May 9, 2018

Dear citizen activist friends on our "short list" --

There are now 48 hours before the May 11 deadline for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) must choose a site to make new atomic bomb cores ("pits") on an industrial scale, for the first time since the Rocky Flats Plants was closed in 1989 ("US to decide best site option for nuclear weapons production," Associated Press, Washington Post, etc. 9 May 2018).

(We are very pleased with this AP coverage, by the way, which went far and wide -- and most importantly, into the Washington Post. Please read this article.)

For the moment the time for letters to editors on this topic (our most recent plea to you) has passed. There will be time for that later.

Now we need phone calls, or (better) office visits if you can manage it, to our senators and congresspersons. Contact information can be found here.

I am sorry for the short notice but we expected this decision -- whatever it will be -- before now. Multiple sources describe high emotions, drama, and intense lobbying in DC.

Our delegation has been working overtime to add industrial pit production to the suite of missions at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), despite the obvious problems. Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham has to our knowledge not been pushing for this, but she has not taken a stance against it either.

They are hiding this full-throated lobbying effort, which has been going on for months, from their constituents.

Earlier today we sent out a detailed briefing for interested members of the press, which you also got ("NNSA, DoD, DOE poised to deliver decision to Congress on how and where to make plutonium warhead "pits"). You can find a good deal of background there, and links to more.

A much shorter version that covers the basics was published as a comment this morning on a good article by the Center for Public Integrity published by the Santa Fe New Mexican (the comment was republished on our little-used blog: Decision on site for plutonium pit production expected by Friday, Santa Fe New Mexican).

You can find more background at our web site but you don't really need it at the moment.

The key thing right now is to put our delegation on the spot as much as possible, regardless of what NNSA's so-far secret plan may be. Presumably that plan is finalized, but regardless of that and with an eye to the future, citizens deserve answers to some basic questions from the NM delegation.

Our delegation has been supporting the underground factory "module" plan, which NNSA says is infeasible.

They may complain about NNSA's analysis, but is that going to make NNSA change its mind, ignore its engineers, and build a passel of high-dollar per sq. ft. "modules" -- which might not fit on the mesa or be otherwise practical?

What are they supporting so vigorously? It is a mystery. If modules are "not viable," as NNSA says, does the NM delegation still support industrial pit production at LANL?

If they do, what exactly is the plan they support? Do they even know?

The only other option is a "big-box" pit factory. Where will it be? Next to the old plutonium facility, on that skinny, crowded mesa -- or on another mesa?

Will it have a shallow foundation, or be anchored below the thick powdery layer of volcanic ash that played such havoc with the last plan, requiring solid concrete down to a depth of 130 ft?

What is the new factory expected to cost taxpayers, in up-front and in operational costs?

How will the plutonium be shipped to LANL, and within LANL?

Most important, why do we need to make pits? "Because DoD says so" is not an answer.

If our delegation insists on supporting pit production at LANL, they should be able to answer these simple questions. We doubt they can.

That's the sum of our request right now.

There will be much more to say after this decision comes down. It will be momentous, one way or another.  

Best wishes to all,

Greg Mello