View the Full Article Here

https://nuclearactive.org/doe-nnsa-and-environmental-management-officials-host-town-hall-at-buffalo-thunder-monday-july-22nd/

Thursday, July 18 at 8 am is the KUNM call-in show, which will feature WIPP, with guests including Don Hancock of Stop Forever WIPP.

Note that in addition to calling in on the show, people can submit questions in advance:

https://www.kunm.org/show/lets-talk-new-mexico/2024-07-12/nuclear-waste-wipp-lanl

NEWS RELEASE

Local Faith Groups To Host an Interfaith Vigil Marking the

Anniversary of the Trinity Nuclear Detonation

Impacted Communities and Religious Leaders Call for Nuclear Abolition

 

SANTA FE, NM – Wednesday, June 12, 2024– IMMEDIATE RELEASE - To commemorate the anniversary of the first detonation of an atomic weapon in 1945 at the Trinity Test Site, “From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test” will be held at the St. John XXIII Catholic Community, 4831 Tramway Ridge Dr. NE in Albuquerque, featuring music, speakers, exhibitions, and moments of reflection and prayer. The free public event is Sunday, July 14; doors open at 2 p.m. Pre-registration is encouraged, and the event will be live-streamed.

Seventy-nine years ago, the government did not warn or evacuate the estimated tens of thousands of people living within a 50-mile radius of the Trinity Test blast. “We don’t ask IF we’ll get cancer; we ask WHEN it will be our turn,” says Tina Cordova, event co-organizer and founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.

In 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which only compensates downwinders in a limited area near the Nevada Test Site. Survivors of the world’s first atomic bomb in New Mexico, who are disproportionately Native and Hispanic, have never been eligible. The benefits provided by this program ended June 7, 2024.

On March 7, 2024, the U.S. Senate passed S.3853 to expand and extend the RECA program. If passed in the House and signed into law by the President, the RECA Amendment would finally recognize and compensate previously excluded downwinders in New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Guam, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona and the Post 71 uranium workers. Event organizers are asking concerned citizens to call House Speaker Mike Johnson (202-225-4000)and urge him to allow a vote on S. 3853. This bill has been endorsed by 15 national faith communities, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Among the scheduled speakers for the anniversary commemoration is Most Reverend John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, who supports the RECA Amendment and action to prevent nuclear war from ever happening again. “We can no longer deny or ignore the extremely dangerous predicament of our human family,” says Wester. “We are in a new nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first, and I believe we need to rejuvenate a sustained, serious conversation about universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.”

New Mexico is at the center of the U.S. government’s $1.7 trillion nuclear modernization plan, specifically with the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at the Los Alamos Lab and disposal of resulting radioactive wastes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Attendees will learn about actions they can take to deliver justice to impacted communities and work toward a world without nuclear weapons.

The event is organized by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Interfaith Power and Light (NM-EP), New Mexico Conference of Churches, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Soka Gakkai International-USA, and Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. For more information, call the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s Office of Social Justice at 505.831.8205. Pre-register at form.jotform.com/241400030658141.

Virtual Registration Link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUofuisrzkvE9DKjFLFCVhtDiSeZNY4AY3s

In-Person Registration Link:

https://form.jotform.com/222836798629172

Oppenheimer: Sins of Omission

Catch this national webinar on the Nuclear Industry. March 14, 2024. 5:00pm MST. Sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action. For more information and to register, go to: https://masspeaceaction.org/.../webinar-what-oppenheimer.../

SAVE THE DATE!

New Mexico Environment Department in-person and virtual Listening Session on WIPP’s Permit

September 22, 5-7,

Larrazolo Auditorium, Harold Runnels Bldg. 1190 So. St. Francis Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87505 (corner of St. Francis and Cordova)

NMED and a number of New Mexico Non-profit organizations negotiated an operating permit with the Department of Energy to prioritize shipping the legacy wastes threatening our drinking water.

Is this important to you?

What other issues concerning WIPP are important to you?

This is the time to let your voice be heard. Need more info?

stopforeverwipp.org

Save the date:  Saturday, August 5th from 2 to 6 pm at Roosevelt Park in Albuquerque – Albuquerque Peace Festival – Hiroshima Nagasaki Commemorative Rally in collaboration with Hiroshima Day in Japan.  Details to follow.   

Thursday, July 27, 2023 from 5 to 7 pm – Kirtland AFB Bulk Fuels Facility leak project open house at the groundwater treatment system facility.  The GWTS is located on Kirtland Air Force Base, with public access provided for this event through the Ridgecrest Gate (Ridgecrest Dr SE & Louisiana Blvd SE, south of Gibson Blvd.) 

If you would like additional information, please contact the 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs office at (505) 846-5991 or by email at 377ABW.PA@us.af.mil 

Friday, July 21 release of Oppenheimer in the U.S. and U.K. by Universal Pictures.  https://www.oppenheimermovie.com/ 

Sunday, July 16th – Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester’s service about A WORLD WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS:  An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945, at the Santa Maria de la Paz Center at 11 College Avenue, Santa Fe (just before the Santa Fe Community College (road work is taking place in the area – allow for extra travel time).https://archdiosf.org/living-in-the-light-of-christs-peace 

13th Annual Candelight Vigil from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm at Albert Johnson Park, 896 N. Main Street, Las Cruces, NM.  Program begins at 8 pm.  Bring a chair or blanket, sunscreen, bug spray and water.  For more information:  https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/  

  Message from the Downwinders of New Mexico:  

  Stand in solidarity with the Downwinders of New Mexico.  Many people cannot be with us in Las Cruces for our 13th Annual Candlelight Vigil where we memorialize those we’ve lost to cancer.  If you want to participate from your own home make a luminaria and light it in solidarity with us on the evening of July 15, 2023.  

  For those of you who are not familiar with the traditional New Mexico luminaria, it is a brown paper lunch bag with a cup or so of sand in the bottom and a votive candle placed in the middle of the bag.  You can write your own message on the bag.  At dusk you light the candle and leave it lit until the candle extinguishes.  Let us know that you are standing with us by sending us an email at info@trinitydownwinders.com

Saturday, July 15th  - Trinity:  Legacies of Nuclear Testing, a People’s Perspective Art Exhibit from 11 am to 1 pm at the Branigan Cultural Center, 501 N. Main Street, Las Cruces, NM.  Exhibit will be up until September 23, 2023.   

Saturday, July 15th from 7 am to 9 am MT free virtual meeting of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space – Latest development on war via space.  https://space4peace.org/  To register:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/global-network-31st-annual-meeting-latest-developments-on-war-via-space-tickets-638565886757  

Saturday, July 15th from 7 am to 4 pm – 44th Annual Church Rock Uranium Tailings Spill Commemoration, hosted by the Red Water Pond Road Community, the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, and the Pipeline Road Community.  For more information, please contact Susan Gordon at sgordon@swuraniumimpacts.org 

Friday, July 14th from noon to 1 pm MT – Join the weekly peaceful protest for nuclear disarmament on the corners of Alameda and Guadalupe in downtown Santa Fe with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, Pax Christi, Nonviolent Santa Fe, and others.  

Please join us for a press conference when we deliver over 1,100 petition signatures to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham asking her to protect New Mexicans from the federal expansion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). This is your opportunity to let her know that vastly increased shipments of the most dangerous form of nuclear weapons’ waste, lasting the rest of the century as it is transported past your neighborhood, is not a risk you accept.

For full Press Release Click here