October 6, 2020

Citizens hearing tomorrow: plutonium-based security or community-based security? Will local politicians continue to support Trump's nuclear plan for Greater Santa Fe? Are you standing aside too?

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Previous letter, 10/2/20: Reminder: Citizens hearing on building a plutonium weapons factory at LANL and alternatives for the region and state: October 7, State Capitol, 1-6 pm
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Dear New Mexico activist leaders –

In case you missed previous announcements (most recently here), there will be a citizens hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, October 7, from 1 to 6 pm on the east side of New Mexico State Capitol to take testimony on some of the environmental, social, and economic questions surrounding the federal decision to build a replacement for the shuttered Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant within the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

This will be an outdoor, socially-distanced, masked, and very covid-safe event -- much safer than say, going to a retail store.

Your questions and concerns will be recorded and delivered to our congressional delegation, the Governor, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). We hope some of these officials will attend, but we haven't gotten any response from them to our requests thus far.

Despite the change of mission and dramatic expansion planned, NNSA has decided to not undertake a new Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for LANL. Our congressional delegation and Governor, by their thundering silence, approve of this slap in the State's face.

Nuclear weapons production has continued during the pandemic. Despite our best efforts, nuclear weapons workers were deemed "essential workers." They are "persevering through the pandemic," as a challenge coin from one plant puts it. No production milestones are being missed, no sirree!

So what about you and we, who are working to prevent climate collapse and nuclear war? Are we all "essential workers" also?

Let's hope so, and act accordingly!

Yes, we know that coming to an in-person event, however safe, is inconvenient or worse. That inconvenience is the whole point of showing up.If action were effortless, nobody would pay the slightest attention to it. Moral force, other factors being equal, is proportional to personal sacrifice.

This is an important event. We may not get another chance as good as this one to demonstrate opposition to building and operating a "Rocky Flats South" in Greater Santa Fe.

There is simply such a thing as too late, as Martin Luther King said. If pit production gets well and truly established at LANL, it will be very hard for this region to ever recover. It is a dead-end road and we are on it.

So what are the alternatives? Because we need some and we need them fast -- this year, not just next year. Economic dominoes are falling right now, many of them permanently. What are we building up to take the place of the jobs that will never come back? In this annus horribilis, our legislature has managed to meet for a total of something like 33 days. What is New Mexico's recovery plan? Our community resilience plan? Our household economic security plan? What essential careers are we making accessible for our young people? What essential roles are we offering healthy seniors? Because yes, we do need their help. We just don't realize it yet.

But hey, we do have a $14 billion plan to make about 233 additional nuclear weapons (slide 29), and LANL has several training programs to turn bright-eyed young people into plutonium minions. So glad we have our priorities straight.

Tomorrow, it doesn't matter if you have answers, questions, or simply a cri du coeur. What matters is that you come and speak your mind and heart.

If you haven't done so already, please do contact your friends and ask them to come. This is your event.

See you tomorrow,

Greg, Trish, Lydia