notably Santa Fe.

Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could end up producing 80 plutonium pits –nuclear weapon cores – per year, if the National Nuclear Security Administration's hand is forced, according to a forward-looking environmental study published this week.

New pit-related equipment and other upgrades to be installed atPF-4, a Los Alamos plutonium facility, would both "provide the ability to produce a minimum of 30 pits per year" and make possible "surge efforts to produce 80 pits per year" to meet national demands, the study, a draft supplement analysis of environmental impact, states.

Federal law requires the production of 80 plutonium pits –the triggers at the heart of modern nuclear weapons –by 2030. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, an updated Pentagon policy document ordered by President Donald Trump, further reinforced the need for an 80-pits-per-year capability.

The U.S. has not had for years a significant ability to make the nuclear weapon cores. The last place pits were produced en masse, the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, wasraided by the FBIdecades ago and was subsequently shuttered.

In May 2018, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Defense together recommended making pits at two places: the Savannah River Site, south of Aiken, and Los Alamos, a storied plutonium center of excellence near Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The Savannah River Site would pump out a majority of the pits, 50, by 2030, whereas Los Alamos would produce the remainder, 30, they counseled. A tandem, cross-country approach is more flexible, officials say, and prevents a single failure from crippling the entire endeavor.

Critics and doubters, though, certainly do exist.

Should something not work out at the Savannah River Site – an entirely new facility, the proposed Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, needs to be designed and built with the bones of the multibillion-dollar Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, among other things – Los Alamos would, seemingly, span the production gap.

The NNSA already operates at the 310-square-mile Savannah River Site, near the South Carolina and Georgia border, and sports a palmy footprint there. The weapons-and-nonproliferation agency formally canceled the flagging MOX project in October 2018.

Hitting the 30-pits-per-year mark at Los Alamos, according to the NNSA's new environmental review, would require hundreds more people. "Reassignments" would be required for any production surges, the study states, and the need for more workers would need evaluating.

"It is assumed that actions for 30 pits per year are completed prior to developing the ability to implement a short-term surge capacity," reads the National Nuclear Security Administration's draft supplement analysis, a lengthy work that some nuclear watchers have denounced.

"This document contradicts statements that the laboratory and the NNSA have been saying for the last six months," Greg Mello with Los Alamos Study Group said Thursday.

"The upshot is that NNSA is building an 80 pits per year pit production capability at LANL right now," Mello said separately.

Protection for Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico is mandatory if we expect to be a sustainable community. In these uncertain times, monies and focus are better directed towards preserving our communities, not destroying them. New Mexico should not be the nation's Nuclear Sacrifice Zone. We ask a response regarding support for these proposed resolutions by the end of this week, Friday, March 20th so the governing body might make a timely decision on these matters.

Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Lydia Clark
Outreach Director-Santa Fe
Los Alamos Study Group
505-501-2606