1

 1  
    
 2                     PUBLIC HEARING
    
 3  
    
 4     DRAFT SITE-WIDE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT 
                              
 5               FOR CONTINUED OPERATION OF 
                              
 6            LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY, 
                              
 7                 LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO 
                              
 8                      (Draft SWEIS)
    
 9  
    
10  
    
11  
    
12  
    
13                            
                              
14                     August 9, 2006
                          6:30 p.m.
15          Northern New Mexico Community College
                     Eagle Memorial Gym
16                  Espanola, New Mexico
    
17  
    
18  
    
19  
    
20  
    
21  
    
22  REPORTED BY:  MABEL JIN CHIN, NM CCR #81
                  Bean & Associates, Inc.
23                Professional Court Reporting Service
                  500 Marquette, Northwest, Suite 280
24                Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102
    
25  (1562A) MC
    

                                                               2

 1     ESPANOLA, NEW MEXICO, AUGUST 9, 2006, 6:30 P.M.

 2  

 3           MS. ELIZABETH WITHERS:  Ladies and 

 4  gentlemen, it's about 6:30, so if you want to go ahead 

 5  and come on down and have a seat we'll go ahead and 

 6  get started with tonight's hearing.  Hopefully we have 

 7  got enough chairs.  There's plenty of seats.

 8           Since it's a little bit of housekeeping, 

 9  there are exits on all the walls in this building I 

10  think, so if we have any kind of emergency and need to 

11  vacate, please go to one of the doors nearest to you 

12  and vacate the building.

13           Our fire marshal wants to make sure that we 

14  keep the exits free, but I don't think that's a 

15  problem in this big space.

16           The first order of business tonight is to 

17  find out whether or not anyone needs an 

18  English-Spanish language interpreter.  We do have an 

19  interpreter with us tonight, Mr. Jose Palomino.  I'm 

20  going to ask Jose to find out whether or not anyone 

21  needs his service.

22           (No interpretation was asked for.)

23           MS. ELIZABETH WITHERS:  My name is Elizabeth 

24  Withers and I represent Department of Energy.  I'm the 

25  document manager for the preparation of the Draft 

                                                               3

 1  Site-wide Environmental Impact Statement for continued 

 2  operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los 

 3  Alamos, New Mexico.  This document is the subject of 

 4  tonight's hearing.  Before we proceed any further with 

 5  the hearing, I would like to introduce to you the 

 6  Deputy Manager of Los Alamos Site Office for the 

 7  National Nuclear Security Administration.

 8           MS. JAN CHAVEZ-WILCYNSKI:  Good evening.  

 9  Everybody my name it Jan Chavez-Wilcynski, and I'm 

10  Deputy Manager for the National Nuclear Security 

11  Administration, Los Alamos Site Office.  I'm welcoming 

12  you tonight.  I'm very happy to see good participation 

13  from the public.

14           I, first of all would like to thank 

15  Elizabeth Withers, the staff from Los Alamos National 

16  Laboratory, and the support contractor, SAIC, for all 

17  of their good work on this document.  I think it's an 

18  easy to read document.  It's lengthy but easy to 

19  read.  And I want to thank them for their hard work on 

20  that.

21           It is an important document.  I think you 

22  are aware of the potential impact to local 

23  communities.  We hope that you will provide your 

24  comments and questions tonight.  You have an 

25  opportunity at the poster sessions as well as after 

                                                               4

 1  the meeting, I know, to get questions answered.  We 

 2  look forward to hearing your comments.

 3           Without any further ado, I would like to 

 4  turn back to Elizabeth Withers, who will talk about 

 5  the process from here for this evening.  Thank you and 

 6  good night.  

 7           MS. ELIZABETH WITHERS:  Thank you, Jan.  I 

 8  would like to take just a few moments, before I turn 

 9  the floor over to our moderator for the evening, to 

10  very briefly describe the Site-wide Environmental 

11  Impact Statement and also to describe our compliance 

12  process with the National Environmental Policy Act.

13           The National Environmental Policy Act 

14  effectively became law in 1970, and that act requires 

15  the -- through the implementing regulations, to hold a 

16  public comment and review period on draft 

17  environmental impact statements, and also to hold a 

18  public hearing.  So the purpose of tonight's hearing 

19  is to allow you to find out a little bit more 

20  information about continuing operations at Los Alamos 

21  National Laboratory, and also to find out more 

22  information on the proposed project over the next 

23  five-year window, and also to provide you with an 

24  additional venue or opportunity to make comments on 

25  the Draft Site-wide Environmental Impact Statement.

                                                               5

 1           This Draft Environmental Impact Statement is 

 2  the third in a line of Site-wide Environmental Impact 

 3  Statements that has been prepared for operation of Los 

 4  Alamos National Laboratory.  The first Site-wide 

 5  Environmental Impact Statement was issued in 1979.  

 6  More recently, the second one was issued in 1999.

 7           This third document we hope to issue as a 

 8  final Environmental Impact Statement in early to mid 

 9  2007.

10           Like its 1999 predecessor, this Draft 

11  Environmental Impact Statement looks at three 

12  alternatives for the operation of Los Alamos National 

13  Laboratory.  It considers a no action alternative, a 

14  reduced operations alternative, and also an expanded 

15  operations alternative.  There is some summary tables 

16  available up front at the front desk there as you all 

17  came in that summarizes the impacts from operating the 

18  facility over the three different alternatives, and it 

19  does so by the environmental resource area or resource 

20  concern that is in the Los Alamos area.

21           Additionally, there are charts and tables 

22  provided in that packet that look at each individual 

23  proposed project so that you can look at the impact 

24  individually and then also in total.

25           In a nutshell, the environmental impact 

                                                               6

 1  associated with reduced operations alternative are, as 

 2  you would imagine, reduced from the no action 

 3  alternative.  Primarily, the greatest area of 

 4  reduction in impact is in the area of air emissions.  

 5  One of the proposals under this reduced operations 

 6  alternative is to shutdown the operations at the Los 

 7  Alamos Neutron Science Center, or LANSC facility as 

 8  it's often called, at our Technical Area 53.  There 

 9  would also be a reduction in air emissions from the 

10  reduction of about 20 percent with regards to high 

11  explosive testing, which is also being proposed under 

12  this alternative.  There would be a correspondingly 

13  small decrease in the overall amount of human health 

14  impacts that would be expected as well under this 

15  alternative, based upon the closure of that facility, 

16  and also we would expect a reduction in electric, 

17  natural gas and critical water use as well.

18           Under the expanded operations alternative, 

19  we would, as you would imagine, expect to have a 

20  greater level of impact than the no action 

21  alternative.  This increase in impacts would be 

22  primarily in the area of waste production.  We are 

23  proposing demolition activities in relationship to 

24  construction activities for many of the older 

25  facilities at Los Alamos.  We would like to replace 

                                                               7

 1  them with newer facilities and consolidate the 

 2  facilities.  So we would be doing a great amount of 

 3  demolition activities under those proposals.  Also, we 

 4  would be creating a great amount of waste or 

 5  generating a great amount of waste through our site 

 6  cleanup activities.

 7           We have entered into a consent order for 

 8  site clean up with the State of New Mexico.  Under the 

 9  provisions of this consent order, the State of New 

10  Mexico would be making decisions for most of the waste 

11  sites, as to how to actually carry out the cleanup 

12  activities.  The exact methods and techniques, 

13  treatments and so forth would be decided by the State 

14  of New Mexico, and so we don't know exactly what the 

15  impacts would be.  We created a bounding scenario, 

16  though, by considering two extreme options with regard 

17  to impacts.  We considered an option that would 

18  require us to clean up all of the tracts of 

19  contamination by exhuming the waste, putting it into 

20  drums and other containers, and putting it onto trucks 

21  and shipping it either on-site or off-site for 

22  disposal.  We also looked at an option that would 

23  require us to cap all of the waste in place and 

24  install a long-term monitoring facility.  So we think 

25  that the outcome of this bounding case for impact with 

                                                               8

 1  regard to waste generation through this process 

 2  probably overestimates what would really happen when 

 3  we clean up the actual site.  However, preparing these 

 4  type of analyses will allow you, the stakeholder, to 

 5  understand the type of impacts and also the types of 

 6  issues associated with site clean up.

 7           Additionally, under this alternative we 

 8  would be generating waste related to plutonium pit 

 9  production.  We are proposing to increase the number 

10  of plutonium pits that can be produced at Los Alamos 

11  National Laboratory from the current level of 20 pits 

12  per year up to a maximum of 80 pits per year in order 

13  to meet our goal of producing 50 certified pits.

14           We would additionally expect under this 

15  alternative to see an increase in transportation 

16  impact, again, primarily associated with removing the 

17  waste and transporting it off site.

18           We would also expect to see a slight 

19  increase in worker health, primarily, impacts because, 

20  again, the workers involved in waste handling process, 

21  and also the pit production process would be exposed 

22  to greater levels of material.

23           Additionally we would expect to see an 

24  increase in electric use, natural gas and potable 

25  water as well.  With regard to those resources, 

                                                               9

 1  though, the expansion or enhancement of our super 

 2  computing facility, the Metropolis Center for 

 3  Computing, would probably result in a greater use of 

 4  electric and water use.

 5           The Draft Site-wide review and comment 

 6  process has been extended from the originally proposed 

 7  60 days to 75-day-long period.  This period will end 

 8  September 20th, and during this period we will have 

 9  had public hearings.  We held our first public hearing 

10  last night in Los Alamos.  This evening's hearing is 

11  the second hearing, and we have one more hearing 

12  tomorrow night in Santa Fe.  We encourage everyone to 

13  make oral comments at these hearings.  These oral 

14  comments will be recorded verbatim through the use of 

15  our court reporter.  And if you would like to submit 

16  written comments tonight, we do have some comment 

17  forms on the front table there for your use, if you 

18  wish.  You can also write me letters, E-mail me, fax 

19  me.  We have a toll free number that you can call and 

20  leave comments as well if you go home tonight and 

21  think of something else you would like to say.

22           After the reviewing comment period ends, 

23  we'll take all of the comments that we have received 

24  and we will use these, then, to make changes to the 

25  final Site-wide Environmental Impact Statement.  This 

                                                               10

 1  document is a draft.  We know it's somewhat imperfect 

 2  and we would appreciate your help in correcting any 

 3  errors, adding any information that you think may need 

 4  to be added if we have forgotten some aspect of the 

 5  environment in the LANL area, or if we need to correct 

 6  any data.

 7           All comments, whether oral or written, will 

 8  be included in the Final Site-wide Environmental 

 9  Impact Statement.  We'll be issuing a separate volume 

10  that will have all of the comments recorded and 

11  reproduced verbatim.  So if you want to see exactly 

12  how your comment got used in the process, you will be 

13  able to get the final Environmental Impact Statement 

14  and be able to look up your individual comment and see 

15  exactly how we have incorporated information or how we 

16  have changed the document based on your comments.

17           If you ask a question with your comment 

18  letter or -- or note, then we will try to answer that 

19  question in the final document as well.

20           The Final Site-wide Environmental Impact 

21  Statement that is issued will be used in part by the 

22  National Nuclear Security Administrator's 

23  Administrator to make final decisions regarding the 

24  level of operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory, 

25  and also to make decisions about whether or not to 

                                                               11

 1  implement each of the individual projects being 

 2  proposed.  We expect there to be more than one Record 

 3  of Decision issued, and we expect the first one, the 

 4  first Record of Decision can be issued no sooner than 

 5  30 days after the Final Environmental Impact Statement 

 6  has been made available.  And we expect at least at a 

 7  minimum, that the first record of decision will 

 8  include a decision to implement the activities that we 

 9  need to in order to meet the consent order activities.

10           We are very committed to cleanup, and I 

11  wanted to make a point of explaining that the 

12  Administrator is allowed to choose across the 

13  alternatives.  For example, the Administrator could 

14  choose to make a decision to implement cleanup 

15  activities, and could also make a decision to decrease 

16  the amount of high explosive testing, and for some 

17  operations he could also choose a no action 

18  alternative.  So he can pick and choose across 

19  alternatives.  If you want to compare, it's sort of 

20  like when you go to vote.  When you enter the voting 

21  booth you can choose to vote a straight party ticket, 

22  everybody on one particular party, or you can vote a 

23  split ticket and divide your vote among the different 

24  parties, depending on the offices.

25           I hope that everybody has taken the 

                                                               12

 1  opportunity to take a look at the posters and talk to 

 2  the subject matter experts.  We do have folks here 

 3  from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and also from 

 4  the Los Alamos Site Office to answer questions.

 5           Because we have a number of folks who have 

 6  signed up to speak tonight, we're not going to have a 

 7  panel of experts and a formal question and answer 

 8  period.  If you aren't able to talk to the subject 

 9  matter expert, or you think of something later and you 

10  want to ask a question and get an immediate answer, 

11  you can send me a fax, or call that 1-800 number and 

12  leave a message, or somehow reach me among these 

13  different manners of communication, and we'll get back 

14  in touch with you with appropriate subject matter 

15  expert.

16           I'm going to go ahead and turn the meeting 

17  over now to our facilitator for tonight's meeting, 

18  Robin Brandin, and she will facilitate the recording 

19  of tonight's oral comments.  Again, I would like to 

20  thank you all for coming.  I would like to ask you to 

21  ask your questions of the subject matter experts, and 

22  I would also like to ask you to please be courteous 

23  and to respect the folks who come forward here tonight 

24  to give their oral comments.  It takes a lot of guts 

25  to get up in front of a room of strangers and make 

                                                               13

 1  oral comments, so please treat them kindly.  Thank 

 2  you.

 3           Robin?

 4           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Good evening, 

 5  everybody.  Thank you for coming to this public 

 6  hearing.  As Ms. Wither says, my name is Robin 

 7  Brandin, and I will be the facilitator tonight.  And I 

 8  know that Jose asked earlier, but there have been a 

 9  few people come in so, Jose, would you mind getting up 

10  and asking whether anybody would like my instructions 

11  translated?

12           (Jose Palomino questioning in Spanish.)

13           MR. JOSE PALOMINO:  No one.  Okay.  

14           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

15           As Ms. Withers said, we have come to the 

16  real purpose of this hearing, which is to record your 

17  comments on the Los Alamos Site-wide Environmental 

18  Impact Statement.  My role as facilitator in this 

19  process to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to 

20  comment, everyone who wants to comment has a chance to 

21  comment, and that also that we get a complete and 

22  accurate recording of those comments.  That my partner 

23  in that regard is Ms. Mabel Chin, who will be taking a 

24  verbatim record of these proceedings.

25           And this is how we will proceed.  I have 

                                                               14

 1  cards for those of you who indicated when you 

 2  registered that you would like to speak.  I will 

 3  extend the courtesy to any elected officials first who 

 4  would like to speak.  I don't have an indication that 

 5  there were any.  Is there anybody here who is an 

 6  elected official?

 7           Okay.  Then I will go on to those of you who 

 8  have registered to speak in the order that you 

 9  registered.

10           Let's see.  I have 13 people currently 

11  registered, and I would like to start -- it's not a 

12  huge number.  We have some time.  I would like to 

13  start with a time limit, ask you to limit your 

14  comments, please, to five minutes.  Ms. Hale sitting 

15  here in the front row right in front of me will be our 

16  timekeeper.  When you are within 30 seconds of your -- 

17  of the end of your time allotment she will hold up 

18  this yellow card.  And when your time has run out, she 

19  will hold up a blue card.  If at the end of the 

20  comment period, or of the people who have registered, 

21  we have additional time, I will ask if anybody who 

22  hasn't registered would like to comment.  And then if 

23  you still have some time, if people have already 

24  commented, we'll give them another opportunity to 

25  comment again or to extend their comments.

                                                               15

 1           If you find that five minutes is not enough 

 2  time, as Ms. Withers says, and this poster indicates, 

 3  there are several other ways that you can comment, 

 4  including providing written comments.  All of the 

 5  comments, whether oral or written, will be published 

 6  in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.

 7           See.  And there's also another hearing 

 8  tomorrow evening, if for some chance we should run out 

 9  of time.  You are welcome to attend that hearing as 

10  well.

11           So, when I start, when I call your name, 

12  please step up to one of the two microphones here at 

13  the end of each alley -- aisle -- thank you.  Senior 

14  moment there, and that way you will be able to see 

15  Ms. Hale.  And please speak clearly so that Ms. Chin 

16  can hear you and record your comments accurately.  If 

17  she has trouble hearing you or understanding you, she 

18  will either interrupt you or let me know and I will 

19  interrupt you to make sure that we get it accurately.

20           Because the comments were getting today are 

21  all going to be recorded for the official record, 

22  please do not include any personal information that 

23  you would not want to have published in the 

24  Site-wide -- Final Site-wide EIS in your comments.  

25  And if you have brought a written copy of your 

                                                               16

 1  comments, please hand them to Ms. Chin or to me.  That 

 2  will help us also get the -- your comments accurately.

 3           As Ms. Withers indicated, the purpose of 

 4  this part of the session is to get everybody's 

 5  comments.  We want to make sure that everybody has a 

 6  chance to make their comments.  So, if you have 

 7  questions, I hope you had a chance to ask them at the 

 8  poster sessions earlier, or if we have time, after the 

 9  public comment period.  We won't be answering any 

10  questions during this part of the session.  If you ask 

11  questions, we will record them and the answers will be 

12  provided in the Final EIS, or you can pass your 

13  questions on to Ms. Withers, as she indicated earlier.

14           And that's pretty much all I have.  So does 

15  anybody have any questions on these -- how this is 

16  going to proceed?

17           Yes, sir?  

18           FROM THE FLOOR:  These microphones facing, 

19  who are we supposed to be -- 

20           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Yes.  Face the 

21  audience when you speak.

22           FROM THE FLOOR:  Okay.

23           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Any other 

24  questions?

25           Okay.  We'll get started with the first 

                                                               17

 1  speaker, which is Greg mellow.

 2           MR. GREG MELLO:  Thank you, all of you who 

 3  have come so far to hear our testimony.  And let me 

 4  say, very quickly run down a few points.  I believe 

 5  that this EIS process is a continuation and an 

 6  abridgement of the failed modern pit facility 

 7  environmental impact process, which was a national 

 8  process that provided a great deal more possibilities 

 9  for input around the country on pit production, and 

10  this process is being foisted here on New Mexico with 

11  just three days of public hearings, in what is the 

12  poorest, practically, state in the country.  I think 

13  this is being done to get this through during the 

14  existing administration, and to get it through before 

15  a consciousness of debt in this country rises to the 

16  level that this type of expense becomes more and more 

17  problematic.  Because of the debt situation, 

18  essentially all the expanded alternative activities 

19  are -- will be financed out of public debt.  So, what 

20  we're talking about is borrowing money to build these, 

21  what looks like, a very large Christmas stocking of 

22  projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  If you 

23  have read this, you see that they want to tear down a 

24  lot of existing facilities which have been perfectly 

25  adequate until this moment, at least they're being -- 

                                                               18

 1  I mean, I haven't heard that they are inadequate -- 

 2  and they would like to replace them with brand new 

 3  facilities, hundreds of thousands of square feet per 

 4  project, and there are several such projects.

 5           I want to correct the idea that this EIS 

 6  involves a lot of cleanup.  Now, maybe it does and 

 7  maybe it doesn't, but disposal takes place all the 

 8  time at Los Alamos National Laboratory, permanent 

 9  disposal.  Cleanup is a -- is a -- something that 

10  proceeds by fits and starts.  There is -- it's -- I 

11  think it's quite deceptive or confusing for the 

12  expanded operations alternative to have expanded 

13  nuclear weapons activities in many forms, especially 

14  pit production, and to also put in that alternative 

15  expanded cleanup for two reasons.  First, it submerges 

16  the real policy choices between cleanup and increased 

17  nuclear weapons.  And there is no way that there can 

18  be money to do those things at the same time.

19           So, in the analysis, the expanded operations 

20  alternative may cover the impacts of the pit 

21  production by blending them with impacts which are 

22  actually imaginary from cleanup that no one really has 

23  the money to do or intent to do.  So it's very 

24  important that Elizabeth said that Linton Brooks can 

25  pick and choose projects from within these 

                                                               19

 1  alternatives.  And I would suggest that these 

 2  alternatives be split apart so that the real 

 3  alternatives facing the country can be brought out in 

 4  starker relief, and the policy content of the EIS 

 5  would come more to the surface.

 6           Another alternative which should be here is 

 7  to wait.  There is no rush to do any of these 

 8  projects.  There's no rush to produce plutonium pits.  

 9  There's no rush to replace existing buildings with new 

10  buildings, fancier buildings, and we ought to wait 

11  while we are accumulating, even if you really, really 

12  like nuclear weapons, we are getting data on the 

13  longevity of nuclear weapons, a great deal of 

14  information every year through accelerating aging 

15  experiments.  So the present value of these 

16  expenditures could be tremendously decreased by 

17  postponing these expenditures into the future.  So if 

18  we could wait 10 or 20 years to produce -- to make a 

19  pit factory, the present value of that investment, the 

20  difference would be really huge and of importance, 

21  great policy importance.

22           Let's see -- the Congress is the one who 

23  makes the decisions about this, not Linton Brooks.  

24  That's very important.  Now, from perspective of the 

25  NNSA employees, that's how they think of it but, in  

                                                               20

 1  fact, it's Congress who funds these, especially the 

 2  House of Representatives.  This is a very 

 3  controversial set of projects which the House of 

 4  Representatives has called absurd and irrational.  So, 

 5  people who oppose expansion of pit production are in 

 6  very good hands because it's Republicans in the House 

 7  that are using this language, especially in the House 

 8  Appropriations Committee, but those bills have been 

 9  ratified by the entire House, which is not 

10  particularly specific as I --

11           So, another important point -- so, we want 

12  to bring our concerns after these hearings and after 

13  this NEPA process directly to Congress.  Don't be 

14  satisfied with providing input to the executive branch 

15  only, because that's where good ideas can go to die 

16  right now.  So, we have to bring these concerns to 

17  Congress.

18           It's very important that the underlying 

19  documents that this EIS refers to be available to the 

20  public.  This process is taking place in a backdrop of 

21  opacity and lack of transparency from the DOE for a 

22  very long time, about any of the policy issues 

23  involved in any of the underlying documents.  Even the 

24  citizen's advisory board, my experience is if you say 

25  one thing which is critical of the Department of 

                                                               21

 1  Energy, you get dropped from their E-mail.  And I 

 2  haven't gotten an E-mail from them in months.

 3           Now, I want to in the remaining minute or 

 4  two, I want to say something about economic impact.  

 5  The choices in this Environmental Impact Statement 

 6  entail economic choices for the country, and while 

 7  people may think that jobs come here to Rio Arriba 

 8  County as a result of the lab, and they're right in 

 9  that, I think about a 175 million dollars comes to Rio 

10  Arriba County from the lab, but it comes with a 

11  price.  There's more federal jobs, more federal money 

12  pouring into Rio Arriba County from 

13  nonmilitary-related sources, and when we put our vote 

14  for nuclear military spending, it's a vote against 

15  these other forms of spending which are actually the 

16  predominant forms of spending, federal spending in 

17  Northern New Mexico.  So it's a vote to impoverish 

18  ourselves.

19           The average American household is spending 

20  about $7,600 on military matters each year now.  This 

21  represents an immense opportunity cost for the 

22  country.  There is no way we can lift our people out 

23  of poverty, get the education we need or the 

24  healthcare we need while we are supporting the 

25  military to the tune of over $7,000 per household.        

                                                               22

 1  And so we have to look at those kind of distributed 

 2  socioeconomic costs.

 3           And for the other counties, Rio Arriba 

 4  County is the most military-dependent county in the 

 5  hinterland of Los Alamos.  For the other counties it's 

 6  really extreme.  Taos County is vastly more influenced 

 7  by nonmilitary federal spending than military federal 

 8  spending.  Thank you, very much.

 9           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

10           Okay.  I'm not sure how to pronounce this 

11  name.  Michelle Peixinho.  Can you correct my 

12  pronunciation?  

13           MS. MICHELLE PEIXINHO:  My name is Michelle 

14  Peixinho.  It's Portuguese.  I am Tau from the 

15  Philippines.  I grew up in Manila and Honolulu.  I 

16  have lived in Chimayo with my family for six years 

17  now.  And before we moved here, I was living in Las 

18  Vegas, Nevada, so I learned a lot, quite a bit about 

19  nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons production.  I 

20  lived for a few years with my family in a little town 

21  called Tecopa, California, just across the California 

22  border, which is directly downstream of Yucca 

23  Mountain, and because of that I learned a lot about 

24  nuclear waste and the problems that we have in our 

25  country about dealing with the waste that we have 

                                                               23

 1  produced, that is, particularly waste coming out of 

 2  nuclear power production, which I think is yet 

 3  unresolved to this day.

 4           I think that for me, I have three children.  

 5  I am a worrier, and I am extremely concerned about my 

 6  ability to grow food and my ability to feed my kids, 

 7  my ability to be able to draw water out of the ground 

 8  and feel good about drinking it.  I am worried about 

 9  this stuff, and I worry about it every day.  Every 

10  single day.  So, I came here thinking that I was going 

11  to be among my peers and I do see many of my peers 

12  here, but my neighbors aren't here.  A lot of my 

13  clients that I work with aren't here.  There's nobody 

14  that I see who are parents from my children's school 

15  who are here.  This is a very, very small group of 

16  people from Rio Arriba County.  And I don't -- I -- 

17  this is not enough for -- of a voice.  So I don't know 

18  if you can maybe seek out more, because this is not 

19  enough.

20           So, I am concerned here with what I see on 

21  page 10 of this document.  I just opened it up, and 

22  all these -- for this expanded operations.  I mean, 

23  you are looking at from 38,000 cubic yards of low 

24  level, it goes up to 881,000 cubic yards.  That's just 

25  one of these -- and there are several pages of types 

                                                               24

 1  of waste that comes out of this expanded operations.  

 2  So I am concerned about where that's going to go, 

 3  because I feel like I have lived at the end of the 

 4  nuclear waste cycle, and whether it goes to Nevada, 

 5  whether it goes down to Southern New Mexico, whether 

 6  it stays right here, it doesn't matter, because it's 

 7  all the same water.  It's the same hydrologic cycle 

 8  that we all depend on, and that makes me worried.

 9           So, I just wanted to bring attention to that 

10  right there because there's lots of it here, lots of 

11  different kinds -- chemical waste from 19,000 low end 

12  it goes up to 129,000.  Where's that going to go, you 

13  know?  And how can I, you know, keep my kids from 

14  having to deal with that.

15           And the other issue that I learned at Yucca 

16  Mountain in dealing with is it is the longevity of 

17  this waste.  It's not just like trash and you throw it 

18  away and it's done.  This stuff will be here for 

19  whatever, hundreds -- 250,000 years.  I don't know the 

20  number.  I'm not a scientist, you know, but it's not 

21  going to go away, so how many generations exactly is 

22  that?  And how are we accountable to those 

23  generations?  How do you look at the intergenerational 

24  impact of these genetic changes that happen because of 

25  this radiation that's affecting us?  I sit on the 

                                                               25

 1  Maternal Child Health Council of Rio Arriba County and 

 2  our issue now is obesity, and I raised my hand to my 

 3  peers there and I said, hey, what about thyroid 

 4  problems?  We have a huge obesity issue in our 

 5  county.  We have a huge suicide issue in our county.  

 6  We're top in the nation.  We have a huge drug problem, 

 7  we're top in the nation.  You are sitting right here 

 8  in Rio Arriba County, and these are our problems.  How 

 9  is all this money that is our money that we pay into, 

10  to go into this, going to help solve our daily 

11  problems?  And then, to top that off, you got to turn 

12  on the news and watch how nuclear weapons are causing 

13  people to kill each other.  Hand to hand.  They are 

14  not even fighting with nuclear weapons, but they're 

15  fighting over nuclear weapons.  They're already dying 

16  from nuclear weapons, you know what I'm saying?  It 

17  worries me.  I worry about it sick.  I cry about it, 

18  you know, and I'm sure that you guys understand, 

19  because I think we're all in the same page about it.  

20  We're all human beings.  And that's -- that's how I 

21  feel about it.  We're human beings, and at some point 

22  we would have to say, well, why do we want to be a 

23  community that continues to endorse and stand by while 

24  our country continues to develop these nuclear 

25  weapons, points fingers at all these other countries 

                                                               26

 1  to say, you can't develop these nuclear weapons, and 

 2  these huge wars are happening over it.  We're 

 3  hypocrites.  We're Americans and we are hypocrites.  

 4  And I'm an American.  I'm not talking about somebody 

 5  else.  I'm talking about me.  I'm a taxpaying 

 6  American.  I'm standing up here and I'm a hypocrite, 

 7  you know, and I feel crappy about it.  I don't want to 

 8  feel like that, you know.

 9           So, those are my feelings about it, and I 

10  appreciate you all taking the time to listen to it.  

11  And I am going to try to write out, you know, my 

12  feelings about it.  I don't know how I can get more of 

13  my neighbors involved.  I am pretty darned sure that a 

14  lot of them didn't even know this was going to be 

15  happening, so how is it that we're really truly going 

16  to get people's opinions and take away the economic 

17  factor of the fact that people have to work at Los 

18  Alamos because they have to make a living.  People 

19  can't find good jobs in Espanola, in Rio Arriba 

20  County.  People can't find good jobs.  If you want to 

21  make more than 20 bucks an hour, if you want to have 

22  benefits, you want to have a retirement plan, you 

23  better work at LANL, you know.  And I can't blame 

24  anybody for that, so I don't blame people for that.  

25  But they have to have an opinion about it outside of 

                                                               27

 1  their work, you know, outside of their economic 

 2  situation.  How are we going to seek out that opinion, 

 3  you know?

 4           So, anyway, I appreciate you guys listening 

 5  to me, and thank you.

 6           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Trish Doherty.

 7           MS. TRISH DOHERTY:  Hi, everybody.  My name 

 8  is Trish Doherty and I'm actually English.  I was born 

 9  in England.  I have been 30 years in this country.  

10  I'm still based in New York City, and I had a great 

11  privilege of purchasing a piece of land in Chimayo 

12  just recently -- two years ago, actually, and I'm in 

13  the process of moving over here.  And I'm extremely, 

14  extremely, extremely upset and concerned that LANL 

15  wants to produce more plutonium pits.  I am so 

16  amazed.  Thank you.

17           I am asking decision makers to come with 

18  great wisdom, to see with great vision, to be 

19  accountable to all future generations.  We are at a 

20  turning point at this time on the earth.  This is the 

21  time to apply great intelligence of the human being.  

22  I am 100 percent against Los Alamos National Lab 

23  producing more nuclear weapons, more pits per year, 

24  more transportation of waste, more health concerns and 

25  more toxic waste.  I have to wonder what makes you 

                                                               28

 1  think you can take the future of this beautiful place 

 2  in New Mexico into your own hands and endanger all 

 3  life for thousands of years to come.  It only takes 

 4  one mistake, one accident, one fire, one terrorist 

 5  attack, one earthquake -- Los Alamos stands on three 

 6  fault lines -- to set off a catastrophic accident 

 7  beyond words.

 8           Have you ever seen the movie showing the 

 9  deformed, lifeless disabled children lying helplessly 

10  in beds their entire lives, the victims of Chernobyl?  

11  They would have been normal children.  You are playing 

12  with a gamble that is unacceptable.

13           The SWEIS document fails to address several 

14  issues.  It is not a viable document, so why do we 

15  keep referring to it?  There is no real health 

16  assessment.  The cleanup has not been addressed -- and 

17  I realize you spoke about it a little bit earlier -- 

18  but it has not been made a priority.  There have been 

19  no comprehensive health studies done near the nuclear 

20  facility.  How do I know as a person coming here that 

21  my health will not be adversely affected by 

22  contamination in the air, the water, the soil and the 

23  food?  It is a fact that plutonium was found that can 

24  be traced isotopically in the sediments of the Rio 

25  Grande at Cochiti.

                                                               29

 1           It is a fact that a produce sample, a plum 

 2  from this area, was found to be high in americium, a 

 3  substance which is the product of radioactivity.  It 

 4  is a fact that already 822 acre fields of industrial 

 5  waste is being discharged into the canyons every 

 6  year.  Apparently you say the canyons are dry.  But 

 7  water comes sometimes, as it has this summer, and 

 8  spreads that waste into our sacred soil and our sacred 

 9  water.

10           It is a fact that there are records of 

11  higher cancer rates in Los Alamos County.  I have 

12  questions about if I want to move here.  I happened to 

13  have a hair analysis test in 2004, because I have some 

14  lead in my body, and I took another test a year later 

15  to check if the lead had gone down.  My uranium 

16  levels, which were no problem in 2004, had gone over 

17  what is an acceptable level.  Now I wasn't here all 

18  that much between 2004, 2005, but I was on my land, my 

19  sacred, beautiful land, for a few weeks, and I was 

20  drinking my well water.  And I have been told that 

21  there's natural uranium here.  So all I'm saying is, 

22  we don't know, and are there any tests being done to 

23  find out about this.  How are your uranium levels?  

24  How are your uranium levels?  Do you know is anyone 

25  testing?

                                                               30

 1           Uranium levels in toxic levels lead to 

 2  kidney disease.

 3           There is an alternative to this plan to 

 4  increase nuclear weapons production, which is not, I 

 5  don't believe stated, that is highly intelligent, 

 6  deeply wise and sustainable.  That would be to convert 

 7  Los Alamos National Laboratory into a research center 

 8  on climate change, just a small problem that our 

 9  society is facing right now.  And renewable energies, 

10  that is intelligent.  And sustainable agriculture, 

11  which is helping to keep our earth strong and healthy 

12  for future generations and for all life on this 

13  beautiful, beautiful planet.  This would be an 

14  investment in the future of our children, and the many 

15  generations to come, as well as nature, wildlife, and 

16  would honor the total interconnectedness of all life.

17           In terms of referring to what was said 

18  earlier, I would definitely, out of the options 

19  presented, would choose the cleaning up and reduction 

20  of explosions.  And of course, to these more 

21  environmentally friendly solutions.  Thank you.

22           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

23           Regina Wheeler?

24           MS. REGINA WHEELER:  Hello.  My name is 

25  Regina Wheeler.  I'm representing Los Alamos County 

                                                               31

 1  local government, and we just wanted to let you know 

 2  that we are reviewing the LANL SWEIS draft and will be 

 3  submitting written comments.  Thank you.

 4           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 5           Mateo Peixinho?

 6           MR. MATEO PEIXINHO:  Good evening.

 7           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Good evening.

 8           MR. MATEO PEIXINHO:  I'll be brief.  

 9  Honestly, first comment I have on this is that I would 

10  like to formally protest this process, echoing what 

11  Mr. Mello said.  This format of three hearings here in 

12  Northern New Mexico is not even close to being 

13  adequate to address the enormity of this proposal.

14           Increasing our pit production is a huge 

15  problem.  It's the wrong way for us to go.  I'm a 

16  general contractor in the area and, you know, the 

17  capitalist side says, oh, great, money coming in.  

18  This is, you know, a chance for us all to put money in 

19  our pockets.  But this is the wrong way to go about 

20  it, because ultimately our natural beauty here, our 

21  children, all the things that are the real important 

22  things are going to be sacrificed for a very 

23  short-term gain.

24           And so, like my wife had said, we worry 

25  about these things for our children.  We live within 

                                                               32

 1  sight.  We see your porch lights, for those of you who 

 2  work at the lab, from our home.  We look across at 

 3  what you're doing there and we're downwind from you.  

 4  And we would like you to know that, that we survive 

 5  from this land here and we want to continue to.  And 

 6  if our lakes and our rivers are contaminated, that's 

 7  going to make all the living things have shorter 

 8  lives, and that's unacceptable.  So, that's the first 

 9  thing that I was wanting to say.

10           Another issue before it got into general 

11  contracting here, I worked in water remediation.  I 

12  think there's some big problems with the test wells 

13  that are around the site, the way that they're being 

14  drilled, the way that they are tested, with small 

15  amounts of water being pulled up, sometimes a gallon 

16  or so being pulled up at one time.  It's not going to 

17  represent anything, especially as time goes on.  If 

18  you drill and you use, you know, the drilling 

19  products, the different types of clays, the bentonite 

20  clays, they're going to clog up your groundwater 

21  movement, and also clog up the filters in those test 

22  wells.  So, I think we're being fooled.  And you know, 

23  like I said, I worked in groundwater remediation.  

24  It's kind of a joke.  A lot of people who were in the 

25  oil industry are making good money on that now, but we 

                                                               33

 1  can't get it clean once it's contaminated.

 2           So, okay, we're monitoring.  What next?  Say 

 3  we find it's moving faster, like we found around the 

 4  Nevada test site?  They said it would take, you know, 

 5  thousands of years for it to move a half a mile, and 

 6  within a few years of these test wells being put in, 

 7  there were some of them put in improperly, we found 

 8  that the radioactive waste was migrating much more 

 9  quickly.  So as we look, you know, as water becomes 

10  more and more precious every moment, we are going to 

11  see that what a huge mistake we have made.

12           So when you make more pits, when you go from 

13  20 to 80, that's a huge problem for our future 

14  generations.  And we can't do it, you know.  We are 

15  either going to stop by consciousness and by the right 

16  thinking, or it's going to stop when we just can't 

17  survive anymore.  And you know, I just can't 

18  understand why we put that on our children's children 

19  and our great-great-great-grandchildren.  That's just 

20  wrong-minded, you know.  And not only us as humans, 

21  but all the living things.  Our lives are already 

22  being curtailed by nuclear contamination, you know, 

23  cancer rates and all these things.

24           Again, you know, I am here talking to this 

25  microphone.  I don't feel that the Department of 

                                                               34

 1  Energy has any intentions, whatsoever, of taking our 

 2  public comments and utilizing them in their 

 3  decision-making process.  I think that this is a total 

 4  farce.  And I want to make sure that that's in the 

 5  record and issue my grievance against my government 

 6  and protest against that.  So, thank you very much and 

 7  have a good evening.

 8           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 9           Jean Nichols?

10           MS. JEAN NICHOLS:  My name is Jean Nichols, 

11  and I don't even know where to begin.  I am also 

12  outraged that this process is just a very short 

13  comment period when it took a year and a half to come 

14  up with this Site-wide.  It's -- it's right during 

15  August when, you know, a lot of people are on vacation 

16  and it's the Indians' feast days and, you know, we're 

17  just like, you know, everybody else said, and here it 

18  is in a sports plex, which goes to show that we're 

19  just being made a sport of.  And then it's on Nagasaki 

20  Day, when we should never more be considering dropping 

21  nuclear weapons.  We should not be making more pits.  

22  There's no reason for one more pit, let alone 80.  And 

23  I understand this is just a coverup for the next step, 

24  which will be 450 pits a day -- a year, you know, as 

25  another Rocky Flats.

                                                               35

 1           So, I am representing not just myself.  I 

 2  mean, like we said, there aren't very many of our 

 3  neighbors here, but I represent a group called United 

 4  Neighbors, and it's all of us in Northern New Mexico, 

 5  and all the people in Penasco, and all the people in 

 6  Dixon and everybody -- you know, when you consider 

 7  Site-wide, you really have to go -- the site is 

 8  everybody downwind and everybody downwater.  You have 

 9  to take into account all of our health studies which 

10  are not being done.  I mean, I go to the clinic and I 

11  say, have there been health studies?  Way too many 

12  people have cancer.  Way too many people.  I just 

13  found out about a family in Ojo Sarco the other day 

14  who, he worked at the lab.  He came home and he washed 

15  his clothes in the -- in with the diapers of the 

16  family, and the whole family had cancer.  And they had 

17  cancer to the extent where they couldn't even donate 

18  body parts because every part of their body was 

19  riddled with cancer.  We're not even studying that.  

20  We're an experiment.

21           She spoke about the plums that had been 

22  studied, and these plums that were tested with 

23  americium that came from my neighborhood, and whoever 

24  did the test told the people where the plums are 

25  growing, don't feed these to your grandchildren.  And 

                                                               36

 1  yet, you know, we're trying to live here, and people 

 2  are trying to come and grow, and grow organic things.  

 3  And we just want to live, you know.  I don't have any 

 4  hard feelings against individual people who work at 

 5  the lab.  I'm trying not to.  You know, I think you 

 6  are misinformed and, you know, we're all into tunnel 

 7  vision.  And this whole Site-wide Environmental Impact 

 8  Statement, it is.  It's premature.  I mean, right now 

 9  we're just glimpsing the very tip of the melting 

10  iceberg with these rains that are coming now.  So the 

11  fact that we are -- we are going to see more and more 

12  flash floods going down these canyons, picking up this 

13  waste, carrying it to the Rio Grande, and we're also 

14  not taking into account the seismic activity.  I 

15  understand that there's a study is due out in 2006, so 

16  why we're not waiting for that study and basing this 

17  Environmental Impact Statement on those results?  It's 

18  just -- it's absurd.  You know, it's so absurd that I 

19  think we're all suffering from posttraumatic stress 

20  syndrome and that we really -- that's why it's so hard 

21  for people to come to these hearings.  They hear 

22  nuclear and they just go blank.  They don't want to 

23  even think about it because it is unthinkable, and 

24  it's asking us to accept the unacceptable every day in 

25  our lives and it's not right.

                                                               37

 1           There's a whole lot of other things with the 

 2  air and the water and the cleanup, and the only one -- 

 3  you know, only the expanded alternative has any kind 

 4  of cleanup to it.  We need a cleanup first before we 

 5  even think of any of these alternatives.

 6           I didn't come prepared at all, so, you know, 

 7  I am going to try to think about it more and actually 

 8  write out a, you know, some statements.  But right now 

 9  I'm just, like, so overwhelmed by the contradictions 

10  here, and the fact that, you know, we can't be doing 

11  this.  They never said how much any of this is going 

12  to cost.  Yes, it comes out of our public debt.  Well, 

13  how much?  How much we're talking here?  You know, 

14  3,000,000,000?  83,000,000,000?  Whatever the cost is, 

15  any time you deal with nuclear substances, however 

16  much you are spending on it, you can -- you can 

17  multiply that by at least 29, because if you are 

18  talking about the cancers and the cost of the medical 

19  and the people down line and the cleanup and the -- 

20  everything else, not to mention the lack of respect 

21  that we now have in the world for even doing this.

22           Nuclear weapons are illegal on an 

23  international level, and we should listen to that 

24  and -- you know, we are telling Iran they can't even 

25  develop nuclear weapons sometime in the future, and 

                                                               38

 1  then we're going to make more here?  Excuse me.  No.

 2           FROM THE FLOOR:  No.

 3           FROM THE FLOOR:  No.

 4           FROM THE FLOOR:  No.  

 5           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 6           Carol Miller?  

 7           MS. CAROL MILLER:  I used to come to these 

 8  meetings as a public health professional representing 

 9  the American Public Health Association, the New Mexico 

10  Public Health Association.  Also, I served as an 

11  officer, and I realized this was not about public 

12  health.  This is not about anything except an insanity 

13  that has gripped our government.  I can't believe that 

14  we're here on Nagasaki Day.  I'm glad Jean raised it.  

15  This should be a day of reflection of what happens.  

16  We are in the time period where a lot of people around 

17  the world are grieving over the United States' use of 

18  nuclear weapons on innocent civilians in Hiroshima and 

19  Nagasaki.

20           So, I have a couple of points I want to 

21  make.  One is, abolish nuclear weapons world wide.  

22  That is the goal.  And I want to quote a very dear 

23  friend Winona Leduke, who said, everything we do has 

24  to be by mom's rules.  You know, mom's rules, you 

25  can't make another mess until you clean up your first 

                                                               39

 1  mess.  Let's talk after this is cleaned up, which no 

 2  one knows how to do, will cost more than the 

 3  1,000,000,000,000-plus dollars we have spent in this 

 4  country alone on nuclear weapons.  And I want to take 

 5  the rest of my time with all of us for a moment of 

 6  silence, and I want the timekeeper to actually make 

 7  sure it's okay.  And this moment of silence is for the 

 8  Navajo uranium miners who died getting the raw uranium 

 9  out of the ground.  It doesn't just get to Los Alamos 

10  with no human contact.  For the workers across the 

11  United States and the other countries who have died 

12  and are dying from being involved in nuclear weapons 

13  complex.  For the one-second victims of Hiroshima and 

14  Nagasaki, several hundred thousand people that were 

15  vaporized, along with their buildings, in one second.  

16  I did take a pilgrimage to Hiroshima in 2004 and 

17  brought ash from the Cerro Grande fire that fell in my 

18  garden and put it in the river at ground zero as just 

19  my own personal asking of forgiveness for what has 

20  happened.

21           I want a moment of silence for my neighbors, 

22  current and former lab workers, dead, barely dead and 

23  somewhat alive.  And I would like someone to notify us 

24  when the remainder of my time is done.  Thank you.

25           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Okay.  We will 

                                                               40

 1  continue.  Thank you.

 2           Andrew Cult?  

 3           MR. ANDREW CULT:  My name is Andrew, and I 

 4  have a family that's really involved in nuclear 

 5  issues.  Both my parents met in the Air Force when -- 

 6  Hill Air Force Base, where my father helped design the 

 7  navigation system for the Minuteman II 

 8  intercontinental ballistic missile.  And then my 

 9  brother has gone on to work for Essex in St. Louis, 

10  where he helps make fighter jets which are used to 

11  deliver all kinds of weapons.  So I think it's really 

12  important, too, that I actually grew up in Omaha, 

13  right next to Offutt Air Force Base, which used to be 

14  the Strategic Air Command, and is now the Strategic 

15  Nuclear Command.  And it seems like it was always in 

16  the back of my mind that, you know, nuclear weapons 

17  were all around me, they were really close, and that 

18  the people who push the button are just, you know, 30 

19  minutes away from me.  And it was always kind of in 

20  the back of my mind and kind of scary.

21           And so, I come here today with a couple of 

22  things.  The first is, I really don't think plutonium 

23  pits are needed.  No one has really explained what 

24  they would be used for, other than maybe these new 

25  flexible nuclear weapons, which I think the flexible 

                                                               41

 1  response is just code word for more usable nuclear 

 2  weapons that could be actually used.  That's kind of 

 3  scary.  And it's really ominous for something like 

 4  this to happen on a day where I get discuss -- on 

 5  Nagasaki Day.  It has been 61 years since the nuclear 

 6  weapon was used, yet people want to start making 

 7  weapons that can and should -- and they say they 

 8  should be used, because they want small weapons, maybe 

 9  even -- you know, I have seen reports of suggestions 

10  to build even one kiloton nuclear weapons, and that's 

11  just ridiculous, you know.  So why do we need more 

12  pits?  We're signing all these international treaties 

13  to get rid of nuclear weapons.  Why do we need more of 

14  them, you know?

15           We don't have Russia anymore as a threat.  

16  And there are accidents and miscalculations that 

17  happen every day.  The Jupiter II intermediate range 

18  ballistic missiles we used to have in Italy?  They got 

19  struck by lightening on four different occasions and 

20  actually armed themselves.  You know, things like that 

21  happen.

22           In 1995, after the cold war, the United 

23  States and Norway, fired off a research rocket, and 

24  Russia's failing early warning system declared it as a 

25  nuclear attack on Russia.  Yeltsin was woken up in the 

                                                               42

 1  middle of the night.  He had given the codes and was 

 2  30 seconds from firing the weapons, from what most 

 3  people think, and decided against it at the last 

 4  minute.  That was after the cold war, you know.  That 

 5  was just a few years ago.  That could happen to us at 

 6  any moment.  There's no reason to make that more 

 7  possible.

 8           So, you know, in this SWEIS people are 

 9  talking about safety and, you know, we drove by Los 

10  Alamos Nuclear Labs today and saw, you know, big 

11  safety signs.  But, you know, what is safe about 

12  nuclear weapons; right?  Safety to most people means 

13  acceptable risk; right?  It doesn't mean that there is 

14  nothing happening.  Safe doesn't mean that no one is 

15  getting hurt.  Safe, according to most people, means 

16  that less people are getting hurt.  You know, enough 

17  people that's okay.  I don't think it should be okay.  

18  I don't think it's safe for anyone to be getting 

19  hurt.  But this report shows that if we expand 

20  production, more people will get hurt.  And it will be 

21  workers, people who have to work really hard jobs and 

22  go in there and do work that they probably should not 

23  have to do, but they have to put food on the table for 

24  their families, so they're going into work every day, 

25  and they're the people who are on the front lines 

                                                               43

 1  having to face this kind of contamination threat, and 

 2  that is just unacceptable for plutonium pits that 

 3  aren't needed?

 4           And why is this statewide?  You know, I grew 

 5  up in Omaha.  I had to deal with problems like this 

 6  every day.  This shouldn't be a statewide issue.  I 

 7  have friends from where I grew up who I know would 

 8  really love to comment about this, but they don't have 

 9  $400 to get plane tickets and a hotel and everything 

10  to come out here for these three days after reading 

11  the document that came out just a few days ago, the 

12  thousands of pages.  You know, these people don't have 

13  time to do all this.  It's just being rushed.

14           I'm offering you one solution.  That's all 

15  I'm offering right now.  It's just wait.  You know?  

16  Wait and actually listen to people, because the 

17  statistics and the studies in this report are flawed.  

18  People can't get the documents, some of the DOE 

19  documents.  They don't even know the secondary 

20  research that's backing this up.  They cannot access 

21  any of the information, and even if they wanted to, 

22  they cannot pour through those pages and pages of 

23  research and decode all this really complex scientific 

24  information, kind of mull it over, and come to one of 

25  these three hearings in New Mexico, you know, and just 

                                                               44

 1  days after it's happened.  So just wait.  There's 

 2  plenty of time.  What do we need new pits for, 

 3  anyway?  

 4           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 5           Will Parrish?

 6           MR. WILL PARRISH:  Okay.  There's a reason 

 7  they call me the world's tallest peace activist.  

 8  Anyway, my name is Will, and I am a graduate of the 

 9  University -- I'm sorry.  

10           Thank you.

11           My name is Will, and I'm a graduate of the 

12  University of California Santa Cruz, class of 2004.  

13  And I think it's pretty clear that within this process 

14  of evaluating the Site-wide Environmental Impact 

15  Statement, that whatever comments are made here aren't 

16  going to be heard by those in power.  Linton Brooks 

17  doesn't really care what I have to say.  So with my 

18  comments what I'm hoping to achieve is to connect with 

19  at least some of you here, and hopefully contribute 

20  something valuable to your efforts in opposing 

21  plutonium pit production at the Los Alamos lab.

22           Now, when I was a UC Santa Cruz student I 

23  learned in my third year there that the University of 

24  California manages both the Los Alamos National 

25  Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National 

                                                               45

 1  Laboratory, Los Alamos' sister facility in Northern 

 2  California.  And I was at a point in my life where I 

 3  had come to actually think that I had something wrong 

 4  with me.  I thought I was crazy, because issues like 

 5  nuclear weapons, issues like global warming, other 

 6  issues that are confronting the safety of people, the 

 7  safety of the environment, that are threatening the 

 8  future of our planet were treated as normal by most 

 9  people I was around, and I had so much trouble 

10  understanding that, I thought I must be crazy for 

11  caring so much when I learned about these issues.

12           And learning that the University of 

13  California is involved with production of nuclear 

14  weapons and research on nuclear weapons was actually a 

15  very helpful and healing process for me, because the 

16  University of California is pledged officially to 

17  supporting open inquiry and supporting education for 

18  the benefit of the future.  And I realized when I 

19  learned that the University of California was actually 

20  actively supporting proliferation of nuclear weapons, 

21  that that was a lie and that was a myth, and based on 

22  learning about that myth, I began to question a lot of 

23  other myths that I had been fed, and I realized that 

24  it is normal to be concerned about the future right 

25  now.  It is very normal to speak out and express 

                                                               46

 1  concern about the future.

 2           And so, the reason I am here is that I 

 3  became a nuclear disarmament activist as a student at 

 4  the University of California.  I now work full-time as 

 5  a nuclear disarmament activist, and I came here all 

 6  the way here from Santa Barbara, California, because I 

 7  want to be here in solidarity with all of the people 

 8  here in this community, and all of the people who live 

 9  downwind from nuclear weapons production here, who are 

10  speaking out based on their concern for the future, 

11  and I want to point out that there is no such thing as 

12  safe production of nuclear weapons.  That is a 

13  complete corruption and perversion of the term safety.

14           And I also want to point out that if you 

15  look at the record of plutonium pit production in 

16  particular in this country, which I have studied a 

17  bit, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons flat in Colorado 

18  produced plutonium pits for over 40 years, and it was 

19  actually raided by the FBI in 1992 and then shut down 

20  because it had become so unsafe there.

21           There are communities -- people I know, 

22  people I'm friends with in doing this work, who live 

23  in communities that have been -- that's been 

24  demonstrated to have as much radioactivity as areas of 

25  Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  And that's not a local 

                                                               47

 1  issue.  That's an issue that affects all of us.  

 2  Radioactive toxins affect everyone on this planet, and 

 3  they also embody exactly the type of direction we 

 4  should not be headed in collectively in this society.

 5           And so I thank everyone here for their 

 6  commitment for stopping the production of new 

 7  plutonium pits.  I vow to do whatever is in my power 

 8  to support you in that effort.  And I also want it 

 9  take this time to strongly support reconsidering this 

10  entire, quite frankly, sham of a public comment 

11  process.  I think that this process needs to play out 

12  in a much different way, and that Congress, first of 

13  all, needs to have oversight over the final decision 

14  about what happens at Los Alamos.  What happens here 

15  affects people everywhere, not only in this country, 

16  but all over the world.  And Linton Brooks should not 

17  be the sole person deciding what gets -- what happens 

18  with this Site-wide Environmental Impact Statement.  

19  Thank you very much.

20           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

21           Christy Escobar.

22           MS. CHRISTY ESCOBAR:  Hello.  I'm Christy 

23  Escobar, and we're here representing University of 

24  California.  And I'm sorry if any of this is a little 

25  repetitive, because we all kind of have the same 

                                                               48

 1  idea.  But -- okay.  Good evening.  We are here 

 2  representing the Coalition to Demilitarize Education.  

 3  We are students and recent graduates of three 

 4  University of California campuses and the University 

 5  of Missouri, Kansas City.  We appreciate the 

 6  opportunity to speak here tonight, and we're excited 

 7  to be continuing our education by learning from 

 8  everyone's public comments, as well as by talking 

 9  individually with many of you.

10           We are here tonight as the University of 

11  California Weapons Inspectors.  The UC has managed the 

12  Los Alamos National Laboratory since its inception.  

13  We believe the nuclear weapons industry is extremely 

14  destructive, and we have come all the way from 

15  California because we are ashamed by our University's 

16  involvement with it.  We believe that we have a 

17  special responsibility to speak out about the activity 

18  the Los Alamos Laboratory engages in.

19           Let the record show that we, as 

20  representatives of the UC, do not believe there is any 

21  safe way to produce weapons of mass destruction or the 

22  radioactive components.  Nuclear weapons are not 

23  environmentally safe.  They significantly detract from 

24  social programs, and they diminish national security.

25           Specifically in regards to the plutonium pit 

                                                               49

 1  production proposed in this Site-wide Environmental 

 2  Impact Statement, we think that this is a particularly 

 3  dangerous and unwise idea.  Plutonium pit production 

 4  is quite simply bad for both human health and 

 5  respective surrounding communities.  As Will mentioned 

 6  earlier, at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Lab in 

 7  Colorado, the last facility in the United States to 

 8  engage in large-scale pit production, there are now 

 9  many communities located downwind that have been 

10  measured to be as radioactive as Hiroshima in Japan.  

11  Cancer is an epidemic there.

12           There's no such thing as safe plutonium pit 

13  production, and we will not stand by as our university 

14  endorses it.

15           Ultimately, we don't believe that any 

16  community under any circumstances should have to 

17  suffer under the effects of nuclear weapons 

18  production.  We thank you for listening.

19           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

20           Kalea Matsakis?  

21           MS. KALEA MATSAKIS:  Hi.  My name is Kalea 

22  Matsakis, and I want to make it clear that I'm 

23  speaking on behalf of myself and not on behalf of any 

24  organization.  And I want to talk a little bit about 

25  my experience with the SWEIS, because I started 

                                                               50

 1  reading it about, I guess, three weeks ago.  And it's 

 2  been a really difficult and confusing process for me, 

 3  mostly because I just don't understand how some of 

 4  these decisions are being made.  But actually, I'm 

 5  going to step back a minute and talk about when I got 

 6  the notice for this SWEIS, and I saw that the public 

 7  comment hearings were on Nagasaki -- one of them was 

 8  on Nagasaki Day, and they were all on this week.  And 

 9  I didn't understand how it was possible -- I didn't 

10  believe myself that I remembered the date correctly, 

11  and I had to go check with my coworkers, but I was 

12  right, it is August 9th that we dropped the bomb 61 

13  years ago on Nagasaki, Japan.  And I realize that -- 

14  is it just that you didn't know, or were you just 

15  unaware of the history to the point where you would 

16  schedule a hearing for this date?  Because that's how 

17  it felt to me.  I mean, it couldn't be blatant 

18  disrespect.  But it seemed as though it was just not 

19  being aware of the history, which is something that I 

20  felt while reading the document.  Because you don't 

21  tell me what any of these things are, and I'm sorry 

22  that I'm not addressing the crowd.  I really want to 

23  take this opportunity to discuss my frustrations with 

24  the people who are present here.  And it's just that 

25  you don't tell me what these experiments are.  I don't 

                                                               51

 1  understand what a criticality test is in support of, 

 2  what dynamic experiments are, why you are detonating 

 3  depleted uranium in the open air.  I don't understand 

 4  this when I'm reading this.  And I would really like 

 5  to ask the purpose of these experiments that is 

 6  included.  And I think that that might help address 

 7  some of this lack of awareness that I saw in the 

 8  scheduling of the hearing.  

 9           But then again, I mean, I started to think, 

10  maybe someone did know, and maybe this was sort of a 

11  way to open up a conversation about the historical 

12  impacts of our nuclear weapons production and to 

13  really bring in remembrance and recognition of what we 

14  have done into this discussion -- into this discussed 

15  proposed activities.  And I think that that would be a 

16  really positive thing, if that's the way that this 

17  meeting was going.

18           However, I don't know, because when I came 

19  yesterday and I started to talk to some of the people, 

20  who were running the hearings, and I asked whether or 

21  not, you know, Nagasaki Day was going to be addressed 

22  today, I was told with a raised eyebrow, it's ironic, 

23  isn't it?  And I thought, well, yes, it is.  But it's 

24  also not like that.  It's serious as well.  And I was 

25  given the impression that it be would addressed in an 

                                                               52

 1  official way, that there would be some official 

 2  recognition of the day.  However, coming in today I 

 3  asked about this again, and I was told that that might 

 4  be a violation of the separation between church and 

 5  state.  And I personally feel disrespected by that 

 6  comment.  And I actually felt disrespected by a lot of 

 7  things in this process.

 8           I felt disrespected by the fact that the 

 9  comment period began before I received the document, 

10  and I do work for an organization which is -- you 

11  know, we should have received it before the comment 

12  period began.  And I felt disrespected by the fact 

13  that I consistently am unable to get the background 

14  documents, the scientific foundation.  In fact, the 

15  first time I opened the SWEIS, I opened to the seismic 

16  page, and I couldn't believe that the 2006 seismic 

17  study is due to be released this year, but was not 

18  included in the SWEIS.  You didn't wait to release 

19  this document until that study was put out.

20           And I can't understand why that is.  I just 

21  don't -- I don't understand why that would be -- 

22  likewise the area of risk assessment, I understand 

23  that this document has been requested since the Cerro 

24  Grande fire, which burned over Area G, the low level 

25  nuclear waste dump at the lab, an historic waste dump 

                                                               53

 1  that has all kinds of other stuff, including barrels 

 2  of transuranic waste sitting above ground in canvas 

 3  tents.  That assessment, we have been waiting for it.  

 4  It has yet to come out.  And you say in the SWEIS that 

 5  it's going to come out in 2006.  Again, this is a 

 6  serious site.  I don't understand why it's not in the 

 7  document.

 8           Likewise, I cannot understand how this 

 9  health studies are based on the ATSDR report, which is 

10  a report that the EPA has rejected.  I don't see why 

11  that would be included with the EPA telling you that 

12  this risk assessment needs to be redone, why continue 

13  using it?  I would actually really like this addressed 

14  in this SWEIS.  I don't understand why these things 

15  aren't being done.

16           And I would also, then -- so to go back, 

17  ADS, sort of like, maybe the hearings are scheduled on 

18  this day as a way to bring out, you know, the 

19  historical implications of Los Alamos National 

20  Laboratory, you know, to bring that into the 

21  discussion, to actually to give our voices the sort of 

22  the import of a conscience, which I don't feel is in 

23  this document.

24           I would like to go back to the fact that 

25  these are -- these hearings are during the time in 

                                                               54

 1  preparation of the days of the pueblo feast days.  

 2  There are 15 of the Northern New Mexico Pueblos within 

 3  a 15-mile radius.  This is unacceptable for you to do 

 4  that.

 5           So if there is some level of wanting to have 

 6  voices heard, why is it only our voices?  Why is it 

 7  only my voice and not everyone's voice, and everyone 

 8  who is impacted?  And I think it's just not the 

 9  pueblos.  There's a lot of people in this area who 

10  should be considered.

11           Thank you.

12           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

13           Sheryl Kotowski?  

14           MS. SHERYL KOTOWSKI:  My name is Sherry 

15  Kotowski, and the first thing I want to do is hand 

16  these letters to Elizabeth Withers on behalf of some 

17  people that couldn't make it to the hearing tonight, 

18  and these are the letters that request the comment 

19  period remain open until such time as the new public 

20  health assessment, the seismic report and the risk 

21  assessment for Area G has been released.  And so I 

22  would like for Elizabeth to sign in receipt for 

23  these.  

24           And one of the things -- let's see.  

25           First, I want to thank -- I want to thank 

                                                               55

 1  the DOE for giving me five minutes to make a public 

 2  statement on a 1,500 page document that was released 

 3  30 days ago or that was released -- yes, 30 days ago, 

 4  and my copy happened to go missing in the postal 

 5  system, so I didn't get it until 15 days ago.

 6           And the first thing I actually want to 

 7  really address is the real environmental impact of a 

 8  plutonium pit.  One plutonium pit destroyed Nagasaki 

 9  in less than a second, and so I shouldn't be 

10  complaining about having only five minutes to discuss 

11  this document because that's very -- that's the true 

12  environmental impact, and that is absolutely not 

13  addressed in the SWEIS, and I haven't had a chance to 

14  read it cover to cover, but it has not been addressed.

15           There are so many things to say.  It's -- 

16  it's just incredible that we get five minutes, and we 

17  get a 15-day extension to review documents that aren't 

18  available.  And one of the questions I have for the 

19  DOE is that if those -- the Agency for Toxic 

20  Substances Disease Registry Report is going to be 

21  available in 15 days?  If the Seismic Report is going 

22  to be available in 15 days?  And if the Risk 

23  Assessment for Area G is going to be available in 15 

24  days?

25           The next issue I really want to address is 

                                                               56

 1  water.  Water.  We live in an arid climate.  Water is 

 2  precious to us.  With this proposed increase of 

 3  expansion of nuclear weapons production at the 

 4  laboratory, the laboratory already uses and dumps 500 

 5  acre feet of water per year down into the canyons, and 

 6  this is water -- this is pristine water pumped up from 

 7  the aquifer.  It's used, it's defiled to make nuclear 

 8  weapons.  It's dumped into the canyons as industrial 

 9  wastewater.  It's not even cleaned up to human -- 

10  human health standards or environmental health 

11  standards.

12           With the increased pit production, it will 

13  go up to 822 acre feet per year of wastewater being 

14  dumped into the canyon systems.  And so you have an 

15  understanding of how much water that is, I live in a 

16  very small community in Northern New Mexico, an 

17  agricultural community, and we use -- we're allotted 

18  37 acre feet of water a year.  It's a community of 

19  about 2,500 people, so that's a 20-year water supply 

20  for our community.

21           Then the next thing I was thinking about 

22  when I looked at the Rio Grande and I think about the 

23  diversion project, the drinking water diversion 

24  project in Albuquerque -- by the way, Albuquerque 

25  doesn't even have a public hearing, and we're talking 

                                                               57

 1  about their wastewater.  It's the largest metropolis 

 2  in the state of New Mexico, less than 60 miles away, 

 3  and they don't have a public hearing in Albuquerque.  

 4  But anyway, so I was looking at the Rio Grande, and 

 5  I'm thinking -- I mean, I live -- I live less than a 

 6  mile from the banks of the Rio Grande in the Embudo 

 7  Valley, in the Rio Grande Gorge, and how is this much 

 8  water going to be -- how can it sustain that 

 9  population?  And then I thought about it, and it's 

10  why -- Santa Fe and Albuquerque are going to be 

11  drinking Los Alamos industrial wastewater.  It's 

12  absolutely unacceptable to -- for us to drink 

13  somebody's wastewater.  And on top of it, they have to 

14  clean it themselves.  It's not even -- it's not even 

15  the DOE that's paying for the water to be cleaned to 

16  human drinking water standards.

17           Constantly -- and this is not just about 

18  money, it's about life, it's about integrity, but it 

19  keeps going back to, they are taking our money and 

20  running with it, and not doing anything to help any of 

21  our communities.  And we need to just say you can't do 

22  this.  You have to put this back into our schools.  

23  You have to put this back into vitality, into life.

24           One of the things in the SWEIS, you have 

25  three alternatives.  There is no green alternative.  

                                                               58

 1  You know, someone, an elected official was telling me 

 2  today that you know, LANL is the crown jewel of New 

 3  Mexico, and that -- and that they are putting all of 

 4  this money into researching alternative sustainable 

 5  energy, and that is absolutely not the truth.  There 

 6  is no green alternative and that's what we want.  If 

 7  LANL is going to be taking our money and spending it 

 8  on something, we want them to be creating a healthy 

 9  environment for us.  We don't want them destroying our 

10  lives and destroying our water and everything we stand 

11  for.  Thank you.

12           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

13           Clarissa Duran.  

14           MS. CLARISSA DURAN:  First of all, I just 

15  want to say hi to everybody, all my friends and all my 

16  new friends.  And we're all here in Espanola, which is 

17  the place where we know how to behave and misbehave.  

18  So, for those of you who are going to speak and those 

19  of you who aren't going to speak, like my mom, who 

20  didn't sign up to speak but should have, because she 

21  has been a teacher here in this valley for over 30 

22  years.  I want to hear everybody who doesn't want the 

23  pits to come to Los Alamos, to be built in Los Alamos, 

24  to let the people know who are going to listen to this 

25  CD and maybe understand, maybe not understand, let me 

                                                               59

 1  hear you say yes or no.  Do you want them?

 2           FROM THE FLOOR:  No.

 3           MS. CLARISSA DURAN:  All right.  That's what 

 4  you have got to know, the people who are going to 

 5  listen to this, and in Espanola we're a strong people 

 6  and we're not just going to lie down and take what 

 7  you're trying to give us, because that's a bunch of 

 8  BS.  A lot of people are coming up here and they're 

 9  telling me where they're from, and I'm going to tell 

10  you that my people have been here for over 10,000 

11  years, my great-great-great-grandmothers were from San 

12  Juan Pueblo and from Picuris Pueblo, and that my 

13  Spanish family has been here for over 400 years and we 

14  have survived a lot of things, and we're going to 

15  survive this, too, because we are not going to let you 

16  do this.  We're not going to let you do this to us and 

17  we're not going to let you do this to our children, 

18  because I'll tell you this.  If all the people who 

19  were here really believed that this was their home, 

20  the people who want to do this, you wouldn't be doing 

21  this because you know what?  Maybe you are here, maybe 

22  your children are even going to grow up here, but what 

23  about your grandchildren?  My grandchildren are going 

24  to grow up here.  And the generations on and on and 

25  on, and I want to leave them the same beautiful place 

                                                               60

 1  that I wake up to every single morning.

 2           When I lived in Las Cruces for seven years 

 3  every morning I got up and I cried because I couldn't 

 4  see my Sangre de Cristos, because I couldn't see the 

 5  Jemez mountains, and because I couldn't see my people, 

 6  all of you beautiful people who are out there sitting 

 7  in this audience, and all the people who are sitting 

 8  at home because they're tired because they worked, or 

 9  maybe they are at their second job so that they can 

10  afford cars and they can afford the computers and they 

11  can afford all those things that the American -- 

12  American people, that the United States says we need 

13  to have in order to function in this country.  And you 

14  know that's not true.  And the people who are 

15  listening to this, you know that's not true.  But this 

16  is a way to enslave us, and that's what Espanola is.  

17  Make no mistake.  We know we're your bedroom 

18  community.  We know you have been testing out viruses 

19  on us, because we get sick, and then you find out what 

20  it's all about by checking out our hospital 

21  statistics.  We know that.  And we know about the chem 

22  trails that you are pouring over us.  And why, why are 

23  there so many children right here in the west side who 

24  have died of leukemia because of this spill that has 

25  never been cleaned up.

                                                               61

 1           When I was a student here at Northern we had 

 2  a lot of people come and talk to us, and tell us, oh, 

 3  this is what we're going to do about the spill.  And 

 4  you know what?  I don't believe -- I didn't believe 

 5  that then, and I don't believe this now.  And I don't 

 6  think anybody in this audience does, either.

 7           So, for all the people who are sitting here 

 8  tonight and all the people who are sitting at home 

 9  because they are tired because they worked all day and 

10  they have to be home and be with their children, I am 

11  standing up for them tonight and I will stand up for 

12  them for the rest of my life.  And what I have to say 

13  to you is no.

14           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

15           Marilyn Hoff?

16           MS. MARILYN HOFF:  I have questions, but I'm 

17  going to have to submit them later because of this 

18  time constraint we have.

19           My first comment on the draft SWEIS for Los 

20  Alamos is a protest on the range of alternatives the 

21  public is asked to choose between.  The no change 

22  alternative, the expanded alternative, even the 20 

23  percent reduced alternative each represents business 

24  as usual at LANL, and LANL's business as usual kills.  

25  Each alternative would continue to manufacture 

                                                               62

 1  plutonium pits in a push to restart a nuclear arms 

 2  race, raking in huge taxpayer-subsidized profit at the 

 3  expense of the safety of downwinders and the stability 

 4  of the volatile international political climate.  Even 

 5  with no change, LANL would continue to explode over 

 6  four tons of depleted uranium into the atmosphere 

 7  during procedures euphemistically described in the 

 8  SWEIS as expanding in dynamic or hydrodynamic test.  

 9  All of those euphemisms mean explode.

10           After the first Gulf War, LANL enamored of 

11  the murderous possibilities of dehumanisance, 

12  advocated garnering proponency of the U.S. depleted 

13  uranium arsenal in argument against environmental 

14  concerns.  So it comes as no surprise that LANL would 

15  downplay the dangers of depleted uranium while at 

16  Technical Area 15 LANL weapons designers explode tons 

17  of depleted uranium in so-called hydroshots or 

18  hydrodynamic tests DART and Building 306, during which 

19  DU substitutes for plutonium in mock nuclear 

20  explosions.

21           LANL postures that these 100 major mock 

22  nuclear tests per year primarily for stockpile 

23  stewardship.  Even as Linton Brooks eagerly promotes 

24  new generations of usable nukes, nuclear bunker 

25  busters and many nukes -- and nuclear bunker busters 

                                                               63

 1  is what George Bush is lusting to drop on Iran -- the 

 2  DART record of decision so that DART explosions could 

 3  prove useful in the design of nuclear weapons, and 

 4  coincidentally, a new nuclear bunker buster has 

 5  entered the U.S. arsenal during the regime of 

 6  so-called stockpile stewardship.  According to a 

 7  Brookhaven report, 220,000 pounds of depleted uranium 

 8  munitions were exploded at LANL prior to 1999.  This 

 9  is the nonnuclear, but certainly radioactive range of 

10  unlivable and sickening our own soldiers.

11           Does this SWEIS even tabulate the munitions 

12  currently exploded by the Department of Defense at 

13  LANL?  Does the exemption of DOD munitions test from 

14  oversight by any other governmental body, thanks to 

15  the military munitions rule, mean that these 

16  explosions, probably taking place at TA-36, go 

17  unaccounted in the SWEIS?  Or do the 2,600 pounds per 

18  year of depleted uranium allotted to TA-36 go to the 

19  Department of Defense munitions tests?

20           The so-called expenditure of depleted 

21  uranium munitions closely resembles the description of 

22  a war crime.  Namely, that it kills indiscriminately, 

23  that it kills for generations to come, a crime LANL 

24  perpetrates on the pueblos, villages, towns and cities 

25  of New Mexico.

                                                               64

 1           The good news is that the expenditure of 

 2  LANL doesn't apparently increase in the expanded 

 3  alternative.  The bad news is that it is being 

 4  exploded in enormous amounts already, as I said, four 

 5  times per year.

 6           According to physicist Marian Falk, such 

 7  explosions proceedings nanoparticles of uranium oxides 

 8  and nitrides as essentially weightless as air, upon 

 9  whose whims it can travel the world over.

10           When inhaled, these radioactive poisonous 

11  heavy metal uranium particles can travel anywhere in 

12  the body, causing among various other illnesses, 

13  cancers and birth deformities.  These DU explosions 

14  that they power the nuclear arms race, also drive the 

15  worst abomination of this current SWEIS proposal to 

16  quadruple LANL's production of plutonium pits, the 

17  core of nuclear weapons.  These many pits contradict  

18  the claim of stockpile stewardship as manned solely to 

19  maintain the aging nuclear arsenal.

20           LANL's costly building projects gets 

21  increased activities, it's stepped up machining of the 

22  world's most dangerous element, plutonium, to make the 

23  world's most devastating weapon, is a nuclear chain 

24  reaction of greed.  And as I understand it, plutonium 

25  is being extracted from spent fuel rods.  Spent fuel 

                                                               65

 1  rods is a veritable definition of remote-handled 

 2  waste.  Remote-handled waste by definition means you 

 3  must not come near it.  It will kill you.

 4           Then probably what is happening is that the 

 5  depleted uranium after the plutonium has been 

 6  extracted, is being extracted from this spent nuclear 

 7  waste, from our nuclear reactions, and that's why 

 8  these contaminants are being found up in the fruits in 

 9  Ojo Sarco, and the various contaminants that are in 

10  spent nuclear waste are probably being exploded in 

11  contaminated so-called depleted uranium.

12           Exploding DU at DART leads to new nuclear 

13  weapons designs, leading to manufacture of more 

14  plutonium pits, leading to a ballooning of radioactive 

15  and hazardous waste production, waste pollution, even 

16  as LANL fails to clean up the mess it has already 

17  made, and has no solution for the deadly mess it plans 

18  to make, and increasingly wants to ship it onto New 

19  Mexico's treacherous highways to poison the unstable 

20  chambers of WIPP.

21           The unlisted alternative that I would choose 

22  for my own cause was a discontinuation of DU 

23  explosions of any kind, of the cessation of any 

24  efforts to test or design new nuclear weapons, the 

25  total dismantling, in cooperation with other nuclear 

                                                               66

 1  nations of the world, of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and 

 2  a thorough cleanup of LANL, returning it to 

 3  environmental livability.

 4           Greenhouse gasses, global warning, 

 5  alternative fuels, there are plenty of ethical ways to 

 6  do science at LANL.  None of the alternatives listed 

 7  in the SWEIS are in any way beneficial to life on 

 8  earth.  Thank you.

 9           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Jeanne Green?

10           MS. JEANNE GREEN:  It's Jeanne.

11           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  I'm sorry.

12           MS. JEANNE GREENE:  That's okay.

13           We have more, many not nuclear weapons to 

14  destroy the planet.  Bechtel is in this profit at the 

15  detriment of us all.  The SWEIS document does not 

16  provide an acceptable alternative to ensure safety of 

17  the public.  LANL should not be allowed to increase 

18  plutonium pit production or any additional munitions 

19  production when it has not dealt with the massive 

20  amounts of radioactive, chemical and heavy metal 

21  wastes already on site, and continuing to be released 

22  into the air, water and soil in New Mexico.

23           Independent monitoring of contamination has 

24  shown americium 241 in plums at Llano.  Also found in 

25  the soils were plutonium, strontium 90, cesium 137.  

                                                               67

 1  Depleted uranium is not even mentioned in the study.  

 2           Also above normal levels in local soils, 

 3  beryllium, cadmium, cobalt, mercury and lead.  LANL's 

 4  streams are contaminated with PCBs, gross alpha, and 

 5  selenium.  Radioactive waste enough to fill 9,000 

 6  Olympic-sized pools is sitting aboveground in canvas 

 7  tents, just ready for the next wildfire, earthquake or 

 8  terrorist to come along.  We must take advantage of 

 9  the tremendous amount of technical expertise available 

10  at LANL and change its mission to research and 

11  development of sustainable alternatives towards energy 

12  independence from foreign oil.  This will seriously 

13  reduce the need for weapons for current and future 

14  wars.

15           My recommendations are to implement full 

16  cleanup of the major waste sites at LANL and refrain 

17  from generating any more toxic waste.  No, no, no new 

18  nuclear bomb factory.

19           The NMED LANL consent order for cleanup 

20  should be mandatory and immediate, not tied to 

21  increased weapons activity or plutonium pit 

22  production.  DOE must adopt the removal option for all 

23  cleanup activities and apply the most recent water 

24  quality standards and current impaired stream 

25  information.

                                                               68

 1           It is not acceptable to be exploding 

 2  depleted uranium with explosives in the open air.  

 3  This must stop.  New Mexicans cannot be considered 

 4  collateral damage in an eternal war against 

 5  terrorism.  DOE must institute a program to stop all 

 6  toxic air pollutant emissions from LANL facilities.

 7           Also, it is a grave oversight to omit the 

 8  2006 seismic hazard study information in planning for 

 9  future building.  DOE must make permanent disposal of 

10  existing waste a priority rather than expanding 

11  operations to generate more toxic and radioactive 

12  waste.

13           LANL's mission should be pro-life instead of 

14  pro-death, sustainable energy alternatives instead of 

15  weapons of mass destruction.  Thank you.

16           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

17           Cliff Bain?

18           Nobody seems to want to use that microphone.

19           MR. CLIFF BANE:  My name is Cliff Bain and I 

20  live in Arroyo Hondo, Taos County.  Even if the 

21  weapons production activity of Los Alamos and dozens 

22  of other sites could be made perfectly safe and not 

23  threaten the environment and the people and the 

24  animals and the bees of Northern New Mexico, it would 

25  still be a crime against humanity, against nature.  

                                                               69

 1  These weapons have only one purpose, and they have 

 2  always had only one purpose, and that is world 

 3  domination by this government for economic and 

 4  military purposes.  And that makes my family and 

 5  everybody else on this planet immensely unsafe.

 6           I am threatened, we are all threatened 

 7  because this psychotic fantasy of world domination is 

 8  going to lead to the proliferation of these weapons.  

 9  Our threat will increase the rage and anger against 

10  our people, ourselves.  There will be resistance, as 

11  we see across the world right now.  The invincibility 

12  of the United States, the invincibility of the Israeli 

13  military is a fallacy.  We will reap the holocaust, 

14  and when it comes home to us are we going to feel safe 

15  because of some homeland security?

16           There is no defense in these policies.  This 

17  is madness, it is domination, and the fallacy of -- of 

18  that -- the notion that we can dominate is delivered 

19  to us every day as we watch the carnage across this 

20  planet.  The only thing that insulates us right now 

21  is, you know, a couple of oceans.  But how long will 

22  that be, you know, whether it is a car bomb, or a 

23  suitcase bomb or something else, when it comes to us, 

24  we deserve it.

25           We have tolerated for 60 years our boot 

                                                               70

 1  being put on the neck of the world.  And I am just 

 2  absolutely stunned that the people that work at Los 

 3  Alamos can maintain the level of denial that allows 

 4  them to sleep, that allows them to go to work.  I am 

 5  stunned that we as citizens of this country can keep 

 6  paying the taxes that make this happen.  You know, 

 7  it's going to stop someday.  I don't know if it will 

 8  stop when we wake up and decide that there is a path 

 9  of cooperation of the sharing of resources, the 

10  putting of the intelligence of the human race to, 

11  perhaps, letting beings on this planet survive instead 

12  of die off in these -- this holocaust that we have 

13  designed and implemented.  I don't know how it's going 

14  to end but, I know that we, as citizens of this 

15  country, have more power to turn things around than 

16  any other people on this planet and we are not doing 

17  it.

18           I just ask all of you who work at Los 

19  Alamos -- you know, so many people have said you 

20  understand what's going on.  Well, you know, think 

21  clearly about what you're doing.  Think clearly about 

22  where your life's work is, and think about your 

23  grandchildren, think about the children in Lebanon and 

24  Iraq and Iran, every other place that is responding to 

25  our aggression, responding to our threats by trying to 

                                                               71

 1  maintain their culture any way they can.

 2           You know, we all have to wake up and I hope 

 3  we do it soon.  And we're going to get some help from 

 4  around the world, because if we continue with these 

 5  policies, the shock and the awe is going to come home.

 6           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 7           Shannyn Sollitt.  

 8           MS. SHANNYN SOLLITT:  Hello.  Here I stand.  

 9  It feels like another exercise in futility.  I have 

10  stood before microphones for years and years and 

11  years, opposing all of the activities coming from the 

12  crown jewel, Los Alamos.  It is so wonderful to see 

13  young people here, and I am really grateful that the 

14  students from the University of California have 

15  brought their consciousness and awareness that this is 

16  an educational institution that is dedicated now to 

17  creating weapons of mass destruction.  What has 

18  happened to our society?  What has happened to our 

19  world when our educational institutions condone this 

20  kind of activity?  It's truly sick.

21           I -- I don't live in Espanola anymore, but 

22  at the time I did live in Espanola I designed this 

23  logo because I understood that LANL was going to 

24  expand its nuclear weapons production activities.  

25  That was ten years ago, nine years ago.  This logo I 

                                                               72

 1  designed in the Santa Cruz River Valley, and it is a 

 2  prayer for peace, uniting many, many spiritual paths 

 3  of peace that are actually related to this particular 

 4  bioregion.  The prayer is to transform the 

 5  laboratories creating weapons of mass destruction into 

 6  institutions that engage only in life affirming 

 7  research and development.

 8           And I stand and I hold this prayer 

 9  constantly.  It's my, like, way of walking through the 

10  world.  And when I designed this logo and held that 

11  prayer, I was holding that prayer first for the people 

12  who live here.  I could walk up outside of my house 

13  and look down the Santa Cruz River Valley and see all 

14  the farms, and drive down the road and see the people 

15  selling their vegetables, and go to the farmers market 

16  and really understand what it is to be in an agrarian 

17  society where all of the life is dependent upon the 

18  earth.

19           And then up there, on the hill, they are 

20  putting a facility that can contaminate the entire 

21  earth.  And it's up the hill.  It's upstream.  It's 

22  upwind.  When the fires happened several years ago all 

23  of the smoke came down here and contaminated the 

24  people and the land and the food.  Where is the 

25  respect?

                                                               73

 1           And so we can look at the Site-wide 

 2  Environmental Impact Statement and say, oh, this isn't 

 3  there and this isn't there and this isn't there, and I 

 4  haven't really looked at it because it's so obvious to 

 5  me that you don't put a nuclear weapons production 

 6  facility at the top of a mountain.  What are you 

 7  thinking?  If you are going to put a facility 

 8  somewhere, put it down where you are going to dump the 

 9  waste.  And I don't think you should put one 

10  anywhere.  It is time to wake up to peace, or we as a 

11  species are going to be annihilated.

12           So, as part of the Los Alamos Peace Project 

13  idea I have created this postcard for you to send to 

14  your legislators.  Essentially, it says that we have 

15  already 23,000 nuclear pits.  23,000 nuclear pits.  

16  Now we have to make new pits?  Hum, that sounds like 

17  we are proliferating nuclear weapons.  And the 

18  proliferation of nuclear weapons stands in direct 

19  contradiction to the nonproliferation treaty that the 

20  United States ratified in 1970.

21           And nuclear weapons are -- and this treaty, 

22  as we are proliferating them, is an absolute against 

23  our constitution which says that all treaties are 

24  considered to be the law of the land.  And any 

25  legislator who is voting to spend the money to 

                                                               74

 1  proliferate nuclear weapons is in violation of his or 

 2  her oath of office.  And essentially this is what this 

 3  card says, that we are aware that you are not 

 4  upholding your oath of office and, therefore, it is an 

 5  impeachable offense.

 6           So, I make a request that all of the people 

 7  who are here, who are standing against this 

 8  insanity -- you can call it nothing less than 

 9  insanity -- that we all kind of, if we can, at the end 

10  of this to gather up and hold our energy together, 

11  because this force that we are up against is the 

12  darkest side of the human soul.  It is like the 

13  darkest side of the human soul that has taken over our 

14  entire government, and we need to revolt against it 

15  because it is revolting.

16           And I am a velvet revolutionary.  That means 

17  I only stand with love.  And so, I just ask that we 

18  all, if we can, gather up our forces and come 

19  together.  I have gone to this hearing in Los Alamos.  

20  I am going to go again in Santa Fe.  And I have 17,000 

21  -- 18,000 of these cards that we need to get to our 

22  legislators to let them know that, you know, the buck 

23  doesn't stop up there.  It stops with their allocation 

24  of the funding for this.  I love you all.

25           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

                                                               75

 1           Diane Gledhill?

 2           MS. DIANE GLEDHILL:  We're a fairly small 

 3  group here tonight, but I want to let those people out 

 4  there, people know, people that are going to listen to 

 5  these and respond to these hearings, I am just one 

 6  person.  I can tell you I represent Los Alamos Study 

 7  Group.  I represent Embudo Pods.  I represent the 

 8  Democracy Network.  I represent Action Coalition of 

 9  Taos.  That's just a handful of folks up north.  The 

10  people gathered in this room tonight represent people 

11  all over the United States who do not want to see the 

12  continuation of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.  

13  We are only a handful.

14           I want to add to that that I represent the 

15  hundreds of people that came to the courthouse in Taos 

16  asking for a resolution for -- following a nuclear 

17  nonproliferation treaty, and I represent the people 

18  who went to the government in Madrid and got a 

19  resolution for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, 

20  people who are all over our state who are not here 

21  tonight.  How many thousands of people, Greg Mello, 

22  signed onto the call for non?  How many?

23           MR. GREG MELLO:  More than 3,000 

24  individuals, more than 100 New Mexico organizations, 2 

25  New Mexico cities.  There's, I think, about 400 New 

                                                               76

 1  Mexico businesses.  All of them requested the end to 

 2  pit production.

 3           MS. DIANE GLEDHILL:  And I'll just add to 

 4  that, I spoke to 70 businesses in Taos who are willing 

 5  to sign on -- very few people questioning it, except 

 6  those people who are particularly concerned about the 

 7  livelihoods of New Mexicans, and I'm about to -- I 

 8  have a little problem here.

 9           I came in the door tonight and I was offered 

10  the EIS.  It was like this.  The EIS, it's huge, a 

11  huge document.  And I ask you, did anybody in this 

12  room read it from cover to cover?  And if you did, 

13  having closed the last page and gone to bed, did you 

14  put your head on the pillow and say, ah, all is well?

15           No flood, no fire, no geologic event, no 

16  terrorist, no jackpot crazy person is going to cause a 

17  problem.  It's all under control.

18           You see, the problem with the EIS -- and the 

19  reason I am not even going to look at it and I don't 

20  want a copy is, there's a lot of scientific 

21  intelligence, there's a lot of analysis, there's a lot 

22  of education, but I don't see a section on wisdom.  

23  Why doesn't an EIS of this magnitude seek out the 

24  people who hold the wisdom in this world, the leaders 

25  in our time of spirituality and the wisdom for future 

                                                               77

 1  generations?  But I don't see a section on wisdom.

 2           And my wisdom says we don't need an IRS -- 

 3  an EIS to accomplish that type of faith.  You need an 

 4  act of faith to believe that this is safe.  We need an 

 5  act of faith, and I don't have it, and it's good that 

 6  I don't, because I think everybody here tonight, 

 7  basically whether you have the technology and the 

 8  education to understand an EIS, you don't believe it.  

 9  You don't believe it's a safe thing and a good thing.

10           I have several points that haven't been 

11  brought up that I would like to say I also believe 

12  should be a part of an EIS.  It's an Environmental 

13  Impact Statement.  That isn't just water and air, my 

14  friends.  That's how you feel in your heart.  And 

15  that's whether you maybe feel oppressed and helpless 

16  because you know the decisions were made before you 

17  came to this room.

18           It's an environment, it's about issues that 

19  make us feel helpless, it's about issues that make us 

20  feel abused and used.  And I would like to comment on 

21  a couple of them.  Inequalities, and I would like the 

22  EIS to address and see if they can rectify some 

23  inequalities in this system.  The men who make these 

24  policy decisions are the same people who have 

25  everything to gain by their implementation.  They are 

                                                               78

 1  in an industry of power and wealth that feeds on 

 2  further funding and further weaponry and another and 

 3  another and another.  We don't get to be present 

 4  during those decisions.  We get to write letters to 

 5  the editor and maybe a letter to your Congressman.

 6           I was outraged to learn that, and I might 

 7  have the name wrong because I didn't get to look at 

 8  some of the facts and figures I have known over time, 

 9  but I think his name is Mr. Robinson, head of Sandia; 

10  am I right?  Mr. Robinson had the ear of legislators 

11  when he opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and 

12  Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and at the same time 

13  he was the head of Sandia Labs and he was in the 

14  process of joining with Lockheed to get a bid to also 

15  head up Los Alamos.  Now you ask me if that's not a 

16  fox in the hen house.  Why does Mr. Robinson get the 

17  ear of our legislators and it's so hard for us to be 

18  heard.  I want an EIS that addresses inequality.

19           Second inequality.  I want an EIS that'S 

20  going to tell us before this starts why it is the 

21  small New Mexico Environmental Department is the sole 

22  small finance agency to defend our -- our health and 

23  the cleanliness of our environment against such 

24  Goliaths as the Department of Energy, University of 

25  California, now Bechtel?  How many entire New Mexico 

                                                               79

 1  budgets probably fit within the Bechtel budget?

 2           One of the, and only one, and again I'm not 

 3  going to give you specifics, but can I tell you when 

 4  the New Mexico Department of -- Environmental 

 5  Department gets onto something, then, boy, they are 

 6  just bombed with lawsuits and they keep us tied up in 

 7  court for years and years and years.  And that's 

 8  inequality.  They have so much money to counter any of 

 9  the people who are using their scientific and 

10  educational expertise to try to keep our environment 

11  safe, not that I feel that's the main issue.

12           Third inequality, why is it that Los Alamos 

13  County is one of the top and richest counties in the 

14  United States and right next door, Rio Arriba is one 

15  of the poorest?  Defense spending goes up and up and 

16  up in the state of New Mexico and has for a number of 

17  years, and our rating is one of the poorest country -- 

18  poorest of the states in this United States has 

19  remained the same, right down at the bottom with just 

20  small fluctuations.

21           Our representatives would have us believe 

22  that the military operations in this state, and most 

23  certainly Sandia and Los Alamos labs, are helping us 

24  financially, and that is a myth.  And I am not the 

25  person to go into the details of it, but I think it 

                                                               80

 1  speaks for ourselves that although the spending goes 

 2  up we are not seeing it, and Rio Arriba County where 

 3  probably the greatest proportion of people are earning 

 4  their money at Los Alamos labs live, is just the 

 5  epitome of poverty, the highest drug rates, the 

 6  highest suicide by teenagers, the highest child 

 7  mortality -- you name it, we got it, including a 

 8  suffering educational system.

 9           There are a myriad of things that surround 

10  this operation that are not always clear to the eye of 

11  the beholder, and it is terribly important that the 

12  Dominici and Bingaman and Richardson and Udall 

13  understand that the military complex and Sandia and 

14  Los Alamos are not helping us financially.  And if 

15  they don't know that, boy, we got a lot of information 

16  to let them know.

17           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Ma'am, can I ask 

18  you to wrap up?  

19           MS. DIANE GLEDHILL:  My quick wrapup is, we 

20  cannot be a state that pursues sustainability and 

21  simultaneously create the most destructive weapons in 

22  the world.  And I want to say, we are in Rome, the 

23  fires are burning, the fires of resource depletion and 

24  the fires of global warming, and are we going to play 

25  violin and keep piling weapons on or are we going to 

                                                               81

 1  direct our attention to those problems, and thank you.

 2           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 3           Harvey Frauenglass?  Am I pronouncing it 

 4  right?  You will correct me if I didn't.

 5           MR. HARVEY FRAUENGLASS:  Close enough.  

 6  Close enough.

 7           We're dealing with a great technological 

 8  lab, but we have a little problem with microphones and 

 9  stuff like that.

10           My name is Harvey Frauenglass, and Diane is 

11  a hard act to follow, and so are those wonderful 

12  people from California, the students, and so is Carol 

13  Miller.  And I want you to know I voted for you when 

14  you were running for representative.

15           I worked for 13 years at the DOE labs in New 

16  Mexico, Sandia and Los Alamos.  And for the last 25 

17  years I have been doing penance as a farmer.  But what 

18  I want to say, whereas I agree with most -- with the 

19  feeling and most of the things that the people here 

20  have said, there's another side to Los Alamos that we 

21  need to think about.  I'm not talking about the 

22  weapons production side.  But there's another side 

23  that if we had maintained the original name of Los 

24  Alamos, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, we would be 

25  in a lot better position now.

                                                               82

 1           And I am going to conclude, tell you what my 

 2  conclusion is right now before I get into the 

 3  specifics.  I think Los Alamos should be renamed Los 

 4  Alamos National Research Laboratory, not Los Alamos 

 5  bomb factory.

 6           Right now we have laughed, and rightly so, 

 7  when people call Los Alamos the crown jewel of New 

 8  Mexico, of New Mexico research.  But that, perhaps is 

 9  overdoing it.  Yet, I would like to point out some of 

10  the things that should be encouraged and should be 

11  funded at Los Alamos that are happening right now, 

12  that perhaps the people who put this EIS together 

13  didn't even know about.  And these are the kind of 

14  things that if we shift the emphasis and put money 

15  into that, we would be in a lot better place.

16           For example, the National Science 

17  Foundation's primary climate change computer code is 

18  done at Boulder, Colorado at the National Center for 

19  Atmospheric Research, which sound right.  But what we 

20  don't know is that one half of that project is done at 

21  Los Alamos.  They have the expertise to predict the 

22  oceanic changes and the changes in ice melting that is 

23  worldwide.  That this is a center right here for 

24  that.  This is the kind of thing that goes -- that 

25  happens at Los Alamos that we don't even know about.

                                                               83

 1           Another example.  Los Alamos scientists have 

 2  developed codes that are capable of following a 

 3  million autos in large cities, city centers such as 

 4  Dallas, Texas.

 5           They also have the capability and they are 

 6  just not doing enough in this, but they have the 

 7  capability of understanding the complexity of our 

 8  national electric grid, which is in very sad shape.  

 9  It is so interrelated that it defies the mind.  If 

10  something happens in Oswego and that goes down, and it 

11  goes down in Biloxi, and this is a national security 

12  risk probably far greater than someone dropping or 

13  doing a bomb or doing something like that.  Terrorists 

14  could knock out the grid and we're out of production 

15  or we're out of everything for weeks, the whole 

16  country.  Los Alamos has the capability and they are 

17  working on that, on understanding how you get the grid 

18  to work, what improvements, and these are very complex 

19  technical things.  They can do it.  They have got 

20  people there, scientists who are working on that right 

21  now.

22           Another example, we have heard about avian 

23  bird flu, and we have heard about HIV and similar 

24  threats of global pandemics which are capable of 

25  killing millions of people everywhere.  Because it 

                                                               84

 1  takes time to develop vaccines, and distribute them, 

 2  it's essential to limit the spread of these diseases.  

 3  Los Alamos currently has the capability to simulate 

 4  the global spread of such pandemics and how we can 

 5  then deal with them.

 6           I am not a scientist.  I was working in 

 7  communications, in publications, but believe me, I 

 8  know these things are happening there and people know 

 9  that.

10           Another thing, we're talking -- we talk 

11  about burning of our overgrown forests in the West and 

12  all over the place.  This has consequences for 

13  communities from Los Angeles to Los Alamos and 

14  everywhere.  Los Alamos is the only place that 

15  possesses the computer simulation codes that are 

16  adequate for understanding how forest fires work, and 

17  doing something about suppressing them.

18           There are other things.  These are not the 

19  primary mission of Los Alamos.  I know that.  We all 

20  know that.  But they are there, and the scientists are 

21  working on these things.

22           My stepson's father worked in the biomedical 

23  field at Los Alamos and developed a cell sorter where 

24  you can sort cells by volume, which is now used in 

25  medical research around the world.  There are lots of 

                                                               85

 1  other things.

 2           I don't want to bore you with this, but the 

 3  point I'm trying to make is, if we turn Los Alamos 

 4  into, instead of a science center, into a bomb 

 5  factory, the top people will go there to do this 

 6  research, they are not going to want to go there.  

 7  That's not what they want to do.  The people are doing 

 8  the research are proud of their research.  They are 

 9  proud of the science that they are working on.  They 

10  don't want to work in a bomb factory where there are 

11  military people going around escorting the plutonium.  

12  That's not what they want to do.

13           I think one of the things that we have to 

14  consider as an effect of expanding plutonium 

15  production there is the effect it's going to have on 

16  the quality of people who are going to want to work 

17  there, and we are going to want to have -- we need Los 

18  Alamos.  We need it.  We need that science.  We have 

19  got it.  Let's encourage that side of the thing and 

20  let's just forget about making it into a bomb factory.

21           Now, if I really wanted to be mean, I could 

22  say -- I could tell you some other sites where we 

23  could make the bombs in other states, but why should 

24  we push that on them?  Maybe we just forget about 

25  them.  We don't need them, anyway.  Thank you.

                                                               86

 1           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 2           John Witham.  Is that right?

 3           MR. JOHN WITHAM:  I'm John Witham.  I'm with 

 4  Nuclear Watch New Mexico.  My comments tonight are 

 5  about the comment period itself.  On May 26th, Deputy 

 6  Secretary D'Agostino signed off on the SWEIS, and it 

 7  was over a month later that it was actually published 

 8  in the federal register, and we had a 60-day period to 

 9  comment on a 1,920-page document that has many 

10  thousands of pages of reference documents.  We got a 

11  two-week extension.  I think it's at least appropriate 

12  that we get an extension that's equal to the time it 

13  sat after being signed before being published.  So 

14  let's get at least another 30 days or 15 days to have 

15  people from all over the country, like the intrepid 

16  students from California, to have a chance to comment 

17  on something that affects all of us.  Thank you.

18           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

19           Betsy Martinez?

20           Go ahead.

21           MS. BETSY MARTINEZ:  Hi.  I have a letter 

22  for Ms. Withers that mirrors much of what has been 

23  said about the specific issues on the Environmental 

24  Impact Statement and why we don't want more bomb 

25  production and more pollution from Los Alamos.  I am a 

                                                               87

 1  member of Pax Christi, New Mexico, a Catholic Peace 

 2  and Justice organization.  We were in sack cloth and 

 3  ashes in Los Alamos on the 6th asking for repentance 

 4  for dropping the bomb, and I'm here to speak against 

 5  making more bombs and parts of them.

 6           I am also a healthcare provider in Northern 

 7  New Mexico for 27 years.  We have many of the same 

 8  comments that have been made in this letter that I 

 9  will give to Ms. Withers, but I would just like to 

10  read the last paragraph, which has also been said, but 

11  it needs to be said again and again and again.

12           We strongly believe that Congress must 

13  change the mission of LANL.  LANL could lead the world 

14  in research and development of renewable energy such 

15  as solar, wind and biomass, and cleanup technologies 

16  that support the environment and public health.  The 

17  SWEIS must include a fourth alternative that focuses 

18  on these activities.  The security of the United 

19  States will be strengthened by clean energy 

20  independence rather than by accelerating the arms 

21  race.  The economy of New Mexico and the nation would 

22  be improved by focusing on these life affirming 

23  priorities.  Thank you.

24           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

25           Ms. Chin has asked for a break.  She has 

                                                               88

 1  been diligently working away, so we're going to take a 

 2  10-minute break and then we can resume.

 3           (A recess was taken.)

 4           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Okay.  Let's get 

 5  started again.  We have several speakers yet.

 6           I want to thank you all for giving Ms. Chin 

 7  a break here.  She has been working very hard for a 

 8  couple of hours.

 9           Okay.  I'm going to call the next speaker, 

10  which is -- I can't quite read it -- Bonnie Bonnoc -- 

11  something.

12           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  Can I use this 

13  microphone?  

14           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Sure.  It hasn't 

15  gotten much use.

16           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  Hello.  Okay.  Well, I 

17  did get these in the mail.  And -- 

18           Okay.  Is there somebody here representing 

19  the people that are going to make a decision at all?

20           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Over in that 

21  corner on, the first row.

22           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  Okay.  Hi there.  The 

23  lady in blue, and you, too?

24           FROM THE FLOOR:  No, not I.

25           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  And I sort of randomly 

                                                               89

 1  opened these things, just out of -- out of, you know, 

 2  because you can't really sit down and read it.

 3           FROM THE FLOOR:  Talk into the mike?  

 4           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  Okay.  I'm trying.

 5           So, this one section here in Volume 2, Book 

 6  1, about H40, H64, and on for about 20 pages, is about 

 7  the transuranic waste and the WIPP, and they have a 

 8  whole list of facilities which they say they are going 

 9  to need to deal with to send transuranic waste to WIPP 

10  and they want a bunch of buildings constructed, and I 

11  am curious if those buildings already exist.  You 

12  know, have they done most of this work already and 

13  they are just asking for approval after the work is 

14  all done, because I have heard them saying they want 

15  to start shipping in December.  There is no way in the 

16  world they can get all this stuff by December also.  

17  The decision powers, I want to know if somebody here 

18  can tell me, if these buildings that are mentioned in 

19  this section about how to handle waste from WIPP 

20  already exist, even though I don't think the decision 

21  has even been made on that, let alone on this?  And do 

22  they exist?  Does anybody know?

23           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  I'm sorry, but we 

24  are not in a position to answer questions here.  If 

25  you would like to ask Ms. Withers afterwards she can 

                                                               90

 1  answer the question, or you will see the answer in the 

 2  Final Environmental Impact Statement.

 3           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  I mean, it seems pretty 

 4  disingenuous to pretend you need to study the 

 5  environmental impact of something that you have 

 6  already spent the money and to plunge ahead and get 

 7  into it, and they are actually planning on shipping 

 8  this stuff already this year, I believe, or the first 

 9  of next year, and -- how can you do -- you know, you 

10  are so far -- if you haven't just made this decision 

11  yet, and do these buildings exist, you -- I bet they 

12  do.

13           I think that a lot of times that everything 

14  that we get in here isn't the real truth of all 

15  information and there's a lot of fudging and a lot of 

16  distortion of all the statistics, and there always 

17  have been regarding the environmental impacts of the 

18  Laboratory on our environment.  And here, Section 4.0  

19  is called Affected Environment, and I think it should 

20  be called the Afflicted Environment, and they sort of 

21  describe the very close region around Los Alamos yet, 

22  you know, it contaminated about four states, and 

23  there's research and studies that prove that it's 

24  contaminated huge areas.  And, you know, most of us 

25  live fairly close to you and you are afflicting the 

                                                               91

 1  whole area with this pollution, like the 25,000-year 

 2  plague or something, you know, and it doesn't go away 

 3  and you can't see it and it just keeps on accumulating 

 4  and accumulating and getting into the -- more and more 

 5  into the water and the air and the soil and, you know, 

 6  the cumulative impacts can never really be known but, 

 7  you know, it may almost be too late to actually change 

 8  the inevitable, you know, genetic mutations and things 

 9  that have been set in progress already, because every 

10  day you just contaminate our environment more and 

11  more.

12           And there's no way these books could really 

13  begin to cover all the pain and suffering you cause 

14  and plan to continue to cause here, and then you go up 

15  and they charge into one country and another and, you 

16  know, be a plague here or there for a few years, and 

17  then move on to another country, but it's been here in 

18  New Mexico for 60 years, the same, you know, plague.  

19  It's just a continuing.

20           And I would like to mention another subject 

21  you never considered is the mental health, you know, 

22  of our communities, and the mental health of the 

23  people, and how much crazier the world seems to be 

24  getting because the people in power are crazy, crazy, 

25  you know, with their power, and they are just obsessed 

                                                               92

 1  with some kind of mad sense of wanting to destroy 

 2  things.  I don't know really what's wrong with them, 

 3  except that's sort of what power makes you want to 

 4  destroy things.

 5           But there's a dangerous bunch of stuff going 

 6  on, and we, the people, have so little to be able 

 7  to -- what can we do about that?  What can we say?  We 

 8  can stand here and talk and they can say, well, this 

 9  isn't really a referendum on national policies, you 

10  know.  This is just we are supposed to look at these 

11  documents and tell you what's messed up about it, a 

12  few words on pieces of paper, and there is no forum 

13  for the national policy.  There is no place.  They 

14  say, well, you can vote.  Well, you can vote, you 

15  know, for people who are all involved in the same -- 

16  the same web of lies and power and violence.

17           And I think that mental health issues and 

18  physical health issues go well beyond the small areas 

19  mentioned in that section.  And that it's why there is 

20  so much violence in our communities and in our 

21  families, and it's because we are a government that 

22  says violence is good and power is good and, you know, 

23  kill anybody you don't like.  I mean -- and it's going 

24  to come back and bite us and, you know, you can't 

25  really expect it not to, just like that's the -- look 

                                                               93

 1  at New York City and all the other little tiny 

 2  terrorists.  But we're terrorizing the whole world.  

 3  Go over there and bomb this and go over there and bomb 

 4  somebody else, somebody bombed us back.  Surprise, 

 5  like, hello?

 6           Anyway, it's -- you know, it's bad karma or 

 7  whatever.  I don't know what you have to not believe 

 8  in to not -- to think that there is anything good 

 9  about it at all.  And the main purpose of all these 

10  things is to make money, and the more money they can 

11  spend and the more money they can make and the more 

12  money they can get, the more it's all about economics 

13  and, like, money is some great goal where there's no 

14  reason.  It's the things like solar energy or wind 

15  energy, they don't get the attention because nobody is 

16  going to make enough money on them.  And they can make 

17  a lot more money making bombs and have a lot more 

18  power, too, apparently, or whatever.

19           But I think of the gross national product 

20  and the mental health issues and just the whole focus 

21  and the way society is aligned behind the superficial 

22  unhealthy goals is -- is a really important issue that 

23  isn't exactly addressed in this document.  And --

24           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Ma'am, could you 

25  please wrap up your comments?  

                                                               94

 1           MS. BONNIE BONNEAU:  Okay.  Well -- so, we 

 2  went up to Los Alamos about 10, 15 years ago and did 

 3  some on-the-ground environmental studying with little 

 4  radiometers.  We had three different radiometers and 

 5  we went around and we tested.  First we did a 

 6  background in Redondo Canyon, and then -- in the woods 

 7  there, and then we went and we studied, tested the 

 8  outflows, the little gullies, all kinds of little dry 

 9  washes where you can see, like, during rainy times.  

10  And every time we put the radiometers -- we had three 

11  different varieties, and every time it just went over 

12  the top when you tested it from the soil, on the 

13  regular forest to the soil in the drainages.  And 

14  those drainages are going straight all over our state, 

15  and they are also getting into Los Alamos aquifers.  

16  And it's just right off the top, and they told us very 

17  proudly that there were no bugs in Los Alamos.  And 

18  there aren't any bugs in Los Alamos because they have 

19  short life cycles and the radiation has killed them 

20  all already.  Like, hello?  How can brilliant people, 

21  like, be proud of the concept of their working with 

22  something that's already killed all the little insects 

23  that God put down on God's green earth.

24           And I hope that they just wake up and say, 

25  hey, we don't want to do this anymore and we're going 

                                                               95

 1  to work for a healthy world, and God wants us all.  

 2  Amen.

 3           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 4           Julie Sutherland?

 5           MS. JULIE SUTHERLAND:  I am here today to 

 6  commemorate Nagasaki Day, and I feel this is a 

 7  travesty that this is happening.  And I would like to 

 8  speak for those that aren't here, and that, in fact, 

 9  so many people that died because of nuclear bombs and 

10  I -- I am just very distressed that the children -- do 

11  any of you have children that -- that -- that you care 

12  about and have some feeling as to whether they are 

13  going to have a world to live in and that is healthy 

14  and safe and beautiful?  Please, there has been -- 

15  there's so much that the youth can do positively if we 

16  just give them the -- the ability to -- to -- to do 

17  the work that they were born to do.  And I pray that 

18  -- that as Bonnie was saying, that the mental illness 

19  and the drug abuse that is so prevalent in our society 

20  can -- to cover up the feelings of despair that a lot 

21  of you have, and I just pray that you can see the 

22  light and -- and to give the youth and the rest of the 

23  creatures of the earth a chance to -- to -- to be 

24  happy and not desiring to end it all.

25           I was at a memorial this morning for a youth 

                                                               96

 1  that committed suicide because he was just hopeless.  

 2  There's just so -- we need to drop all the 

 3  hopelessness.  But how do you do it when you are going 

 4  to increase plutonium pit production and take us all 

 5  down the road of destruction.

 6           And I would just like to end by, like 

 7  Shannon said, with a circle, and I hope that we can, 

 8  you know, stand strong and say no to this.  We said no 

 9  to Rocky Flats.  Why are we proceeding to totally 

10  contaminate the sacred lands of the pueblo people 

11  forever more?  And just visualize good things 

12  happening and life-affirming -- there's so many great 

13  things that Los Alamos could do, like, for -- come up 

14  with cures to all the radiation sicknesses or, you 

15  know, do alternative energy instead of nuclear.

16           Thank you.

17           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

18           Melissa Larson?

19           MS. MELISSA LARSON:  I'm here.  I want to 

20  thank everyone that spoke before, because there's a 

21  lot of things that were said, and I don't want to be 

22  redundant.  Besides, I don't have all the education to 

23  say what everybody said.  But one thing that I do is 

24  at work, with the recycling, and I feel like that's 

25  one of the things that Los Alamos Laboratory could be 

                                                               97

 1  doing, and in particular, about their waste.  There 

 2  are so many industries and stuff that just are -- 

 3  especially in America, that are just throwing their 

 4  waste down the drain, and it's all being -- polluting 

 5  the earth.  And I don't think we can go about business 

 6  like that anymore.

 7           And if Los Alamos is going to produce things 

 8  that are toxic to the environment, then they better 

 9  learn how to balance them all so they don't ruin the 

10  rest of the earth for everybody else.  But in the 

11  meantime, they shouldn't be doing this work because 

12  it's destroying the earth for all the people.  And we 

13  need the earth to survive.

14           And if we want to be great New Mexicans and 

15  be loving of the earth and have a home for the future, 

16  we need to take care of it, and one of the ways to 

17  take care of it is to look at the waste that we are 

18  creating and let's stop doing that and really trying 

19  to figure out what we're going to do about all the 

20  waste that we have already created so that the earth 

21  can survive still beyond the things that they are 

22  going to destroy with if we let them, you know.

23           So, I think that we have to stop, stop the 

24  war machine, and we have to start making peace in the 

25  world and stop allowing war to go on, because it's a 

                                                               98

 1  crime against humanity, and every war is, and 

 2  especially the aggressive wars of the United States 

 3  and Israel, that huge Israeli lobby that allows the 

 4  media to say that the war is okay, that the killing of 

 5  people, innocent lives is okay, that disability, 

 6  deaths are okay.  This is just war and war is okay.  

 7  But war is pollution, the worst pollution of the 

 8  earth.  If anybody cares about the earth, then the 

 9  pollution that's created from war is the worst on the 

10  earth.

11           And if anybody cares about ecology, then the 

12  pollution of war is the worst on the earth, and we 

13  have to stop that, and we have to stop making the 

14  weapons of war and the war machine, and stop it now.

15           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

16           Evelyn Witt?

17           MS. EVELYN WITT:  I am going to be brief, 

18  because there are many words that have been said 

19  tonight.  I think the words we need to think about are 

20  where is this beginning, who is responsible for this.  

21  Where did it come from?  We have got elected officials 

22  that have gone along with it in Washington.  We have a 

23  corporation called Bechtel who is running this show, 

24  and Bechtel got a contract for seven years to run Los 

25  Alamos, over 500 million dollars, and they in their 

                                                               99

 1  statement have said, we are in the business of making 

 2  money.  Now, what do you think that means, people?

 3           I'm really sorry that a lot of people left 

 4  because I wanted to put fire in their belly, the kind 

 5  of fire I got in my belly.  I'm fed up.  And Greg 

 6  Mello said it at the beginning.  You have got to go to 

 7  the House, go to the Congress, you have got to do it 

 8  now, every one of you.  I don't believe the DOE, and 

 9  neither should you.  I mean, it's obviously that this 

10  is formulated to fail as far as comment goes.  The 

11  comment period isn't long enough, or inundated with 

12  all kind of extraneous information, and we are 

13  supposed to make a judgment?  I don't think so. 

14           I made my judgment.  I know what's going 

15  on.  Number one, we have got a government that is 

16  placing fear in people, scaring them half to death 

17  since 9/11.  Oh, well, gee, we've got to get weapons.  

18  We've got to do this now.  And so, we have a nation of 

19  sheep.  What leads sheep?  What drives sheep?  Fear.

20           So between the fear, and a corporation that 

21  has money, and they don't have a very shining record, 

22  if you take a look at their record, of what they have 

23  done in Iraq.  They haven't cleaned up Iraq.  They got 

24  a big contract from the United States government to 

25  clean up Iraq.  Did they clean up Iraq?  No, they 

                                                               100

 1  haven't cleaned it up.  Do you think they are going to 

 2  clean up the mess up there at Los Alamos, the waste 

 3  that we're going to get when all that crap begins?  Do 

 4  you think that Bechtel cares about what happens to you 

 5  and your family?  They don't care.  What they care 

 6  about is money.  They said it.  They don't make any 

 7  bones about it.  They said it.

 8           And I want you people to get angry.  I want 

 9  you to get real angry, because being nice just hasn't 

10  worked.  We went along with them for a long time, and 

11  it's time to get angry and it's time to do something, 

12  and the time is now.

13           These young people that spoke from 

14  California, I got something to tell you.  I have lived 

15  quite a while.  I have seen this nation go from a 

16  moral nation to really dealing in some immoral, 

17  egregious things, and it's time to put a stop to it.  

18  And everybody that goes out from here, I want you to 

19  tell everybody, to write their Congress, to make a 

20  noise, a big noise.  I don't know how much good it's 

21  going to do, but we better start now before it's too 

22  late, because the machine is moving and it's not going 

23  to stop, and you get in the way and it will run over 

24  you.  You have got to start doing something now.  

25  Thank you.

                                                               101

 1           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 2           Charles Kading?  

 3           MR. CHARLES KADING:  Hello.  I live up in 

 4  Taos County, and I just want to say that this evening 

 5  has been quite a blessing.  It's a rare time in the 

 6  United States that a person can sit in an auditorium, 

 7  even a dimly lighted gym, and listen to heartfelt 

 8  testimonies.  And heartfelt is what I have sensed here 

 9  tonight, and I just feel like it's just -- it's just 

10  been a wonderful experience.

11           Now I have been an environmental consultant 

12  in various forms of environmental activism for over 30 

13  years.  I guess in most of it I have not been paid 

14  for, at which -- because it's a real passion of my 

15  heart.  I believe a couple of people have mentioned 

16  here that just, you know, our created order, how 

17  beautiful our created order is, and I feel very close 

18  to -- very close to our earth that God created, at 

19  least I believe that God created.

20           And I have traveled quite a bit around the 

21  world, and I have been in the Middle East, Northern 

22  Africa, Central America and Alaska, and various parts 

23  of just about all of the states.  Well, the other day 

24  I had the opportunity and the blessing to be at 

25  Hiroshima Day here in Los Alamos, had a wonderful 

                                                               102

 1  conversation with a man from the Netherlands, and he 

 2  approached me and he said, where are the folks?  He 

 3  thought there would be absolutely thousands and 

 4  thousands of people commemorating the anniversary, the 

 5  61st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  And I 

 6  said, you know, how long have you lived in the 

 7  States?  He said, I just came over here for a visit.  

 8  I had a goal in my life to bicycle across the United 

 9  States.  Well, as I approached Los Alamos, having 

10  known quite a bit of the history of Los Alamos, being 

11  from the Netherlands, of course, we get a little bit 

12  better education about the history of the United 

13  States than those that live in the United States 

14  oftentimes, and he said -- so we had a great chat just 

15  about a number of things, but it just brings to mind 

16  as I was sitting in the group here with many of whom 

17  are friends of mine, and I have worked with on 

18  various -- various passionate activism, what I would 

19  like to call gentle activism, because that's the only 

20  kind of activism that ultimately resonates for us.  We 

21  can be angry in our hearts, but angry sometimes has a 

22  reverberation effect of alienating too many people, 

23  and I don't think that alienating is really, at least 

24  the way I would like to see us go.  I see a lot more 

25  getting done one-on-one, getting to know folks, much 

                                                               103

 1  the same as Kathy Kelly suggested to us at Hiroshima 

 2  Day.

 3           But I noticed in sitting here in this 

 4  auditorium, with the lights around the periphery and 

 5  none over us, it almost seemed like something of a 

 6  little bit of a tomb.  Well, that had some symbolism 

 7  in terms of what we are talking about here today.

 8           But I wanted to -- I took note of the fact 

 9  that about 8 -- when this -- when all of the people 

10  were standing -- were sitting here, about 8 percent 

11  were represented by the state of California in the 

12  form of our good friends from California, the 

13  students.  And I thought, how could that be?  8 

14  percent of a New Mexico public hearing gathering from 

15  another state.  Were glad to have, we would like to 

16  have this filled up with representatives from every 

17  single state, but the fact of the matter is, is that 

18  the word about these meetings, which I believe should 

19  have been -- should have been put forth as a public 

20  service because the Department of Energy, the EPA, all 

21  government officials, when they sign on and start 

22  receiving their checks from taxpayers, are public 

23  servants, and I think they all believe that they are 

24  doing good service.  The problem is that I think we 

25  have forgotten that our taxpayers are our servants, 

                                                               104

 1  and they have a responsibility to us as our servants 

 2  to do the very best for the citizenry of this 

 3  country.  Now, I think that's something just to think 

 4  about and to take to task, all of our friends 

 5  relatives, representatives -- more in the eyeshot of 

 6  everybody in the media -- these are our public 

 7  servants.  I would venture to guess that apart from 

 8  the public servants that are actually getting a 

 9  salary, and for Northern New Mexico probably a fairly 

10  decent salary, just -- not that that's a bad thing in 

11  itself, I'm not saying that -- but all that our 

12  government officials, whether they are state, county, 

13  federal officials, these are our servants, and we owe 

14  it to them, as much as we are able, to share our 

15  thoughts and our visions for what -- how we can see 

16  this country as being a wonderful place to live.  And 

17  I suspect to say this most of us would agree that 

18  there are some not so wonderful things in -- going on 

19  here.  But I -- I just wanted to say, like I said in 

20  the beginning, I so enjoy being around people that are 

21  heart felt and passionate.

22           The problem I found here tonight, and as I 

23  have for the last 30 plus years, from the Vietnam 

24  period on, was that I believe that our public 

25  education system has been cloning an oil-addictive 

                                                               105

 1  consciousness in our minds, and it's inculcated, it's 

 2  so permeated the very fabric of the culture that 

 3  passion for life itself is just diminished to such a 

 4  level, that so often we are blinded by the very stuff 

 5  of life itself.  And it's passed us by.

 6           But, boy, I hear it tonight, and I just feel 

 7  very thankful to be here with you all tonight, and 

 8  let's, like, like everyone has said, the only way we 

 9  can -- we can kind of -- we have to pray and use every 

10  part of our potential to -- to create.  And I think 

11  this is as much education -- and that is education in 

12  the larger sense, not the confines of what we call 

13  public education -- of enhancing our potential for 

14  critical thinking.  I think we were created to be -- 

15  have a wonderful potential for critically thinking 

16  about the life around us.

17           And once again, just -- I'm going too long 

18  here.  I have so much to say but, thank you all very 

19  much.  It's just a blessing to be here with you all.

20           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

21           Okay.  That's all the cards I have.  Is 

22  there anybody who has not spoken and would like to 

23  speak?

24           Okay.  It's 9:30.  We'll go for another 10 

25  minutes if there are people who would like to speak 

                                                               106

 1  again.  

 2           Would anybody like to speak again?  

 3           Okay.  Please raise your hand if you would 

 4  like to speak again so that -- go ahead.

 5           Please state your name.

 6           MS.SHANNYN SOLLITT:  My name is Shannyn 

 7  Sollitt, and I would like to bring up the 

 8  environmental impact of -- the psychological impact 

 9  that it has.  Many people have mentioned that Los 

10  Alamos has the highest teen suicide rate, and I would 

11  just like to mention that Columbine High School was 

12  less than the distance between here and Los Alamos, 

13  and I really feel that the reason why Columbine 

14  happened is because they were in the midst of a 

15  society that found that making weapons of mass 

16  destruction was acceptable, so blowing up a high 

17  school somehow, to those young minds, wasn't such an 

18  egregious thing to do, and I would like to see an 

19  environmental impact that relates to the psychology 

20  of, especially young people, related to nuclear 

21  weapons production facilities or any production 

22  facilities that are creating weapons of mass 

23  destruction.  Thank you.

24           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

25           Mr. Mello.

                                                               107

 1           MR. GREG MELLO:  Thank you for the 

 2  opportunity to speak again.

 3           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  And please state 

 4  your name.

 5           MR. GREG MELLO:  Yes, Greg Mello.

 6           For the NNSA, and Lab people here, I -- you 

 7  may not know what a small federal presence there is in 

 8  the nuclear weapons program.  It seems like an odd 

 9  thing to say, but there actually is less than 4 

10  percent of federal -- the Federal Government accounts 

11  for less than 4 percent of the spending in the nuclear 

12  weapons program.  The rest are contractors, and the 

13  spending is concentrated in just a very few 

14  contractors, as Evelyn and other people have said.  If 

15  you look at the wall here, the percentage of federal 

16  effort in the nuclear weapons program is significantly 

17  less than the percentage of mortar joints in that 

18  wall.  The rest is Bechtel, BWXT, WGI.  Over half of 

19  the Department of Energy's total budget is spent by 

20  just nine companies, and this is a dramatically 

21  increasing phenomenon.

22           So I want to suggest that we have to be 

23  careful if, as federal employees -- and I was a 

24  federal employee once -- that we are not just 

25  facilitating money-making by a very small group of 

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 1  companies.  We're sort of doing a federal 

 2  Environmental Impact Statement, but it's not very 

 3  federal.

 4           Now, I want to say something tactical to our 

 5  colleagues who are here.  We need to work with 

 6  Congress to defeat these plans, exactly as Evelyn and 

 7  others have said.  Evelyn anticipated several of the 

 8  points I wanted to make.  That's great.

 9           Please, do not go away from this room and 

10  think that making comments to the Department of Energy 

11  is going to accomplish anything.  We have to remain 

12  energized and get more energized.  It's not going to 

13  be enough to be nice.  I want to be really clear that 

14  the public relations practices of the Federal 

15  Government and it's contractors have advanced 

16  tremendously since the early 1990s, when I started 

17  this work.  Their job is to make sure your effort goes 

18  nowhere.  So, there is a misuse of civility in this 

19  process.  And this is a message to Jan, who is a very 

20  nice person, but I want to tell you that we, 

21  ourselves, in New Mexico, must galvanize ourselves for 

22  a resistance action that puts the pressure on until we 

23  succeed.

24           Now, we defeated this plan twice before.  We 

25  defeated it in 1990, when this country still cared 

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 1  about the budget deficit.  Los Alamos Laboratory 

 2  proposed a special nuclear materials research and 

 3  development laboratory that was a complete 

 4  boondoggle.  Congress cut it because of citizens, like 

 5  you here, getting out there and making your voice 

 6  known at a pivotal moment and in a way that Senator 

 7  Bingaman and members of Congress couldn't forget.  

 8  Congressman Sprat from South Carolina years later 

 9  said, I saw my name in New Mexico papers vilified 

10  because I promoted pit production in New Mexico.  

11  That's what we have to do again.  We can't let this go 

12  by.

13           We defeated this again in 1997 because there 

14  was an active earthquake fault under the CMR 

15  building.  It had to be taken out of the pit 

16  production plan.  That's twice here.

17           Trish, my wife, and the farmers at Pantex 

18  defeated it at Pantex.  It was defeated multiple times 

19  in multiple places.  The Department of Energy is 

20  running scared.  They have not been able to make pits 

21  for 17 years.  We can't let them restart this process 

22  and transmit the ideology of nuclear weapons to a new 

23  generation of young people who are malleable, and 

24  whose careers are in the hands of the managers of 

25  Bechtel.  There are two billionaires running Bechtel, 

                                                               110

 1  and if that doesn't tell you where this thing is 

 2  running nothing else does.

 3           So I beg you to leave this place inspired, 

 4  work with each other, don't let your passion die away 

 5  in loneliness and isolation.  Reach out to your 

 6  friends.  Form a group.  Have a house meeting and 

 7  share information.  Ask one of the people from the 

 8  organizations that are working on this to come and 

 9  talk to your group, talk to your church, talk to your 

10  real estate organization, because they are going to be 

11  affected, talk to your city council, talk to your 

12  state representative.  We have got to start putting 

13  the pressure on and we can't let our shyness about the 

14  Democratic party or the Republican party get in our 

15  way.

16           We have to make people understand that it's 

17  not going to be okay to sell Northern New Mexico down 

18  the river and let the state become a colony for pits 

19  in the North, uranium enrichment and waste disposal in 

20  the south.  It doesn't have to be that way.  We can 

21  make a sustainable economy in this state by a genuine 

22  response to the real problems, the real security 

23  problems of peak oil and global warming, and the other 

24  genuine national security problems.

25           And this greed-oriented run on the treasury 

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 1  has to be stopped.  And I know that a lot of nice 

 2  people are involved in it, but that's all it is.  And 

 3  we can stop it again.  We have done it twice and it's 

 4  been done in other places, so let's get on it and 

 5  let's have a good time doing it.  

 6           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

 7           Please state your name.

 8           MS. KALEA MATSAKIS:  I am Kalea Matsakis, 

 9  and I just want to let everyone know who is here that 

10  Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and the Embudo 

11  Valley Environmental Monitoring Group have a letter in 

12  the back which is requesting an extension of time 

13  until the Area G Risk Assessment, the Seismic Hazard 

14  Report and the Health Assessment have been properly 

15  done and allowed for a public comment and review.  And 

16  I would really appreciate it if you could all come 

17  back on your way out and pick up a copy and sign it, 

18  so that we can try to get some real science behind 

19  it.  Thank you.

20           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.  

21  Anybody else?  

22           You can go next.

23           MS. SHERYL KOTOWSKI:  Sherry Kotowski.  I'm 

24  part of a group that's called the LANL Water Watch.  

25  We are a network of many citizen groups in the area 

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 1  around Los Alamos, and we put together a shared value 

 2  statement among other things.  And this is -- I'm 

 3  inviting everybody to participate in this.  There is a 

 4  copy of it that you can sign in the back, and I'm just 

 5  going to read to you what it says.  "All people in our 

 6  communities are intricately tied to the health of 

 7  rivers, acequias and other water.  Historical and 

 8  ongoing activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory 

 9  threaten our cultural, spiritual and ecological 

10  survival.  To ensure that the good health of 

11  watersheds downstream and downwind from LANL and the 

12  good health of the Rio Grande to provide safe drinking 

13  water, clean water for irrigation, and pure water for 

14  sacred ceremony now and in the future, we acknowledge 

15  and assert the following:  All people that live 

16  downstream and downwind from LANL require and have a 

17  right to clean water for drinking, sacred ceremony, 

18  growing food, raising animals, recreating and overall 

19  well-being.

20           "Number 2, traditional indigenous cultures 

21  that live downstream and downwind from LANL require 

22  and have a right to pure water for sacred ceremony.

23           "Number 3, wildlife and ecosystems living 

24  downstream and downwind from LANL need and depend upon 

25  clean water for their survival.

                                                               113

 1           "Number 4, healthy communities require clean 

 2  rivers, groundwater and watersheds to achieve a strong 

 3  economy and sustainable future.

 4           "Our local, federal, and state government 

 5  agencies have a duty to protect the health and welfare 

 6  by setting and enforcing laws and regulations that 

 7  protect water resources downwind and downstream from 

 8  LANL.

 9           "Healthy communities and ecosystems require 

10  clean, innovative and life-affirming science and 

11  technology that will benefit the economy, the future 

12  and health of all.

13           "Number 7, we recognize and respect that 

14  flowing water does not seek or uphold political, 

15  social, cultural or economical boundaries.

16           "Based on these values, we assert that 

17  historic toxic waste must be cleaned up now to protect 

18  drinking water, and life-threatening pollutants that 

19  are the byproducts of ongoing LANL activities must be 

20  kept from contaminating our watersheds and tainting 

21  the Rio Grande.

22           "Adequate funding must be provided to clean 

23  up contamination at LANL to achieve these shared 

24  values."  

25           A copy of this is at the back if you would 

                                                               114

 1  like to sign it and support the LANL Water Watch.  

 2  This is a way your whole community can get involved in 

 3  stopping pit production, the expanding activities at 

 4  Los Alamos National Laboratory, and form a solidarity 

 5  that's absolutely necessary for us to keep modern pit 

 6  production from happening in our state or anywhere.  

 7  Thank you.

 8           MS. JEANNE GREEN:  I just wanted to state 

 9  for the record that I did not see a single 

10  announcement about these public hearings other than 

11  from activist, peace activist groups.  I did not see a 

12  single announcement, and that is gross negligence.

13           Also, we're speaking to a brick wall.  And 

14  why aren't the people who wrote SWEIS here to answer 

15  our questions?  We're speaking to a brick wall.

16           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Would you mind 

17  giving your name?  

18           MS. JEANNE GREEN:  Jeanne Green.

19           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  One more.  

20           Yes, ma'am.  Please state your name?  

21           MS. ARLENE MAESTAS:  Arlene Maestas.  I am 

22  really happy to see this card out.  And before you 

23  leave tonight, pick up four, mail them to your 

24  representatives in Congress, imagine getting 18,000 

25  cards like this.  It's Bingaman, Udall, Dominici and 

                                                               115

 1  who else?  Heather?  Haliburton Heather?  If you can 

 2  get these cards to them, I think you would make an 

 3  impact on them.  So, I don't know who -- I don't know 

 4  who has the cards --

 5           FROM THE FLOOR:  I do.

 6           MS. ARLENE MAESTAS:  Okay.  She has got 

 7  them.  I think this would be the beginning of the 

 8  impact.  Thank you.

 9           MODERATOR ROBIN BRANDIN:  Thank you.

10           We have run out of time in this hearing.  

11  Thank you all for participating.  We'll have people 

12  here for a few more minutes, but we need to be out of 

13  here by 10:00.

14           So, remember, you can also submit written 

15  comments at the addresses on this poster, and there is 

16  also a yellow card in the back that will tell you how 

17  to submit written comments.

18           And please drive carefully on your way home 

19  and be safe.  Thank you.

20           (The hearing concluded at 9:45 p.m.)

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 1  STATE OF NEW MEXICO )
                        ) ss
 2  COUNTY OF SANTA FE  )
    
 3  
    
 4                  C E R T I F I C A T E
    
 5      I, MABEL JIN CHIN, New Mexico Certified Court 
    Reporter, do hereby certify that I did report in 
 6  stenographic shorthand the proceedings set forth 
    herein, and the foregoing is a true and correct 
 7  transcription of the proceedings.
        I further certify that I am neither employed by 
 8  nor related to any of the parties or attorneys in this 
    case, and that I have no interest whatsoever in the 
 9  final disposition of this case in any court.
    
10  
                           ___________________________
11                         Mabel Jin Chin, CCR
                           Certified Court Reporter #81
12                         License Expires: 12/31/06
    
13  
    
14  (1562A) MC

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