Divine Strake and, Nuclear News

[Prairyearth]

Feds bid to transform weapons complex

ROGER SNODGRASS roger@lamonitor.com Monitor Assistant Editor

Los Alamos National Laboratory may get the full-time job that has gone vacant since the Rocky Flats facility was shuttered in 1989. LANL is currently the only place in the country where "pits," or triggers for nuclear weapons, can be produced

Whether it gets an even bigger assignment depends on factors to be weighed under a new Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, a quest embarked upon by the National Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday.

Ultimately, the decision hangs on yet-to-be-determined evaluations concerning the Defense Department's interest and pocketbook, numbers of pits to be produced, costs, transportation factors, how much nuclear material would need to be moved around, how well it could be protected and whether it would be more or less secure at Los Alamos than elsewhere, according to a senior NNSA official.

Among the first priorities of the proposal would be to select a site to be known as the "consolidated plutonium center," where a "baseline capacity of 125 qualified pits per year" would be produced.

Under the current draft environmental impact statement at LANL, NNSA has proposed an interim capability of 80 pits, in order to obtain 50 that can be certified.

The consolidated plutonium center would also be responsible for long-term research and development and surveillance in addition to manufacturing, according to the notice.

A spokesman for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said this morning the senator supports NNSA's objectives to modernize the nuclear weapons complex and to make it more cost-effective.

"He supports the forward movement, without saying specifically whether the laboratory should get this or that," said Chris Gallegos from the senator's office.

Concerning the plan to expand pit production, he added that a no action alternative to be included in the evaluation could "leave the pit capacity where it is now."

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., campaigning in New Mexico, responded to a question about the possibility that LANL might be selected for the consolidated plutonium center.

"Given the site's layout on a mesa with surrounding local communities, LANL does not appear to be suited to become home to the nation's central storage facility for weapons plutonium," Bingaman said.

A spokesman for Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Tom Nagle said, "From the briefings we've had, it doesn't look like Los Alamos is the best place for this."

In addition to Los Alamos, other sites under consideration for the consolidated plutonium center are Nevada Test Site, Pantex Plant, Y-12 National Security Complex and the Savannah River Site.

The plan explicitly rejected the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board's task force suggestion that there be a single consolidated nuclear production center for all weapons-related activity involving a significant amount of nuclear materials, as well as its idea that the transformation could be accelerated to take place by 2015.

Kevin Roark, a spokesman for LANL, said this morning, the laboratory has been working with NNSA on the Complex 2030 plan for some time.

"It's very early in the process," he said. "None of the plan is decided yet."

If the task of production does fall to Los Alamos, NNSA Deputy Director for Defense Programs Thomas D'Agostino's view is that managing a national scientific laboratory is not the same as managing a nuclear pit manufacturing facility and may even require a separate manager at Los Alamos.

The major revision in the way the country organizes work on its nuclear stockpile arises 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union and was described as an effort to transform and modernize the Cold-War-era nuclear weapons complex.

"I feel a sense of urgency," D'Agostino said, comparing the complex to an old house or automobile. "You have to keep pouring money in it to keep it going," he said. "Meanwhile the world has changed dramatically."

NNSA is relying on a new concept, known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), to enable the complex to modernize and become sustainable for the long run. Although RRW is barely mentioned in the initial document, it is an apparent catalyst for change throughout.

NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks has described RRWs as "replacements for existing stockpile weapons that could be more easily manufactured with more readily available and more environmentally benign materials, and whose safety and reliability could be assured with the highest confidence, without nuclear testing, for as long as the United States requires nuclear forces."

An RRW design competition between LANL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California concluded recently, but the results are still being evaluated.

The Bush administration's doctrine on nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Posture Review of 2002, called for a nuclear stockpile that reflected that the Cold War is over and contains the lowest possible number of warheads for current security needs.

D'Agostino emphasized significant reductions in the size of the nuclear stockpile and plans for reduction under the Treaty of Moscow, in which the U.S. and Russia agreed to limit themselves to1700-2200 operationally-deployed nuclear weapons by 2012.

To that number the notice added "augmentation weapons, reliability reserve weapons and weapons required to meet NATO commitments."

The apparently new category of "augmentation weapons" is not defined in the document, noted Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, among several nuclear watchdogs who are following the new developments.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of watchdog groups called the plan a "bombplex" and said the Reliable Replacement Warhead "will potentially drive a new nuclear weapons arms race, in order to carry out the expanded first strike options envisioned in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review."

Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group said whether people were in favor or opposed to pit production at LANL, we would have to come to grips with a fundamental problem.

"We can't just provide management review for one proposal after another to make more nuclear weapons," he said. "The country needs to decide whether we're gong to make nuclear weapons the centerpiece of world security, which means everybody is going to have to get them, or whether we're going to lead the way to a safer world where nuclear weapons can be everywhere condemned."

Thursday's announcement kicks off a 90-day scoping and comment period that will end on Jan. 17, 2007.

http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2006/10/...news/news01.txt

===========================
Weaponeers Announce the Nuclear "Bombplex" of the Future
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages DOE’s nuclear weapons programs, is aggressively pursuing new military missions and designs to carry out the expanded first strike options envisioned in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. The Notice of Intent calls for a baseline capacity of producing 125 plutonium pit “triggers” per year and at the same time cancels the previously proposed Modern Pit Facility. This set the stage for the Los Alamos National Lab becoming the nation’s consolidated plutonium production center by default.

Press Release by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (which we are proud to be a member of) [172kb] - October 19, 2006
====================
COURT GRANTS DEMAND FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
BEFORE BIOWARFARE AGENT RESEARCH FACILITY OPENS AT LIVERMORE LAB
San Francisco – The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling October 17, 2006, holding an Energy Dept. environmental study inadequate and thereby halting Energy’s impending plans to operate the first advanced biowarfare agent research facility inside a US nuclear weapons lab. This decision follows three years of litigation and public outcry against the planned operation of the dangerous facility. Plaintiffs, Livermore Lab watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs and Los Alamos watchdog group Nuclear Watch of New Mexico as well as other individuals, demanded that the Energy Dept. conduct a thorough study of the project’s potential environmental impacts, including possible terrorist threats to the facility.

Press Release [196kb] - October 17, 2006

[Prairyearth]

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_an...to_divine_s.htm


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November 5, 2006

Stairway to Divine Strake

By Andrew Kishner

On Thursday, a U.S. government lawyer speaking on behalf of a Pentagon agency sponsoring Divine Strake told a federal judge that she could not promise 60 days' notice before the test would be carried out sometime in mid-2007. Divine Strake, a 700-ton chemical explosives test designed to simulate the blast of a low-yield nuclear weapon on an underground bunker, was originally planned for detonation at the Nevada Test Site in June 2006, however a lawsuit filed by the Western Shoshone and several downwinders forced a postponement of the test until next year. Indigenous and environmental groups fear that the test would eject into the atmosphere radioactive particles that they suspect were deposited from several 1950s above-ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. These long-lived radioisotopes, including Plutonium-239 and Americium-241, which would contaminate our air, soil, water and food supplies if they became airborne, are likely contaminants in the soils at the Divine Strake ground-zero.

Since plans for Divine Strake were first announced in March 2006, the U.S. government has made a number of confusing statements about the location, purpose, environmental impact and planned date of the test. At one point, the test could have been conducted in Indiana, New Mexico or Nevada, or elsewhere. As for test safety, the government agency overseeing the Nevada Test Site initially issued a green light for the test with their environmental assessment that they later withdrew. Not deviating from their steady course of maintaining mass-confusion, the government lawyer yesterday commented that they were revising that withdrawn environmental assessment, which they erringly referred to as a 'study.' The difference between completing an environmental study and rendering an environmental assessment of Divine Strake can mean a world of difference to downwinders' concerns of the air they breath – whether it may or may not induce cancer in 30 years. A study usually refers to an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, which would be the best (and some would say only) way to ensure the safety of Divine Strake, which appears to be planned for the Nevada Test Site (and not New Mexico or Indiana). The EIS would involve actual sampling of the soil at the ground-zero. However, no evidence has surfaced to indicate that governmental agencies have done any sampling of the ground-zero soils, which the Divine Strake blast is expected to eject into a 10,000-foot high dust cloud that could reach the East Coast. As one colleague of mine put it: 'It sounds like they jumped in their car, drove past the ground-zero at 60 miles per hour holding a Geiger counter out of the driver's side window and concluded the test was safe.'

So, in spring 2007, the government will announce a date for Divine Strake, giving less than sixty days for citizens to educate themselves and discern how the 'new' and revised environmental assessment compares to the one that was withdrawn in late May. Perhaps the journalist Robert C. Koehler will have to revise his famous quote, 'Can a finding withdrawn really have been a "finding" in the first place?' to 'Can a revision of a withdrawn finding be any less of no "finding" at all?'

Although any self-respecting scientist can see that there will never be a 'finding' until an EIS for Divine Strake is completed, there is no end in sight for the growing Escher-esque painting that the government is making of Divine Strake. A stairway to Indiana leads right back to Nevada. A passage to a 'finding' really leads to 'no finding' at all. And worst, a tunnel that appears to have a light at the end of it in reality leads to darkness.

In this day and age, we cannot any longer accept with complacency being casual patrons of the faux-arts of governmental disinformation. We must hone and develop our abilities to be able to tell the real Monet from the fake one or, in this case, a government lie from the truth that will hurt ourselves and our children.



Authors Bio: Mr. Kishner is a member of the Stop Divine Strake Coalition and founder of www.StopDivineStrake.com.

[Prairyearth]

One of the things we can do to stop Divine Strake is to kill its funding. The Budget Continuing Resolution, which will fund government operations until August 2007 has passed the House, and discussion will start in the Senate TODAY Feb 8. This bill aUrgent Action Required to Stop Divine Strakelready has language in it to cut or restrict the funding for the Yucca Mountain project, and a proposed nuclear fuel processing facility at Savannah River Georgia.

Here is an action everyone should take immediately. Go to your Senator's contact page, starting at www.senate.gov. Send the following email text, inserting the Senator's name, and your name at the end. If the comment page asks for a subject or category, choose Budget or Energy. For good measure, phone them as well, as early in the day as you can. Do this for every Senator whose page will allow a non-constituent to send him/her a message (some restrict this by zip code) Send this alert by separate email to everyone you know!

Dear Senator ?????

I understand that H.J.Res.20 the Budget Continuing Resolution starts discussion in the Senate today. In this bill, there is an entire Title with subsections for elimination of earmarks and for funding adjustments. Among the adjustments in the energy section are cuts to the Yucca Mountain project, as well as specific restrictions on the spending for a mixed oxide fabrication facility at Savannah River GA. Given this precedent of cutting or restricting funding for specific projects within this bill, I respectfully request that an amendment be added to this bill, eliminating the funding for the Divine Strake explosives test.

Sincerely,

?????

The above is a bulletin issued by; http://www.myspace.com/shundahai

[Prairyearth]

Pentagon calls off plans for huge explosion in desert Thu Feb 22, 3:49 PM ET


The Pentagon on Thursday canceled plans to detonate a 700-tonne explosive charge in the Nevada desert that had drawn environmental protests and lawsuits.

"I have become convinced that it's time to look at alternative methods that obviate the need for this type of large-scale test," said James Tegnelia, the director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Dubbed "Divine Strake," the test was designed to gather data for use in developing weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers containing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

It called for detonating 700 tonnes of conventional explosives over a tunnel at a Nevada test site to study its effect on hard granite structures.

But the "experiment" drew lawsuits and protests from Nevada residents worried about the possible environmental impact of the blast, which was expected to send a mushroom-like cloud 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) in the air.

Tegnelia said his decision to cancel the test was not based on any technical information that indicated it would be harmful to workers, the public or the environment.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070222/pl_af...st_070222204922

[Prairyearth]

The testing of the Divine Strake has surfaced once again. It would be wise to keep a vigilant eye out on this one. I am resuming my stand on the anti-divine strake trail campaign. Prairy
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From Shundahai's Peter Bergel;

As you may have noticed, our website has been down for a while due to glitches
in switching to a new web host. This has meant that email to Shundahai has not
reached us yet, in case you're awaiting a response to anything. We're not
ignoring you!


I'm forwarding this action alert from Uncle Don Fanning.


Thanks for your support and patience.


Peter Bergel

Shundahai Board
****************

The government *still* plans "Divine Strake" style tests putting us at risk of
fallout. We are all downwind. ...uncledon.
-----


Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:08:18 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: "StopDivineStrake.com Administrator" <stopdivinestrake@earthlink.net>
To: "stopdivinestrake@lists.riseup.net" <stopdivinestrake@lists.riseup.net>
Subject: [stopdivinestrake] Keeping Divine Strake look-alikes at bay


Re: Keeping Divine Strake look-alikes at bay


A lot can change in one year. This time last year, Salt Lake City's television
station ABC4 hadn't yet come out in opposition to Divine Strake. ABC4 anchor
Terry Wood delivered his explosive personal commentary on February 7th and the
DTRA cancelled Divine Strake about two weeks later, on February 22nd.


Over the past few months, and into 2008, the DTRA hasn't been mentioned much in
the news. What we do know, however, is that the Pentagon agency has no plans
to abandon its goal of simulating low- or high-yield nuclear blasts at the
Nevada Test Site or elsewhere. That is why we all must remain vigilant for the
next DTRA debacle that may be around the calendrical corner.


The DTRA is believed to be planning to fulfill its *intention* - as indicated
in a February 2007 press release - to conduct smaller 'confirmatory
experiments' in lieu of Divine Strake at the NTS. That *intention* was a
subtle point picked up by Robert Hager, lawyer for the Western Shoshone nation,
who has been trying to force a permanent injunction in a Nevada federal court
against smaller ANFO tests at the Nevada Test Site by the DTRA. These
'smaller' tests would likely occur in the DTRA's designated area - Area 16 of
the NTS - where excessive amounts of radioactivity from 1950's NTS nuclear
tests fell-out. There is no word yet on how large, or small, these
conventional explosive tests would be, if allowed by the federal judge. They
could be 3-ton or 300-ton tests.


The DTRA's plans in New Mexico at the White Sands Missile Range, however, are
more certain. DTRA's 2007 Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)
for the WSMR mentioned plans for several 500-ton conventional explosive tests.
An excellent analysis on these 500-ton tests was completed last July by John
Witham of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. Peruse the 3-page factsheet on these
tests at: http://www.nukewatch.org/facts/nwd/500ton_WSMR.pdf


Please re-visit our updated website, www.idealist.ws, for updates on these
issues. Idealist.ws now has new content on the Nevada Test Site and other
'hotspots.' Let us know what you think!


Andrew Kishner
www.idealist.ws
Shundahai Network
A Project of
The Center for Energy Research
104 Commercial St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
http://www.shundahai.org
shundahai@shundahai.org

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Over a Decade of Resistance
Dedicated to Breaking the Nuclear Chain
Shundahai is a Newe (Western Shoshone) word meaning
"Peace and Harmony with all Creation"