March 20, 2025

If you are local, we will meet outside the Santa Fe County chambers on Grant Avenue this coming Tuesday / While tens of thousands are homeless, LANL seeks new buildings totaling almost a Pentagon in size

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Recent emails:

• Our most recent Activist Letter (this list): Turning point: Whither LANL pit production and the new nuclear arms race? It depends on all of us -- please help! (03/18/2025)
• Our most recent Bulletin, sent to our whole mailing list: Bulletin 356: LANL SWEIS presentation, talking points (2/9/25).
• Our most recent Press Release (also sent to whole mailing list): DOE Secretary Wright visits Los Alamos and Sandia, where he is getting the "company line", Feb 24, 2025

Contents:

1. If you are local, this is an invitation to meet at the Santa Fe County Commission this coming Tuesday afternoon at 2:45 pm, before public comment at circa 3:45 pm.
2. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) proposes to construct 219 new facilities at LANL, with a total floor area almost equal to the Pentagon. And more.
   
3. "Reality pressure" is however coming from realities local and national. Unprecedented opportunity beckons.
   

Dear friends --

First, thank you very much for your support and help! We are making slow but solid progress. What You Can Do provides some ways to help, not least of which is to send a financial contribution. One of our dear friends reminded us that we tend to bury the ever-present need for financial help, so this time I am putting it right up front!

1. If you are near Santa Fe and free in the latter half of this coming Tueday afternoon (3/25/25), we can meet on the second floor of the Santa Fe County building at 102 Grant Avenue (the John Gaw Meem Building; map) at 2:45 pm, to talk about recent developments.

Some of those who wish to do so can then make public comments during the public comment period, which will begin at roughly 3:45 pm. One can pre-register to speak at this link but it is not necessary to do so.

Why there and why now?  The County is trying to oppose adding to the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) footprint ("Santa Fe County commissioners raise concerns about LANL expansion possibilities," Santa Fe New Mexican, 3/11/25). 

We previously sent the County background for a letter they will send to NNSA on this topic, if the Board of Commissioners approves it. We also commented on their draft, which was the basis of the New Mexican article. According to the current agenda (find it here), the commissioners will NOT take up the letter Tuesday, leaving calendar time for public comment this Tuesday. Presumably the County will take up the final letter on April 8, their last meeting before the formal comment period on LANL expansion ends.

We would rather the County not have any letter than one which endorses pit production, as the County's present draft does, by endorsing the so-called "No Action Alternative" in the draft LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS). The "No Action Alternative" (NAA) includes pit production up to 80 pits per year (ppy), and 88 as-yet-unbuilt facilities totalling 1.47 million (M) square feet, plus more than 34 utility and facility upgrades that cover some 216 acres of land. Does that sound like "no action?" Hardly.

Commissioner Hughes said he would amend the draft based on some of our comments. Which ones, and how? We don't know.

We will bring a list of the businesses and organizations endorsing the "Call to Sanity, Not Nuclear Production" to this meeting, and we will speak to the importance of opposing all pit production at LANL.

The County's tentative opposition to LANL expansion has already made minor waves in Washington, DC ("Santa Fe commissioners leery of LANL expansion into Northern New Mexico," Exchange Monitor Morning Briefing, 3/19/25). For background, see this list of local government resolutions. Being "leery" is not new. A firm statement at this time would be wonderful.

Please join us if you can.

2. Altogether, NNSA's preferred "Expanded Operations Alternative" (EOA) for LANL involves constructing 219 new facilities with a total floor area of 5.83 M sq. ft.

By the numbers:

• NNSA's preferred alternative (the EOA) adds up to 5.83 M sq. ft. of new construction. By comparison, the Pentagon has 6,500,000 sq. ft. of interior space.

• The EOA includes 219 new facilities, PLUS  more than 100 upgrades, and utility and infrastructure projects totaling 1,190 acres (1.86 sq. miles). It ALSO includes 13,935 acres (21.8 sq. miles) of forest thinning, some of which is habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl and Jemez Salamander.

• In the "Modernized Operations Alternative" and the preferred EOA there is also 2.85 M sq. ft. of facility demolition, meaning the net new floor area in the EOA is 2.98 M sq. ft.
  

• As previously noted, in the so-called NAA there are 88 new facilities totaling 1.47 M sq. ft. PLUS more than 34 upgrades, utility, and infrastructure projects totaling 216 acres.
  

• The NAA includes all preparations for pit production, both for the baseline level of "at least 30 pits per year" and for the "surge capacity" to "at least 80 pits per year."

3. "Reality pressure" is however coming from realities local and national. Unprecedented opportunity beckons.

I mentioned this in our last letter but so many people are discouraged it is important to mention it again. Quoting from a letter we recently wrote to a possible funder:

President Trump has proposed negotiations with Russia and China to halt production of new nuclear weapons, saying we have too many already, and he has also proposed mutual deep cuts in military spending in each country. Meanwhile negotiations to restore normal relations with Russia based on common security and economic cooperation, including ending the Ukraine war, have already begun. In short, we have an almost unprecedented opportunity for nuclear arms control, disarmament, and peace, one we must seize with both hands. Yes, it comes with a new lexicon and a different worldview, one not based on a Western-supervised “rules based international order.” That (dis)order is already gone, never to return. Meanwhile the “nuclear state” inside and outside government, including some in the NGO and think-tank community, is already strenuously resisting cuts. We need to put all our weight on the side of deep cuts in the military-nuclear complex. It is an “all-hands-on-deck” moment for the NGO community. We must recognize the enormous opportunities available, and seize them.

Above all, we've got to ditch the ridiculous Russophobia, which has developed into something like a mental disease, especially in Europe. You may enjoy and find this useful: "Russophobia and Sinophobia: projection, narcissism and denial," Kari McKern, Pearls and Irritations, Mar 7, 2025).

More another time, thank you,

Greg, Trish, Bex, for the Los Alamos Study Group