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          10
                 DRAFT SITE-WIDE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR
          11   CONTINUED OPERATION OF LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY,
                                LOS ALAMOS NEW MEXICO
          12
                                   Public Hearing
          13                       August 10, 2006
                                      6:30 p.m.
          14                 Santa Fe Community College
                                6401 Richards Avenue
          15                 Santa Fe, New Mexico  87508

          16

          17

          18

          19

          20

          21

          22   REPORTED BY:  Jan A. Williams, RPR, CCR 14
                             Bean & Associates, Inc.
          23                 Professional Court Reporting Service
                             500 Marquette, Northwest, Suite 280
          24                 Albuquerque, New Mexico  87102

          25   (1563A)  JAW


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           1                    P R O C E E D I N G S

           2            (Comments given to court reporter.)

           3            GERI JARAMILLO:  Basically I'm just really

           4   against the idea of creating more destruction, adding

           5   more bombs and more death, anything more that adds to

           6   more death in the world.  We have so much technology

           7   out there today, we have so many brilliant people in

           8   the world that are so capable of creating worthwhile

           9   things for this planet so that we can all live in

          10   harmony, so that we can all live on a planet that we

          11   will enjoy.

          12            And the way we can enjoy is by getting those

          13   brilliant minds to create worthwhile, clean, green

          14   planet-friendly inventions and give us better ideas to

          15   live harmoniously.  And everybody in the world

          16   deserves to live with clean water, good shelter, a

          17   job, be able to live in harmony without having to fear

          18   for their lives because of a war or because of hunger.

          19            And we have the capability of creating such a

          20   world today.  And why bring more chaos, that is

          21   unfathomable.

          22            TIM ORIGER:  So what I wanted to address, I

          23   want to have them address or LANL address, I read in

          24   documentation that every year they're planning to

          25   release up to 6,900 pounds of depleted uranium into


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           1   the open air, which will go down over San Idelfonso

           2   Pueblo and be carried on the wind.

           3            And the government hasn't done adequate

           4   research as yet on the long-range impact of depleted

           5   uranium on human beings.  We have several troops that

           6   are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan that have

           7   been exposed to depleted uranium that are having

           8   cancers occur and genetic mutations that are believed

           9   to be connected to exposure to depleted uranium.

          10            They have a 700 or 7,000 percent increase in

          11   leukemia in Iraq due to exposure to depleted uranium.

          12   There's been research done throughout Europe, Germany,

          13   and England in specific that shows a connection

          14   between these cancers and exposure to depleted

          15   uranium.

          16            How can they release -- if this is a toxic

          17   material, how can they release that in a public area,

          18   onto the public, onto civilian populations downwind

          19   from the lab.  That's my question.  And that's one of

          20   the things that I want addressed.

          21            I think that's something that, before they

          22   can produce more or release more, that's something

          23   they should definitely have researched more.  So there

          24   should be extensive studies on the impact of depleted

          25   uranium on human beings.


                                                                     4


           1            (The hearing commences.)

           2            MS. WITHERS:  Folks, we're going to go ahead

           3   and start the hearing.  It's about 6:30.  So, if you

           4   don't mind coming in and having a seat, we'll go ahead

           5   and get started.

           6            There's a lot of vacant chairs, if folks want

           7   to come ahead and pick a chair and have a seat.  If

           8   you choose to stand, please find a place that's

           9   comfortable for you.  Just please do not block the

          10   exit doors.  The fire marshall is very adamant about

          11   us keeping the exit doors free.

          12            There are exit doors on both sides of the

          13   room.  And there are exit doors on the west side of

          14   the building as well as the east side of the building.

          15   So please, in the event of an emergency, go to the

          16   exit door nearest to you and exit the room and the

          17   building.

          18            Our first order of business tonight is going

          19   to be determining whether anyone needs the services of

          20   an English-Spanish language translation.  We do have a

          21   translator with us here tonight, Mr. Jose Palomino.

          22   And I'll ask Jose to go ahead and come up and

          23   determine the need for such services.

          24            MR. PALOMINO:  (Speaking in Spanish).

          25            MS. WITHERS:  My name is Elizabeth Withers, I


                                                                     5


           1   work with the Department of Energy, and I'm the

           2   document manager for the preparation of the draft

           3   site-wide environmental impact statement for continued

           4   operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

           5            This document is the subject of tonight's

           6   hearing.  But, before we proceed with the hearing, I'd

           7   like to introduce you to Mr. Ed Wilmot.  Ed is the

           8   manager of the Los Alamos Site Office for the National

           9   Nuclear Security Administration.

          10            ED WILMOT:  Thank you, Elizabeth.  A very

          11   short message.  We want to make sure and get your

          12   comments.  We'll give you as much time as possible for

          13   that.  The short message is to thank you for being

          14   here tonight.  We know it's time away from your

          15   families and we do appreciate the time and effort that

          16   it takes to come and present information tonight.

          17            So thank you very much for that.  Your input

          18   is important to us.  The NEPA process is one that

          19   we're very concerned to get good accurate information.

          20   The document, the draft site-wide EIS that Elizabeth

          21   is preparing, is a work in progress.

          22            And so we do need good accurate information

          23   that we can provide to the decision-maker who is

          24   Ambassador Brooks who is the administrator for the

          25   National Nuclear Security Administration in


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           1   Washington.  He will be using the information from

           2   this document to make decisions and it needs to be

           3   accurate.

           4            So I do appreciate again your being here.  I

           5   appreciate the hard work that Elizabeth and the LANL

           6   support team and the SAIC team has done.  But most of

           7   all again I thank you for your time and effort for

           8   being here tonight.  And I'll turn it back to

           9   Elizabeth.  Thank you very much.

          10            MS. WITHERS:  I'd like to take just a few

          11   minutes before I in turn turn the floor over to

          12   tonight's moderator to just very, very briefly

          13   describe the site-wide environmental impact statement

          14   and also our compliance process with the National

          15   Environmental Policy Act.

          16            The National Environmental Policy Act

          17   effectively became law in 1970.  And the implementing

          18   regulations require us as federal agencies to hold a

          19   public review and comment period on all draft

          20   environmental impact statements and also to hold

          21   public hearings.

          22            This document is tonight's subject.  And the

          23   purpose of tonight's meeting is to offer you all the

          24   opportunity to learn more about the ongoing operations

          25   at Los Alamos National Laboratory about the proposed


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           1   projects over the next five-year horizon and also to

           2   offer you all an opportunity to make comments on this

           3   draft site-wide environmental impact statement.

           4            This draft site-wide environmental impact

           5   statement is the third in a line of site-wide

           6   environmental impact statements that we prepare for

           7   the operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory.  The

           8   first document was prepared and issued in 1979.  The

           9   second more recent document was issued in 1999.  And

          10   this is the third site-wide environmental impact

          11   statement.  And we hope to have this document ready to

          12   be issued as a final document in early to mid 2007.

          13            Like it's 1999 predecessor, this site-wide

          14   environmental impact statement looks at three

          15   alternatives for the operation of Los Alamos National

          16   Laboratory.  It considers a no action alternative, a

          17   reduced operations alternative, and an expanded

          18   operations alternative.

          19            We have summary tables available out at the

          20   front desk for you to take home with you tonight that

          21   describe the impacts from operating Los Alamos

          22   National Laboratory at each of these three levels of

          23   operation.  These are analyzed across the different

          24   resource areas, natural and cultural resource areas

          25   that are to be found in the Los Alamos region.


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           1            Additionally, we have provided summary tables

           2   for each of the proposed projects so you can see the

           3   impacts by project and also rolled up as a total for

           4   the entire alternative.  In a nutshell the

           5   environmental impacts are to be expected if the

           6   reduced operation alternative were implemented with

           7   the as you can imagine reduced from the no action

           8   alternative.

           9            Basically the primary area of reduced impacts

          10   would be in the area of air emissions.  We are

          11   proposing to eliminate the operation of the Los Alamos

          12   Neutron Science Center.  And this would result in a

          13   reduction in the overall air emissions from that

          14   facility.  We're also proposing under this alternative

          15   to reduce by about 20 percent the high explosive

          16   testing performed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

          17            We would also expect under this alternative,

          18   the reduced operations alternative, to see a

          19   corresponding small decrease in the overall potential

          20   human health impacts again primarily due to the

          21   closure of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center

          22   operations.

          23            The other areas of reductions in the impacts

          24   would primarily be focused on a reduction in the

          25   overall use of electricity, potable water, and natural


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           1   gas again associated with the closure of the Neutron

           2   Science Center.

           3            For the expanded operation alternative, as

           4   you can imagine those would be expanded or greater

           5   than the no action alternative level.  The greatest

           6   area of impact expansion is in the area of waste

           7   production.

           8            Under this expanded operations alternative,

           9   we are proposing to implement a series of projects

          10   that would replace old buildings at Los Alamos

          11   National Laboratory with new structures.  In the

          12   process of doing this replacement of aging

          13   structures -- and a lot of the buildings at Los Alamos

          14   were built 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago.  So that it is

          15   now more economically feasible for us to replace a

          16   structure with new buildings rather than to repair

          17   them.

          18            We would be tearing down a great amount of

          19   floor space, but we would be generating a large amount

          20   of waste.  Under this alternative we are also

          21   proposing to clean up Los Alamos National Laboratory.

          22            We have entered into a consent order with the

          23   State of New Mexico to clean up the laboratory.  And,

          24   under the provisions of this consent order, the State

          25   of New Mexico would be responsible for making the


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           1   decision on most of the waste disposal sites as to how

           2   to clean up these sites.

           3            We considered how we should analyze the

           4   impacts from this cleanup.  And we decided that our

           5   best approach was to do a bounding impact analysis.

           6   So we consider two extreme options, if you will.

           7            Under one option we consider that we might be

           8   required to exhume all the waste, dig it up, put it

           9   into containers like drums, load it onto vehicles, and

          10   either move it on-site or off-site for disposal.

          11            Under the other extreme option, we consider

          12   that we may be required to cap all of the waste in

          13   place and institute a LANL wide monitoring system,

          14   long-term monitoring system of those sites.

          15            We expect that this bounding impact analysis

          16   will actually serve to overestimate the actual impacts

          17   from cleaning up the site.  But it will allow you, the

          18   LANL stakeholder, to understand the types of impacts

          19   that would be encountered in cleanup activities and

          20   also the types of issues that would be associated with

          21   site cleanup.

          22            The third type of activity that we're

          23   proposing under the expanded operations alternative

          24   that would be a primary waste generation type activity

          25   is the expansion of the overall plutonium pit


                                                                    11


           1   production process.

           2            Currently we can make about 20 plutonium pits

           3   per year.  And we are proposing to elevate that level

           4   of analysis up to 80 pits per year with a goal of

           5   reaching 50 pits per year.

           6            We would also with this alternative expect an

           7   increase in transportation impacts.  And this is again

           8   largely associated with the cleanup of the site.

           9   There would be a large number of trucks coming up to

          10   the site delivering heavy equipment and materials and

          11   there could be a large number of trucks leaving the

          12   site with waste.

          13            Then, if we did have to exhume all of the

          14   waste and take it off-site for disposal, we would

          15   expect to have to bring clean fill material back

          16   on-site.  So there would be a great increase in the

          17   overall traffic impacts under this alternative.

          18            We also under this alternative would expect a

          19   somewhat greater impact to worker health based again

          20   largely on site cleanup and also on the plutonium pit

          21   production.  Electricity used, natural gas, and

          22   potable water use would also increase this time

          23   associated with the proposed expansion of our super

          24   computer facilities computational capabilities.

          25            We currently at the Metropolis computing


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           1   center have limited the operation of that facility

           2   based on the number of computations in terms of

           3   teraops that that facility can operate at.

           4            What we're finding, though, is that with each

           5   generation of computing devices, that these computers

           6   can run more and more effectively with less and less

           7   electric use.  So we have decided instead that a more

           8   logical cap, if you will, on the operation of that

           9   facility would be to limit its overall electric use

          10   and water use for cooling.

          11            So that's what we're proposing in this

          12   environmental impact statement.  The draft site-wide

          13   environmental impact statement review and comment

          14   period is now 75 days long.  We did just recently this

          15   week make a decision to extend the originally proposed

          16   comment period of 60 days for another 15 days.

          17            So the comment period will now end September

          18   20.  We'll be sending out announcements and making a

          19   notice in the Federal Register next week.  But you

          20   will be also getting announcements in the mail as

          21   well.

          22            During this period there will be -- there

          23   have been three public hearings.  This is the third in

          24   the series of public hearings.  Our first public

          25   hearing was in Los Alamos, New Mexico; our second one


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           1   was held last night in Espanola, New Mexico; and this

           2   is the third opportunity for folks to present oral

           3   comments.

           4            We encourage you to make oral comments here

           5   tonight.  But, if you also want to make written

           6   comments, we have some comment forms available for

           7   your use if you wish.  Also you can take those and

           8   mail them in later.  You can send me letters, you can

           9   send me posters, I'm sorry, emails, Post-Its, that's

          10   an old term, isn't it.  I don't know where that came

          11   from.

          12            But, nonetheless, you can reach me by various

          13   different addresses and various different means.  We

          14   do encourage you to send your comments in before

          15   September 20 so that we can get all of the comments

          16   together and start preparing the final document.

          17   After the review and comment period ends, we will

          18   gather up all these comments and we will use those to

          19   complete the final impact analysis.

          20            This is a draft document as Ed mentioned.  It

          21   may contain errors and mistakes.  We know that.  It is

          22   the nature of the beast as a draft document.  So we

          23   appreciate your help in clarifying and correcting

          24   information.

          25            We will be taking all of the comments that we


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           1   receive, whether orally or in writing, and we will

           2   reproduce those verbatim in the final environmental

           3   impact statement.  We'll also include information that

           4   that final environmental impact statement -- we'll

           5   probably include these in a separate volume.

           6            And we will include identifying information

           7   by comment as to exactly where we used the comment to

           8   make changes in the document, to add information or to

           9   change some type of analysis or so forth.

          10            So, if you want to know exactly how we used

          11   your comments that you're going to offer to us, then

          12   you'll need to get the final environmental impact

          13   statement and look in the impact statement for your

          14   comments.  We will be addressing any questions asked

          15   through the comment process in the final environmental

          16   impact statement.

          17            If you would like an immediate question

          18   answered, I encourage you to speak with the subject

          19   matter experts that are out in the hall with the

          20   posters tonight.  I hope everybody got a chance to

          21   take a few moments and see those posters.  We do have

          22   subject matter experts there from Los Alamos National

          23   Laboratory and also the Los Alamos Site Office.

          24            Just a little bit about how the decision gets

          25   made.  We will be using all of these comments as I've


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           1   already said to make the final environmental impact

           2   statement.  This final environmental impact statement

           3   will then be issued and a notice of availability will

           4   appear in the Federal Register as well as you will be

           5   notified by letter and so forth if you sign up and

           6   indicate an interest to be notified.

           7            We will present the information and the final

           8   environmental impact statement to the administrator.

           9   And he will use this information together with perhaps

          10   other information like budget information to make his

          11   final decision on both the level of operation of Los

          12   Alamos National Laboratory and also in the specific

          13   projects to be implemented.

          14            I want to emphasize to you tonight that,

          15   although we analyze the cleanup of Los Alamos National

          16   Laboratory in only one alternative, that the

          17   administrator can pick and choose across the different

          18   alternatives in making his decision.  And we expect

          19   him to.

          20            We expect multiple records of decision to be

          21   issued since we're looking out over a five-year

          22   window.  We expect the first record of decision which

          23   can be issued no sooner than 30 days after the final

          24   environmental impact statement is made available to

          25   include a decision to clean up Los Alamos and to


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           1   implement the activities that are necessary to do

           2   that.

           3            I will be turning the floor over now to our

           4   moderator.  Our moderator tonight is Robin Brandin.

           5   And she will facilitate the recording of oral

           6   comments.

           7            I want to thank you again for everybody

           8   coming tonight.  This is important to us and we

           9   appreciate you being here.  Please, if you have

          10   questions that you would like immediate answers to,

          11   please hold those for a discussion with the subject

          12   matter experts.

          13            If you think of a question later on that you

          14   didn't think of tonight and you want to ask a subject

          15   matter expert, please contact me either at the web

          16   site listed here or at the 1-800 number and I'll get

          17   the subject matter expert to get back with you so that

          18   you can discuss your question.

          19            The only other issue that I would like to

          20   discuss just very quickly or touch on very quickly is

          21   to ask you to please respect everyone who comes

          22   forward to make their oral comment tonight.  I can

          23   tell you it takes a lot of guts to get up in front of

          24   a room of strangers and speak.  So please be

          25   respectful of everyone.  Thank you.


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           1            MS. BRANDIN:  Good evening, everybody.  We

           2   have a great turnout.  This is wonderful.  Please,

           3   those of you who are standing in the public, try to

           4   get a seat because I guess because of fire laws we're

           5   going to have to limit how many people are in here.

           6   So make sure you get a seat if you're in here and want

           7   to stay.

           8            As Ms. Withers said, my name is Robin Brandin

           9   and I'll be the moderator this evening.  And my role

          10   is to ensure that everyone who wants to speak and has

          11   signed up to speak has an opportunity to do that.  And

          12   also to make sure that we get an accurate record of

          13   what everybody has said.  And in that regard my

          14   partner in that is Jan Williams who is taking a

          15   verbatim record of everything that is said here.

          16            And I'm going to ask you please to make sure

          17   that you speak clearly and not too fast so that she

          18   can keep up with you.  If she can't hear you or can't

          19   understand you, she may interrupt or she may ask me to

          20   interrupt to make sure that we're getting it right.

          21            I gather, Mr. Palomino, there weren't any

          22   takers on the Spanish language translation?

          23            MR. PALOMINO:  Not so far.

          24            MS. BRANDIN:  So, if anybody needs that,

          25   please let me know.


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           1            So here is how we will proceed.  I have cards

           2   for those of you who indicated you wished to speak.

           3   And there's a lot of you.  I will extend the courtesy

           4   to elected officials and their representatives first.

           5   We only have a couple of those.

           6            And then I will call on everyone in the order

           7   that you registered.  If you didn't check that you

           8   wanted to speak when you registered or when you came

           9   in and decide that you do want to, please go out to

          10   the registration desk and fill out a card or retrieve

          11   your card so we can add it to the pile.

          12            Because I have quite a large number of

          13   speakers tonight, about two to three times what we had

          14   at the other two hearings, we're going to have to ask

          15   you to limit your comments to about three minutes.  We

          16   have a timekeeper over here in the corner, Ms. Hale in

          17   the green shirt.

          18            And, when you're within 30 seconds of the

          19   time allotment, she will hold up this yellow card.

          20   And, when your time is up, she will hold up a blue

          21   card.  It's not that we mean to restrict your

          22   comments, but please realize that there are a lot of

          23   people and I want everybody to have an equal chance to

          24   speak.

          25            And there are other opportunities to comment


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           1   as Ms. Withers said.  You can provide written

           2   comments, you can email your comments.  All of the

           3   comments will show up in the site-wide EIS, in the

           4   final EIS.  So there are multiple ways to comment.

           5            When I call your name, please step up to the

           6   microphone over here, face the audience, and then

           7   you'll be able to see Ms. Hale as well.  And as I said

           8   Ms. Williams is taking a verbatim account of this.  So

           9   please do not include any personal information that

          10   you would not want to have published in the final EIS

          11   because the transcripts will be published in the final

          12   site-wide EIS.  If you brought a written copy of your

          13   comments, please hand them to Ms. Williams and that

          14   will help her also get an accurate account.

          15            As Ms. Withers said, the purpose of this part

          16   of the meeting is to get your comments.  So we won't

          17   be answering any questions, especially in light of the

          18   number of people who want to comment.  So I hope you

          19   got a chance to ask your questions before the meeting.

          20            We will take a couple of breaks to give Ms.

          21   Williams a rest.  It's really hard to keep taking all

          22   these comments.  And so, if you have questions there,

          23   the staff will be available to answer them.  And I

          24   think that's about it.

          25            So does anybody have any questions on how


                                                                    20


           1   this is going to proceed?

           2            SPEAKER:  Is it possible to get more air in

           3   here?  It's really hot and stuffy.

           4            SPEAKER:  We'll check.

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  Thank you.

           6            SPEAKER:  I'm just a little concerned about

           7   the three-minute time limit.  I understand, you know,

           8   your criteria.  The only thing is like I find this

           9   goes through the whole study.  And, if we think the

          10   logic of this thing out, if you have just a massive

          11   protest and you have thousands of people and we follow

          12   that format, that means everybody gets to speak for a

          13   second and it basically negates the value of this.

          14            I mean I think three minutes, if that's -- if

          15   we can't accommodate everyone within five minutes,

          16   that implies to me that there are not enough hearings,

          17   we need to have additional hearings.  So we need to

          18   speak for at least five minutes.

          19            MS. BRANDIN:  The problem is we need to get

          20   out of here by about 10:30.

          21            SPEAKER:  I'm just saying additional days.

          22   That's what happened with the U.S. Air Force when they

          23   did the bomber thing, they realized that this was not

          24   turning into a meaningful exercise for public input

          25   like the mandate states so they added additional


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           1   hearings and additional time.  So I was hoping that we

           2   can maybe do the same thing.

           3            MS. BRANDIN:  I'm sure Ms. Withers has heard

           4   that request.

           5            SPEAKER:  I have a comment.  And that is that

           6   there has been an agreement that has been reached with

           7   DOE and NNSA that the hearings would go on as long as

           8   there were people who wanted to speak, that there

           9   would not be a cutoff.

          10            MS. BRANDIN:  We'll go as long as we can.

          11   But the facility -- we can't do anything about the

          12   facility.  But we probably -- we should probably get

          13   on with it given the time limits.  And I know a lot of

          14   you are really anxious to talk.  So we'll start.

          15            And the first person I'm going to call on is

          16   Mr. Matthew Ortiz, Santa Fe City Councilor.

          17            MATTHEW ORTIZ:  I want to thank the moderator

          18   for giving me the ability to make my comments at the

          19   front of the meeting and I beg the indulgence of the

          20   crowd for jumping ahead of you in essence.  And I want

          21   to make my comments for the record.

          22            Last night I introduced a resolution

          23   objecting to the proposed expansion of nuclear weapon

          24   activity.  You know, folks, I need you to be quiet.

          25   And then the way that the mayor does it at city


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           1   council is, after I'm finished, then you give a big

           2   round of applause for everyone and then it doesn't cut

           3   into my time.  Okay.

           4            So last night I introduced a resolution

           5   objecting to the proposed expanded nuclear weapons

           6   activity including plutonium pit production at the Los

           7   Alamos National Laboratory and directing the City

           8   Clerk to inform federal authorities of the objections.

           9            This resolution is cosponsored by Councilor

          10   Carmichael Dominguez, Councilor Ron Trujillo,

          11   Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger, Councilor Chris Calvert,

          12   Councilor Patti Bushee, Councilor Miguel Chavez, and

          13   Mayor David Coss.

          14            Because again this is a draft resolution, it

          15   will be adopted by the governing body at our regular

          16   meeting on Monday, August 28th.  I do want to read,

          17   however, the perfunctory findings paragraphs, I want

          18   to read the proposed actions that we want to take, and

          19   then I want to give a brief conclusion or summary on

          20   those proposed actions that we're going to take.

          21            The findings that we make or that are

          22   proposed to be made is that the National Nuclear

          23   Security Administration, the semi-autonomous nuclear

          24   weapons agency within the Department of Energy, has

          25   announced its plans to expand a nuclear weapons


                                                                    23


           1   activity at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and

           2   that these expanded activities are in addition to

           3   nuclear weapon activities previously expanded in 1999.

           4            And these expanded activities include the

           5   planned quadrupling of plutonium pit production from

           6   20 to 80 per year with the near doubling of related

           7   radioactive wastes and that the plutonium pits are

           8   used to trigger existing nuclear weapons and will be

           9   used in future new design nuclear weapons.

          10            And the use of plutonium creates health and

          11   environmental hazards.  And the governing body of the

          12   City of Santa Fe does not support the creation of

          13   further health and environmental hazards related to

          14   nuclear weapons for the citizens of Northern New

          15   Mexico.

          16            The NNSA took 18 months from its formal

          17   notice of intent to final release of its plan through

          18   a draft site-wide environmental impact statement for

          19   continued operations at the Los Alamos National

          20   Laboratory, but it granted the public only 60 days to

          21   comment on approximately 1,700 technical pages and

          22   hundreds of referenced documents.

          23            It is the declared policy of the United

          24   States government to help constrain the proliferation

          25   of weapons of mass destruction but should lead by


                                                                    24


           1   concrete example.

           2            The resolution paragraphs are the following:

           3   "That the governing body hereby states its objection

           4   to the expansion of nuclear weapons activities at the

           5   Los Alamos National Laboratory including increased

           6   plutonium pit production; and that the governing body

           7   objects to the insufficient 60, now 75-day public

           8   comment period and strongly advises the NNSA to grant

           9   a 30-day extension; and that the governing body would

          10   direct the City Clerk to send copies of the resolution

          11   to our Congressional delegation, our governor, the

          12   Department of Energy, and NNSA."

          13            I would like to say, as it relates to the

          14   last one, that's an obvious.  We need to send it to

          15   the officials who are in charge.

          16            "As it relates to our objection to weapons

          17   activity, Santa Fe is downstream from the lab; we

          18   always have been, we always will.  We are, therefore,

          19   as a city very active and very interested and very

          20   concerned about the missions, both currently as well

          21   as proposed, of the Los Alamos National Laboratory."

          22            And, as it relates to the insufficient time

          23   period, we, myself and all the members of the

          24   governing body who have cosponsored this resolution,

          25   would like the information that is in this draft


                                                                    25


           1   statement to be easily accessible and complete.

           2   Hundreds of documents referenced and three minutes of

           3   time is an insufficient time period for us to make our

           4   comments as we are directly affected by the Los Alamos

           5   National Laboratory.

           6            I want the public, I want my constituents, I

           7   want my city staff to be able to review materials

           8   and -- review materials so that we can present

           9   substantive concerns and comments.

          10            I believe, therefore, that the comment

          11   period -- an additional comment period is necessary.

          12   Again it is my hope that this resolution that is

          13   sponsored by all the members of the governing body

          14   with the exception of my colleague whose husband works

          15   at the lab who did not sponsor it, that it would be

          16   passed unanimously on Monday, August 28.

          17            Again I thank the moderators for giving me

          18   the time to speak in advance of the public comment and

          19   I thank the public for your active and involved

          20   participation.

          21            MS. BRANDIN:  Don't you want to hear each

          22   other?  Please don't interrupt, its really hard for

          23   Ms. Williams to hear the speakers.  So the noise in

          24   the background is interfering with people being able

          25   to speak.  So please give them the courtesy of


                                                                    26


           1   listening.  You can applaud at the end.  But please

           2   listen while they're speaking.

           3            Okay next speaker is Matt Miller representing

           4   Congressman Tom Udall.

           5            MATT MILLER:  My name is Matt Miller.  The

           6   Congressman felt it was important that he be

           7   represented here tonight.  I thought I was going to

           8   have five minutes.

           9            I would like to second what the gentleman

          10   back here said, three minutes is completely

          11   insufficient.  If you guys want to be heard here, we

          12   need to do this in two nights with five minutes per

          13   speaker.

          14            But our constituents have raised a number of

          15   concerns with us.  I wanted to go over two of them

          16   here tonight.  One is the reference materials in the

          17   SWEIS, as mentioned at the previous two meetings that

          18   I attended in Espanola and Los Alamos, there are

          19   literally hundreds of pages that are referenced in the

          20   SWEIS that are not in the SWEIS.  And they're only

          21   available at the Los Alamos reading room, they are not

          22   available online.

          23            That means if you're coming from Taos, even

          24   Santa Fe, and you really want to get into the SWEIS,

          25   you're going to have a hard time doing this because


                                                                    27


           1   you have to go to Los Alamos and read hundreds of

           2   documents.

           3            We requested they be made available online so

           4   everyone who really wants to get through the SWEIS can

           5   read the referenced documents in addition to the SWEIS

           6   itself.

           7            The second thing I want to comment is the

           8   comment period.  As you all know, the original comment

           9   period was 60 days.  Congressman Udall on July 31st

          10   sent a letter to Ed Wilmot at the DOE, at the LASO

          11   office, requesting that the comment period be extended

          12   a full 30 days to October 5.  Now, as all you know,

          13   since Tuesday the comment period was extended.  But it

          14   was extended 15 days instead of 30 days.

          15            This is a great big tome, I mean this is

          16   three tomes here totaling 1,500 pages.  We do not feel

          17   it is an unreasonable request that the comment period

          18   be extended a full 30 days, to October 5, to get

          19   through this SWEIS.

          20            As I say, given the size of the room, we feel

          21   this is unreasonable.  There is no statute in place

          22   that limits the amount of time for the comment period

          23   that the DOE has.  If they wanted to, they could

          24   extend the comment period 100 days, if they felt like

          25   it.


                                                                    28


           1            In addition to that, as mentioned earlier by

           2   Matt and by people at the previous meetings, it took a

           3   year and a half to get the SWEIS out.  And now the DOE

           4   is expecting our constituents to somehow read through

           5   this year and a half thing in the making, this 1,500

           6   pages at least, in 75 days.  And we feel it's just not

           7   sufficient.

           8            We don't think it's an unreasonable request

           9   that the comment period being extended a full 30 days,

          10   to October 5.  So for the record we would like to ask

          11   the DOE, please extend the comment period a full 30

          12   days to October 5.

          13            MICHELLE HAWKINS ORTIZ:  Can I take his last

          14   30 seconds.

          15            MS. BRANDIN:  Yes.

          16            MICHELLE HAWKINS ORTIZ:  Thank you.

          17            MS. BRANDIN:  Would you please give your

          18   name.

          19            MICHELLE HAWKINS ORTIZ:  It's Michelle

          20   Hawkins Ortiz and I'm Congressman Tom Udall's state

          21   director.  Matt is the congressman's aid for Los

          22   Alamos National Lab.

          23            I just wanted to touch on one additional

          24   concern which is with regard to the increased risk of

          25   health effects under the expanded operations


                                                                    29


           1   alternative.  Needless to say, our office is inundated

           2   with claimants for the Energy Employees Occupational

           3   Illness program, the EEOICPA program, which is

           4   dysfunctional at best.

           5            And we would like to formally request a

           6   briefing, any kind of information that can be shared

           7   with us about the potential health effects to the

           8   worker as well as the community.  And, in looking at

           9   volume -- at least one of the volumes, there's these

          10   cryptic references to some of the health effects.  And

          11   we just -- we need some sort of communication that

          12   doesn't require a degree in health physics.

          13            MS. BRANDIN:  Our next speaker is Cathie

          14   Sullivan.

          15            CATHIE SULLIVAN:  My name is Cathie Sullivan.

          16   I want to read my comments since I don't think rapidly

          17   on my feet.

          18            Since that new iconic date, 9/11, a date that

          19   the Bush Administration treats like December 7, 1941,

          20   an information iron curtain has descended between the

          21   American public and its government.  Our rights to

          22   government information are under attack.

          23            At the lab and the Department of Energy,

          24   documents formerly available are now hard to get.  Nor

          25   does the public have access to laboratory scientists,


                                                                    30


           1   the people actually doing the work, the people with

           2   knowledgeable answers, the people who are not trusted

           3   to speak to us.

           4            Since Former Attorney General John Ashcroft

           5   advised federal agencies that his office would back up

           6   to the maximum extent of the law any agency that

           7   stalled or denied federal Freedom of Information Act

           8   requests, getting unclassified documents has become an

           9   endurance contest between the gatekeepers and the

          10   people.

          11            At LANL I understand that all accident and

          12   occurrence reports have disappeared behind the

          13   post-9/11 information iron curtain.  Why?  Will it

          14   strengthen al-Quada to know about a lab forklift

          15   accident or an injury to a graduate student from the

          16   carelessness of a senior LANL investigator.

          17            The lab and the Department of Energy would be

          18   embarrassed by these disclosures.  And their

          19   insecurity and vanity is harming our right to know.

          20   Secrecy is toxic to good government and democracy.

          21            Unless preventive medicine in the form of

          22   openness and transparency is given soon in large

          23   doses, we all may be attending the funeral of our

          24   democracy, dead for lack of public participation and

          25   an informed public.


                                                                    31


           1            These SWEIS hearings offer a small crack in

           2   the informational iron curtain I've been describing.

           3   Let us open that crack and reach in for more

           4   information on critical issues such as expanding the

           5   pit production plutonium at LANL, lab cleanup, future

           6   LANL water demands, and details regarding safety

           7   planning for the new biosafety laboratories.

           8            My second point concerns the short EIS

           9   comment period, by now even a familiar topic.  A

          10   diligent but underpaid and often volunteer activist

          11   community is working hard to digest and constructively

          12   comment on this year long 2,000 word document, 2,000

          13   page document as are some individual citizens.  They

          14   deserve enough time to do a good job.

          15            In fact, many in the activist community

          16   believe that their independent comments are used by

          17   the Department of Energy to call agency attention to

          18   neglected and overlooked issues which, if left

          19   unaddressed in the SWEIS, could form the basis of

          20   future court lawsuits.

          21            We will be glad to help keep you out of

          22   court.  But we need time to do so.  And no, there is

          23   no charge.  We act out of patriotic self interest.

          24   The draft SWEIS is a monster of almost 2,000 pages

          25   with I understand multiple CDs worth of backup


                                                                    32


           1   documents.

           2            In light of my earlier criticisms, I

           3   gratefully acknowledge this trove of documentation.

           4   But there is no need to rush because of an arbitrary

           5   deadline set by DOE.  In defense of granting a

           6   significantly longer comment period, note the

           7   following dates relevant to this draft EIS.

           8            A notice of intent for a supplemental

           9   site-wide EIS was printed in the Federal Register in

          10   January of '05.  This was later changed to a full

          11   site-wide EIS.  And on May 26 the draft was signed by

          12   Deputy Director of the National Nuclear Security

          13   Administration Dr. D'Agostino.

          14            But close to six weeks elapsed before this

          15   was presented to the public on July 7.  DOE

          16   implementing regulation 1021, section 1.313, mandates

          17   the 45-day public comment period for average length

          18   documents.  But this draft SWEIS is huge.

          19            And I urge extending the comment period to

          20   reflect this length.  We in the activist community

          21   have fewer resources and people than does the

          22   Department of Energy.  We need more time.

          23            The final SWEIS can only be strengthened

          24   against inadvertent omissions, error, and challenge if

          25   afforded a reasonable comment period.  DOE has the


                                                                    33


           1   authority to make this happen.  Please extend the

           2   comment period to a date the activist community can

           3   work for at least late 2006.  This will produce the

           4   best possible SWEIS, a goal we all share.  Thank you.

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  The next speaker is Chris

           6   Mechels.  Is that right?

           7            CHRIS MECHELS:  Good evening.  My name is

           8   Chris Mechels, I'm retired from Los Alamos for those

           9   of you who know me.  The first thing I would like to

          10   draw your attention to is this very important note at

          11   back table which is where you can find the references

          12   on the CDs.

          13            Unfortunately, and I have talked with

          14   Ms. Withers about this and she's been helpful in

          15   clarifying it, they will -- if you request CDs, even

          16   if you belong to let's say the DOE oversight bureau,

          17   they will not provide a copy.

          18            I, therefore, thoroughly support Tom Udall's

          19   office's position, put these things online.  I think

          20   the reason offered for not providing them is they cost

          21   $200 a pop for a CD set.  These sets of these cost

          22   $100 a pop.

          23            It really needs -- rather than putting

          24   them -- burning a bunch of CDs which I would support

          25   doing, it's much easier to put them online and let


                                                                    34


           1   people get them.  You do have to get them to

           2   understand this, this is a very poor document.

           3            I have managed to get the references and I've

           4   been looking at them.  And, for example, some of the

           5   problems of this document, and by no means an

           6   exhaustive list, is, for example, on their super

           7   computer complex, they claim to be using a 50-teraops

           8   machine and they're going to use 7.2 megawatts of

           9   electricity in its current usage.

          10            I just finished looking at their document,

          11   their environmental assessment which was provided

          12   courtesy of Ms. Withers when I couldn't get it any

          13   other way.  They show -- they show the usage in that

          14   document as 63 million gallons per year.

          15            Contrast that with what they say here, where

          16   they don't even give you a figure for current usage.

          17   And then they go on to say that the expanded usage

          18   will be 15 megawatts and 51.  So, in fact, the

          19   51-gallon expanded usage is less than current usage

          20   per their own documents.  That's the kind of mischief

          21   which is going on in the SWEIS.

          22            Another one in the same set is they claim to

          23   be using 51 million gallons which is 19 million

          24   liters.  If you do the sum, it doesn't work out.

          25   Liters are smaller than gallons.  It's just full of


                                                                    35


           1   errors.  And you're not going to catch the errors

           2   unless you look at the reference documents.

           3            And right now the reference documents are not

           4   available in any convenient way.  Please put them

           5   online.  And, after you put them online, extend the

           6   comment period as the Congressman asked so that we

           7   might have a chance to use them and correct this

           8   document which is highly needful of corrections.

           9            Another one, for example, is high explosive

          10   processing facilities.  They're currently doing 15

          11   safety mechanical tests a year.  They're talking about

          12   doing a 20 percent reduction which is 12 or a slight

          13   increase on expanded operations to 500.  It's

          14   ridiculous on the face of it.  And you can't prove

          15   it's ridiculous unless you have the reference

          16   documents which we don't.  It just goes on and on.

          17            The other thing I draw your attention to is

          18   the fact that there are three major facilities with

          19   obvious things missing.  The Los Alamos super

          20   computing center shouldn't be in Los Alamos.  When you

          21   log onto AOL, you don't care if it's from Virginia.

          22            When you log onto this computer complex, you

          23   shouldn't care if it's in New Mexico.  If it is in New

          24   Mexico, it's maxing out their water and it's maxing

          25   out their power which are slightly over 100 percent of


                                                                    36


           1   their expanded operations.

           2            LANSCE should not be here.  They just

           3   finished the neutron source out east which was

           4   supposed to take over most of the LANSCE.  Now we've

           5   discovered we want to keep LANSCE apparently forever.

           6   The biggest contaminator, huge use of power, huge use

           7   of water, it shouldn't be in New Mexico, there's no

           8   reason for it to be.

           9            Lastly, DART.  They make no mention of the

          10   fact that DART is violating all the containment

          11   regulations.  They're using this ad hoc pile of form

          12   containment mechanism which is not allowed in their

          13   BEA and shouldn't be in use.  No mention made of any

          14   of this.  This is a bad piece of work.  And it needs

          15   correcting.  Thank you.

          16            SPEAKER:  Has something been done about the

          17   ventilation or can more of the doors be opened?  Is

          18   someone working on getting more ventilation in here?

          19            MS. BRANDIN:  Somebody went out to try.

          20            SPEAKER:  There's also more doors that could

          21   be opened.

          22            MS. BRANDIN:  I'm going to keep going and

          23   hopefully we'll get that resolved.  But we want to get

          24   on with it.  The next speaker are Sisters of Loretto.

          25            SISTER ELAINE PREVOLAY:  My name is Elaine


                                                                    37


           1   Prevolay, I'm a Sister of Loretto in Santa Fe.  As

           2   long as 28 years ago, the Loretto community declared

           3   and published our commitment to an end of the

           4   production of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

           5            We are particularly committed we said 28

           6   years ago to encouraging and assisting in the urgent

           7   work of educating ourselves and others to the perils

           8   of the continued proliferation of nuclear power and

           9   arms.

          10            The very next year the entire body of 300

          11   Loretto members gathered for general assembly, wrote

          12   by consensus, and published the following statement:

          13   "Rooted as we are in our Judeo-Christian heritage, we

          14   view our opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear

          15   energy as an urgent moral imperative.  We recognize

          16   that the burden of leadership in this regard falls not

          17   only on concerned persons throughout the world but

          18   especially on the community of faith.  We consider

          19   this a very serious matter of conscience."

          20            I want to mention also that over 200 persons

          21   from our community signed the petition that Peace

          22   Action will submit this evening.

          23            SISTER PATRICIA JEAN MANION:  My name is

          24   Patricia Jean Manion.  And I first came to Santa Fe in

          25   1952.  And, of course, you probably know that our


                                                                    38


           1   first sisters came here in 1852.  So we've been around

           2   for awhile.  This is the Vatican's statement that was

           3   made in 1997.  Archbishop Renato Martino, the

           4   Vatican's representative to the United Nations, issued

           5   the following statement to the UN.  "Nuclear weapons

           6   are incompatible with the peace we seek for the 21st

           7   century.  They cannot be justified and deserve

           8   condemnation."

           9            SISTER PENELOPE McMULLEN:  I'm Penelope

          10   McMullen, I'm a Sister of Loretto.  The Loretto

          11   community opposes the plan to increase production of

          12   plutonium pits.  We request that we now spend one

          13   minute in quiet prayer and that this time of prayer be

          14   recorded in the hearing proceedings.

          15            We suggest that we who are gathered here use

          16   our breath as prayer, breathing in light, grace, and

          17   healing from God, Great Spirit, or the universe, and

          18   breathing out that light, grace, and healing to each

          19   other, Los Alamos, and our troubled world.  And I

          20   would ask Ms. Hale to put up the blue card when one

          21   minute is over.

          22            (Pause).

          23            SISTER PENELOPE McMULLEN:  Thank you.

          24            MS. BRANDIN:  Our next speaker is Tom Troth.

          25            TOM TROTH:  Good evening.  I just have a


                                                                    39


           1   comment about fissile material, which plutonium would

           2   fit in that category.  Kofi Annan, the Secretary

           3   General of the UN, on May 30, 2005, in an op-ed

           4   article on the nuclear proliferation treaty, after a

           5   review conference that happens every five years,

           6   stated that a fissile material cutoff treaty for all

           7   countries is indispensable.

           8            Also the current pits that they have I've

           9   heard and read from watchdog information have an

          10   expected working life that lasts until 2038.  So I'm

          11   not sure why we're projecting us to need those pits

          12   that far into the future.

          13            The proposed ones are untested and they'll

          14   need to be tested.  I'm not sure how that process

          15   goes.  But also Kofi Annan stated in that op-ed

          16   article that all countries should affirm their

          17   commitment to a moratorium on testing and a

          18   comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty should be

          19   enacted.  This new plutonium pit is going to

          20   apparently be a different type and have a longer life.

          21   So that's something to keep in mind.

          22            And I think that ends my comments.  Thank

          23   you.

          24            MS. BRANDIN:  The next speaker is Dustin

          25   William Olson.


                                                                    40


           1            DUSTIN WILLIAM OLSON:  Thank you.  We are

           2   here right now because the people are allowing us to

           3   be here.  The people are allowing this comment period.

           4   The people are allowing Los Alamos to exist.  Now, we

           5   live in a nation where there's a rule of law and

           6   order.  No one is above the rule of law and order.

           7   And this is under the Constitution of the United

           8   States of America.

           9            Okay.  The bottom line that gives Los Alamos

          10   a reason or a rationale to exist is the National

          11   Security Act of 1947.  If that act is ever repealed,

          12   you have no more bottom line to exist.  We're not

          13   talking about pit facilities or anything, just

          14   existence.

          15            Okay.  Now, most people are concerned about

          16   environmental impacts and stuff.  I mean I'm concerned

          17   about environmental impacts too.  But I'm more

          18   concerned about the shutdown of electric devices

          19   during the three to five days of darkness when the

          20   planet gets shut down.  Okay.  That's number one.

          21            Does Los Alamos, can they function without

          22   electricity.  A directed energy weapons attack on the

          23   pit facility site or the waste storage site, no one

          24   seems to have any idea about a protection umbrella

          25   anything.  That seems like that might be a problem.


                                                                    41


           1            If there is an escalation of the coming

           2   nuclear war in the Middle East, someone told me, oh,

           3   they don't think that LANL is a prime target.  No,

           4   it's probably a secondary target.

           5            Then there's the plate movement, a movement

           6   of the rotational axis when the let's call it the

           7   ionosphere, the electromagnetic sheath shifts, and we

           8   have a new rotational axis.  And so we're going to

           9   have a lot of earthquakes.

          10            What kind of -- does your -- I haven't read

          11   this booklet.  But does it address the predicament

          12   that we would be in due to earthquakes and shut down

          13   the power, transportation, et cetera, et cetera.

          14   That's all I want to say.

          15            SPEAKER:  The Jemez volcano erupting above

          16   Los Alamos.

          17            MS. BRANDIN:  Thank you.  The next speaker is

          18   Rebecca Procter.

          19            REBECCA PROCTER:  My name is Rebecca Procter,

          20   I'm a resident of Santa Fe County.  I'd like to make a

          21   short overall statement to begin.  And that is that I

          22   believe backing the preferred alternative which

          23   involves dramatically expanding production of pits

          24   that form the cores of the actual nuclear weapons as

          25   well as the outright dismissal of consideration of the


                                                                    42


           1   so-called green alternative which was focused on

           2   science and waste management are both actions that I

           3   view as putting the U.S. in direct violation of the

           4   nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

           5            Now, regardless of the stance that the

           6   current administration takes regarding any treaty into

           7   which the U.S. has entered, the people of the United

           8   States are overwhelmingly in favor of honoring the

           9   requirements of nonproliferation.

          10            The ethical and moral stance that the current

          11   document espouses is completely indefensible.

          12   Creating massive new amounts of weapons of mass

          13   destruction is not clearly not a formula for promoting

          14   peace on the planet.

          15            Now, I'm going to spend the rest of the time

          16   that I have just pulling a couple of very brief

          17   examples from my initial reading of the document which

          18   admittedly is still superficial and I hope to spend

          19   more time with it.  I'm hoping to pinpoint a couple of

          20   items that I think highlight issues that should be

          21   addressed.

          22            My first example is taken from the estimated

          23   environmental effects of the expanded operations

          24   alternative.  And that is that it is estimated that

          25   the bulk type low level radioactive waste will


                                                                    43


           1   increase under this alternative to a level that would

           2   be somewhere between five and 23 times greater than is

           3   currently being generated.

           4            In addition, the so-called packaged low level

           5   nuclear waste would increase under that estimate to a

           6   level somewhere between 2.5 and 5.25 times greater

           7   than is currently being generated.

           8            Now, the issue I'm raising here is not

           9   whether LANL will deal with that waste in some manner.

          10   The issue that I want to be considered is whether it

          11   is acceptable to the people of New Mexico to have this

          12   much more radioactive waste being generated and

          13   possibly moved through the state to holding

          14   facilities.  I personally believe that that is

          15   ethically unacceptable.

          16            To take another tack that has to do with

          17   public health, we don't know from this document

          18   exactly how the estimates of risks of various accident

          19   scenarios was generated.  The statistics provided are

          20   not backed up by an explanation of methodology.

          21            To take just one example, and this is -- keep

          22   in mind that the example I've chosen is an accident

          23   scenario that is not considered to have the highest

          24   possible risks to the off-site population, it's just

          25   one of many possible scenarios.


                                                                    44


           1            And this comes from the estimated

           2   consequences of a radiological accident deriving from

           3   a plutonium facility storage container release at the

           4   TA-55 facility which would be the facility that's

           5   developing plutonium pits.

           6            And they state this risk to be an increase in

           7   latent cancer fatalities of .223.  So that means less

           8   than one fatality per 100 people.  But think for just

           9   a moment about that ratio and think about that in

          10   terms of 10,000 people.

          11            If that estimate is correct, we would be

          12   looking at an increase in latent cancer fatalities of

          13   more than 22 people out of 10,000.  When viewed from

          14   the larger perspective of the actual population that

          15   could be affected in Los Alamos and Santa Fe Counties

          16   alone, this is an unacceptable risk from this type of

          17   accident.

          18            Further, we can't tell right now from the

          19   SWEIS if the risk of such accidents, and there are

          20   many other possibilities mentioned in the document,

          21   has been assessed in a scientifically defensible

          22   manner.

          23            Now, I'm going to indulge my professional

          24   interest for the last few seconds that I have, and

          25   that is that I am a professional archeologist.  And I


                                                                    45


           1   may be only one of a few that will comment on this

           2   document.  So I just want to point out that it is

           3   recognized that there will be adverse effects to

           4   certain cultural resources from the expanded

           5   operations alternative.

           6            This involves the destruction or alteration

           7   of certain buildings, some of which are eligible for

           8   the National Register of Historic Places.  There will

           9   be some effects to known archeological sites.  And

          10   there will be potentially some effects to traditional

          11   cultural properties which have religious and cultural

          12   significance to tribal peoples in this area.

          13            And in that case it has to do with the view

          14   shed, the view from these traditional cultural

          15   properties, which in most cases are sacred places.

          16   Thank you for the time and thanks for your attention.

          17            MS. BRANDIN:  Our next speaker is Don Bennett

          18   followed by Carl Smith.

          19            DON BENNETT:  Thank you.  I'm in awe of the

          20   sophistication and the detailed research and care of

          21   my colleagues in this community.  The local

          22   environmental impact of dramatically increasing

          23   nuclear weapon triggers at Los Alamos National Lab is

          24   indeed a valid concern.  But there is a larger danger.

          25            Spending billions to expand the U.S.


                                                                    46


           1   stockpile of nuclear weapons will not improve our

           2   national security in today's world.  More likely it

           3   will degrade global security by keeping the U.S. in

           4   the forefront of the unending proliferation of nuclear

           5   weapons.

           6            And the integrity of our global environment

           7   will be further impaired if Los Alamos fails to

           8   reassess its national security role.  The billions of

           9   new dollars, this pool of scientific talent, and an

          10   enlightened new Los Alamos mission should be

          11   aggressively applied toward the development of

          12   nonmilitary nuclear alternatives to fossil fuels.

          13            Our insatiable use of oil has led the U.S.

          14   into dangerous military adventures, political

          15   confrontations in the Middle East, thus decreasing our

          16   security.  Our always expanding fossil fuel use is

          17   leading to major environmental degradation as well.

          18            Just imagine how much constructive good and

          19   goodwill Los Alamos could contribute to our national

          20   security, economy, and the environment by developing

          21   safe new generations of commercial nuclear power

          22   plants, small and economical nuclear plants for the

          23   world's Merchant Marine fleets, for example.  As the

          24   United States' power generation was weaned from fossil

          25   fuels, the environmental degradation would certainly


                                                                    47


           1   moderate.

           2            I prefer that the National Nuclear Security

           3   Administration and Los Alamos take the lead in finding

           4   nonmilitary constructive solutions to our new national

           5   security problems and environmental threats rather

           6   than spend time, talent, and treasure, our treasure on

           7   tasks and products that will escalate the global

           8   nuclear arms race and contribute nothing toward global

           9   environmental solutions.  Thank you.

          10            MS. BRANDING:  Mr. Smith.  The next speaker

          11   after Mr. Smith will be Paulette Frankl.

          12            CARL SMITH:  My name is Carl Smith, I live in

          13   Santa Fe.  I do not support any increases in nuclear

          14   weapons research.  And that's really what I'm here to

          15   say.  The previous two speakers have articulated this

          16   so well that I really am hesitant to say anything

          17   more.

          18            But I have three points, quick points I hope.

          19   One, the first point is that, if you have them, you

          20   want to use them.  So why do we still have them?  And

          21   we have -- well, on July 25, 1945, when President

          22   Truman ordered the delivery of the special bomb on the

          23   day where the weather permitted it over one of four

          24   possible targets in Japan, the whole thing escalated.

          25   It became like a toboggan running down a hillside.


                                                                    48


           1            They had two bombs ready.  They used the

           2   first one and that was really all that was necessary.

           3   They didn't even give the Emperor of Japan time to

           4   respond to the ultimatum.  And they went ahead because

           5   they had the second bomb ready, they went ahead and

           6   used it.

           7            Isn't that the nature of war?  Isn't that the

           8   way these things work?  I say we don't need them.  The

           9   second point is somewhat like that.  Our leadership in

          10   this nation started the Iraq war looking for weapons

          11   of mass destruction, to get rid of them.  All the time

          12   they were right here in New Mexico.

          13            I think we ought to set up a tour bureau to

          14   bring people here to find the weapons of mass

          15   destruction.  They could paint them and name them and

          16   do all kinds of things with them.  These serve no

          17   destructive life-enabling purpose.  They are illegal.

          18   So let's get rid of them versus trying to improve

          19   them.

          20            The last thing I want to say is personal and

          21   a little bit pejorative.  And I keep asking myself

          22   why, why are we doing all this, why are we trying to

          23   improve these weapons of mass destruction, why are we

          24   keeping them?  Why is Los Alamos so focused on all of

          25   this, why?  And I came up with my own answer and


                                                                    49


           1   realized we've got to keep jobs for those folks.  This

           2   is a massive welfare system.  The military,

           3   corporations that serve this are massive welfare

           4   systems.

           5            Now, I personally do not mind that.  I

           6   personally don't mind subsidizing people to do useful

           7   work.  But we need these people in Los Alamos, the

           8   engineers and scientists, to do constructive work like

           9   our previous two speakers said.  There are useful

          10   things to be done in this country.  Let's get on with

          11   it.

          12            MS. BRANDIN:  Paulette Frankl.  After

          13   Ms. Frankl is Betty Kronsky.

          14            PAULETTE FRANKL:  My name is Paulette Frankl

          15   and I'm a resident of Santa Fe.  I'm a mother and a

          16   grandmother and somebody who is very concerned about

          17   nature, the environment, water, air, animals, Native

          18   Americans, and habitats and health of all sort.  To

          19   continue this quest for bigger and better weapons is

          20   not the way.

          21            It isn't Los Alamos that just decided, well,

          22   we're going to sort of clean things up a bit and make

          23   things newer and better and bigger.  That's not what's

          24   going on.  This was authorized somewhere right at the

          25   top.  Los Alamos isn't making these sort of


                                                                    50


           1   improvements all of its own accord.

           2            And I heard that, if New Mexico were to

           3   secede from the union, it would be the third largest

           4   or one of the three largest nuclear powers on the

           5   planet.  Please understand this.  We are living next

           6   to an accident waiting to happen.  As Helen Caldicott

           7   said, if you live next to a nuclear power plant, you

           8   don't need a war, all you need is an accident.

           9            And accidents happen.  Among other things

          10   where is all this waste, you know, where is it going

          11   to be taken out of?  Before I came here, I came from

          12   Las Vegas, Nevada, well Yucca Mountain, that's over

          13   there somewhere, who cares.  These are going on the

          14   roads that we drive on.  And again an accident waiting

          15   to happen to Yucca Mountain, if not here.

          16            Yucca Mountain has right next to it a Native

          17   American reservation that's one of the largest in the

          18   country.  Most people don't care about that.  I care

          19   very much about what happens to our native people.

          20            It is happening to all of us.  We are it.

          21   And just to kind of get down to the basics as a mother

          22   and a grandmother and a person who cares about life on

          23   earth and peace in the world, you don't fight for

          24   peace, you live it.  There is only as much peace on

          25   earth as there are peaceful people.


                                                                    51


           1            Certainly we're seeing that right now in

           2   Lebanon.  How much more hatred and destruction do we

           3   need to turn the tide of our own mentality to say

           4   enough, we're just not going to do this anymore?  And

           5   even though I'm very grateful for this hearing, I

           6   wondered, are our voices really going to make a

           7   difference.  And, if not, we need to make sure that

           8   they do.  Thank you very much.

           9            MS. BRANDIN:  Following Ms. Kronsky will be

          10   William Christison.

          11            BETTY KRONSKY:  My name is Betty Kronsky, I'm

          12   a member of People for Peace, a peace organization

          13   that was formed during the first Gulf War in response

          14   to people feeling very helpless and very upset about

          15   what was going on.  And since that time we've had

          16   several other wars to react to and to talk about and

          17   to try to study.

          18            We had an interesting conversation with one

          19   of the experts outside.  He was really very engaging

          20   and helpful.  We were standing in front of the poster

          21   that advertised the new plan for the plutonium pits

          22   and the plutonium facility.

          23            And I noticed, on the bottom line of the

          24   poster, the comment that this was meant to satisfy

          25   mission objectives.  And I asked him what was meant by


                                                                    52


           1   mission objectives.  And he really didn't know, that

           2   wasn't his -- you know, his province.  The objectives

           3   are set by the politicians and not by the scientists.

           4            And I wondered about these mission

           5   objectives.  And, of course, it's been said here

           6   before.  Does it have to do with increasing weapons

           7   for waging nuclear war and what would be the rationale

           8   for war?  Is there a moral justification for using

           9   nuclear weapons?

          10            The way that the wars in Iraq and Lebanon are

          11   being waged today imply to the world that it is okay

          12   to kill civilians, to destroy infrastructures, and to

          13   contaminate the environment.

          14            My understanding is that this kind of war is

          15   morally wrong.  Any kind of war is morally wrong.  But

          16   certainly the kind that is being waged today, it's

          17   only an inch beyond what's happening in Lebanon today

          18   to use nuclear weapons.

          19            We've already used them -- I mean we've

          20   already used depleted uranium on warheads.  And

          21   without really knowing what the result is going to be

          22   in terms of human lives and cancer production.

          23            Certainly it's obvious that, if we have them,

          24   we will use them, that there will be demagogues,

          25   political leaders that will convince us the way they


                                                                    53


           1   did in the mid-forties, that it was okay to use them

           2   against the civilian population.

           3            So I think that many people here believe as I

           4   do, that we do not want to increase our capability of

           5   nuclear weapons.  We would like to get rid of the ones

           6   we have.  And the expert who was talking to us said

           7   that we actually are burning plutonium to get rid of

           8   it.  Then why are we wanting to produce so much more?

           9   It just doesn't make sense.  Thank you.

          10            MS. BRANDIN:  Following Mr. Christison will

          11   be Bud Ryan.

          12            WILLIAM CHRISTISON:  My name is William

          13   Christison.  I don't want new plutonium pits produced

          14   here or anyplace else in the United States.  I have

          15   lived in New Mexico for 25 years.  It is just as

          16   important that new nuclear pits and expansion of the

          17   production of nuclear weapons not occur anywhere else

          18   in the United States as well as here.

          19            Now, why basically are we doing this?  And I

          20   want to tell you a little bit about my credentials.  I

          21   worked for 28 years for the Central Intelligence

          22   Agency.  I wrote two or three of the first national

          23   intelligence estimates produced on the problem of

          24   nuclear proliferation worldwide.

          25            And the situation is just about as bad now as


                                                                    54


           1   it was in the 1960s and the 1970s and the 1980s and

           2   the '90s and now.  Israel by the way got its first

           3   nuclear weapons 39 years ago with the help of the

           4   United States.

           5            India who now has nuclear weapons recently

           6   signed a treaty with the United States that is going

           7   to allow India to expand its nuclear weapons with

           8   assistance from the United States.  Maybe not money,

           9   but the money from us will go for peaceful uses.  And

          10   the money as you know is wholly fungible and will give

          11   India more money to expand its own nuclear weapons

          12   program.

          13            So here we are.  We are helping our own

          14   government expand its nuclear weapons, we are helping

          15   two other countries, India and Israel, expand their

          16   nuclear weapons.  This is in total violation of one of

          17   the basic policies that the United States should be

          18   implementing as enunciated in the nonproliferation

          19   treaty signed in 1969 or 1970.

          20            And so that means, in effect, every single

          21   person working in Los Alamos and participating in the

          22   program of expanding nuclear weapons production in

          23   this country is going to be a criminal under

          24   international law.  I wonder if the people who work

          25   there realize that fact.


                                                                    55


           1            Now, one other thing I want to say.  The

           2   nuclear weapons program of the United States and what

           3   Los Alamos National Laboratory is going to be asked to

           4   do in the near future, expanding production of

           5   plutonium pits means that it's going to make it easier

           6   for the United States to carry out all the rest of its

           7   foreign policies, its very aggressive foreign policies

           8   which have resulted in more hatred of the United

           9   States.

          10            All of these things are really very closely

          11   related.  The Israel-Palestine issue, the present

          12   slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, the present

          13   slaughter of equally innocent people in Iraq, killing

          14   of people in Afghanistan continues.  All of these

          15   things are very closely related.

          16            If we people who want to change U.S. policies

          17   in the nuclear field can do that, then it's also a

          18   step toward helping us change our foreign policies in

          19   all of these other areas.  And that is what needs to

          20   happen if we're going to have anything like a peaceful

          21   world in the coming decades.  Thank you very much.

          22            MS. BRANDIN:  Bud Ryan.  And following

          23   Mr. Ryan will be Peggy Prince.

          24            BUD RYAN:  Hi, I'm Bud Ryan, I'm with Pax

          25   Christi New Mexico which is part of Pax Christi


                                                                    56


           1   International and the Catholic Peace Group.

           2            Okay.  So why are we planning on making pits

           3   here?  Does this not break Article VI of the NPT

           4   treaty?  Linton Brooks, the administrator of the NNSA,

           5   has said publicly that the plan is to eventually

           6   replace all our nuclear weapons.

           7            We as a country have already wasted seven

           8   plus trillion dollars when adjusted for inflation on

           9   these weapons.  So, even though we have never used

          10   these weapons in anger since 1945, when we became the

          11   only country to do so against the innocent civilians

          12   of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I say we have killed many

          13   people here and around the world by wasting the seven

          14   plus trillion dollars on nukes when it should have

          15   been spent on decent housing, food, good schools, and

          16   hospitals for all the people of the earth.

          17            Clean up Los Alamos, stop weapons production,

          18   and use our scientists who are some of the best and

          19   brightest the U.S. has to offer to invent things to

          20   benefit all humankind.  Let the U.S. lead the way in

          21   getting all nuclear weapon states to live up to the

          22   NPT treaty and maybe the U.S. can begin to repair our

          23   reputation that has been trashed since 9/11, when the

          24   Bush Administration highjacked our country and became

          25   to many people around the world the greatest terrorist


                                                                    57


           1   state on the planet.

           2            The manufacture of weapons of mass

           3   destruction is a blasphemy to God, The Creator, and it

           4   is something that we, the people, must stop.

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  Following Ms. Prince is Jay

           6   Coghlan.

           7            PEGGY PRINCE:  Good evening.  My name is

           8   Peggy Prince, I'm with Peace Action New Mexico.  And

           9   in my hand I am holding well over over 500 signatures

          10   on a petition which reads "I vigorously oppose the

          11   proposal for LANL to continue or expand its nuclear

          12   weapons mission.  It is dangerous for the health and

          13   safety of the environment and all life in Northern New

          14   Mexico."

          15            So I was intending to submit these petition

          16   signatures tonight.  But this petition has gotten such

          17   a groundswell of interest that what I'm going to do,

          18   what we're going to do is we're going to leave the

          19   petition open for signatures until the first part of

          20   September and then submit these petitions to become

          21   part of the formal comment in the final SWEIS.

          22            So it's really important.  So, if you would

          23   download this off of our web site and circulate it,

          24   there's a return address on there.  And you can send

          25   it back to our office.  And we will make sure that all


                                                                    58


           1   of your names, signatures, and this petition go into

           2   the final SWEIS document.

           3            And, you know, to say one more thing, I'm

           4   kind of a bottom line kind of person.  And the bottom

           5   line here is that we need to stop this.  There is no

           6   other choice.  We have to stop this terrible

           7   experiment in trying to ramp up our nuclear weapons

           8   production.

           9            You know, they're trying to put one over on

          10   us.  And they're hoping that we're so afraid about

          11   getting on a government list or something like that as

          12   some people have said to me, we're so afraid of that

          13   that we are being scared into silence.  And we need

          14   for that not to happen.  Now is the time for courage.

          15   Thank you.  Mr. Coghlan.

          16            MS. BRANDIN:  Mr. Coghlan.  The next speaker

          17   will be Michael Collins.

          18            JAY COGHLAN:  My name is Jay Coghlan, I work

          19   for Nuclear Watch New Mexico.  I have either the honor

          20   or hassle of doing this stuff for a living.  Others

          21   have spoken about the process to date, the truncated

          22   period of time that the NNSA has given for the comment

          23   period.  I'm quite familiar with it.  But I simply

          24   echo those remarks.

          25            With respect to the reference documents, some


                                                                    59


           1   speakers have noted how important they are.  And

           2   indeed they are.  And a couple of weeks ago we called

           3   up the Los Alamos reading room which is like the

           4   official repository for those documents.  And first we

           5   went to their web site and they had a web site that

           6   was still dated as being February 2006.

           7            And on that web site they said coming soon,

           8   online documents.  So we're going great, we call them

           9   up.  You got the SWEIS documents?  No.  And then they

          10   thanked us for bringing their attention to that

          11   statement on their web site saying that there would be

          12   online documents.  And they go, oh, that statement is

          13   really confusing.  Tell you what, we'll take that

          14   statement off.

          15            So the end result is no online documents.

          16   However, we're not ones to take this laying down.  I

          17   say screw NNSA.  Nuclear Watch is going to put those

          18   reference documents up on our web site.  That will

          19   happen by midweek.

          20            You just go to www.nukewatch, that's

          21   n-u-k-e-w-a-t-c-h, dot org.  They will be there, the

          22   19 CDs that Los Alamos did give us.  And hopefully

          23   this will shame them into providing online access to

          24   these documents in the future.

          25            Right now I'm going to take what might be an


                                                                    60


           1   unexpected twist.  I not only look at Los Alamos, but

           2   I look at the nuclear weapons complex as a whole.  And

           3   previously and, in fact, the last round of hearings a

           4   couple years ago was over a facility called the modern

           5   pit facility.  And this would be a super bomb plant in

           6   the NNSA's hopes and desires capable of a production

           7   capacity of 450 pits a year.

           8            I have worked hard on that issue.  Others in

           9   New Mexico have and others across the country have.

          10   The end result is that super bomb plan has been

          11   defeated for two years running.  That is a very

          12   important victory.  And we have to make sure that the

          13   modern fit facility never comes into being because

          14   what that facility is is a full-scale return to

          15   industrial production of nuclear bombs.

          16            Now, I repeat again, an extremely important

          17   victory.  That, of course, has a negative boomerang

          18   effect on Los Alamos.  But they have fallen for our

          19   grand strategic plan.  That is to keep pit production

          20   surrounded here at Los Alamos, and then it's going to

          21   be a death by 1,000 cuts.

          22            You know, pick this SWEIS apart.  But this

          23   SWEIS is only one small step.  There has to be a much

          24   broader social and political and legal movement

          25   towards the eventual eradication of weapons of mass


                                                                    61


           1   destruction in this state.  It has to start here.

           2   Forty-three percent of the total national budget DOE

           3   for its nuclear weapons activities take place in this

           4   state alone.

           5            Now, to drive this home -- and, you know, I'm

           6   obviously I'm going to run out of time real soon.

           7   But, in order to make it real, our President has

           8   stated that all options remain on the table when it

           9   comes to dealing with alleged uranium nuclear

          10   facilities.

          11            If there were to be a nuclear strike against

          12   Iran, the most likely weapon of choice would be an

          13   earth penetrating weapon that is a variant of a Los

          14   Alamos design that was engineered by Sandia right

          15   outside of Albuquerque.  So the consequences are

          16   immediate, especially given the broad foreign policies

          17   that other speakers have alluded to.

          18            And then, to tie this in, there was going to

          19   be a huge explosion using 700 tons of ammonium nitrate

          20   fuel oil in Nevada.  And the folks in Nevada and also

          21   Utah rose up and have defeated that.  That test is now

          22   being delayed into March, April, thereabouts, to 2007.

          23   The bad news is the most probable location for that

          24   test is White Sands right here in our own state.

          25            So what you end up having are two weapons


                                                                    62


           1   laboratories developing weapons that have a decent

           2   probability of use in an actual nuclear war.  And then

           3   we will have the real -- the test, the practical test

           4   of that earth penetrator likely to be here in White

           5   Sands.

           6            New Mexicans should not stand for it.  We

           7   should better organize.  We are actually absolutely

           8   pivotal to this not only for our country but for the

           9   entire world.

          10            MS. BRANDIN:  Mr. Collins.  Following him is

          11   Jack Frenkel.

          12            MICHAEL COLLINS:  Someone once said where

          13   does it say in the Constitution that it's free speech,

          14   but it's only three minutes.  My understanding is

          15   we're going to be doing -- not we.  They want to do

          16   the same work as Rocky Flats, exact same work, same

          17   process, same mess, same need to clean it up.  So why

          18   isn't it going to be closed?

          19            Let's close the Los Alamos weapons

          20   production.  I don't see any need for it.  Maybe we

          21   have to close the whole thing to do it.  I don't know.

          22   We might not be able to do alternative work if people

          23   don't seem to get the message.  We've been telling

          24   them for years and years.

          25            I was going to say I'm tired of you guys


                                                                    63


           1   fucking around with this, but that would be obscene.

           2   What's obscene is what you guys do.  It's totally an

           3   obscenity, the production.  You've been terrorizing

           4   New Mexico, you've been terrorizing the world for 60

           5   years.  And we're sick of it.

           6            It's a total obscenity.  Talk about -- is

           7   this why we crawled out of primal ooze, solely to take

           8   chromium and eight times toxic chromium and put eight

           9   times the safe limit in our Rio Grande and our

          10   drinking water?  Right.

          11            I think it should be a Superfund site, except

          12   they don't fund Superfund sites anymore.  The

          13   stockpile is way over.  I really think that it should

          14   be looked at as far as the fact that it is the exact

          15   same thing that's happened in Rocky Flats and it

          16   should be closed for the exact same reasons.

          17            Someone said that the decision is going to be

          18   made by some hullabaloo, somebody, some muckety-muck

          19   in DOE.  Congress makes the decisions, not DOE.

          20   Congress makes the decisions, not as George Bush says.

          21   Congress is the decider, not George Bush.

          22            MS. BRANDIN:  Mr. Frenkel.  Following him is

          23   Seely Solomon.

          24            JACK FRENKEL:  My name is Jack Frenkel.  I am

          25   confronted here with a tremendous problem.  And,


                                                                    64


           1   discussing in three minutes, I felt that we should

           2   just use common sense since we won't solve it very

           3   quickly.

           4            So releasing vaporized depleted uranium from

           5   weapons tests in the air near Los Alamos or

           6   manufacturing plutonium pits a few miles from Santa Fe

           7   are not attractive for tourists to come to Santa Fe

           8   and New Mexico nor for the people who live here.

           9            If at all necessary, such activities should

          10   be moved to White Sands Proving Ground or the proposed

          11   waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada or

          12   near the uranium enrichment plant in Eunice or an

          13   abandoned mine or another remote facility far from

          14   population centers.

          15            Accidents do happen.  And radioactively

          16   contaminated air is very difficult to decontaminate as

          17   we learned from the contaminated canyons near Los

          18   Alamos and in Rocky Flats which just mentioned had to

          19   be abandoned.  Why take such risks in the scenic and

          20   economically productive tourist population center.

          21   Thank you.

          22            MS. BRANDIN:  Following Ms. Solomon will be

          23   Greg Mello.

          24            SEELY SOLOMON:  Hello.  I'm Seely.  I used to

          25   be Suki and now I'm Seely.  I'm both I guess.  I'm


                                                                    65


           1   going to talk about the grandfather exemption.  It

           2   should not be applied to all facilities at LANL which

           3   began operations before December 31st, 1988, because

           4   there are many of them.  And the continued release of

           5   polluting gases adds to the burden of harmful toxins

           6   which the plants, animals, and people of Northern New

           7   Mexico are exposed to.

           8            Grandfathers may be special people.  But

           9   polluting facilities are not.  And they can't get away

          10   with hiding behind the image of a grandfather in order

          11   to poison the environment.

          12            Instead I propose the grandmother clause.

          13   That older facilities which began operations before

          14   December 31st, 1988, be the first ones to be required

          15   to clean up their act, making the changes and filters

          16   and scrubbers on their exhaust gas carrying capacity

          17   to bring them into compliance with the latest safety

          18   codes.

          19            We grandmothers feel strongly that no one

          20   should be allowed to be exempted from the rules.  We

          21   certainly can't fool the natural world into believing

          22   that it's okay because its healthy function depends on

          23   clean pure air and water.

          24            And grandmothers want everyone including

          25   grandfathers to set a good example for the younger


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           1   generations because we are all responsible for our

           2   actions and want to pass on the best world we can to

           3   our kids.  That's the way they will learn how to

           4   manage this world properly, by following our good

           5   example.

           6            So let's not get it ass backwards.  Let's

           7   straighten this out.  Should we make more plutonium

           8   triggers for nuclear weapons at LANL?  Absolutely not.

           9   One plutonium trigger is too many.  After all the

          10   suffering in this world, we don't need to plan on ways

          11   of increasing it.  Once again we've got our priorities

          12   ass backwards, putting destruction ahead of support

          13   for life.

          14            Instead of wasting precious resources, time,

          15   and energy and, oh, yes, tax dollars on making weapons

          16   of mass destruction, we need to join together to solve

          17   the pressing problems of today's world which is global

          18   warming, renewable energy production, and clean

          19   alternative fuels.  Like the bumper sticker I saw

          20   recently says it, strengthen life, death takes care of

          21   itself.

          22            MS. BRANDIN:  Thank you.  Mr. Mello.

          23   Following Mr. Mello will be Will Parrish.

          24            GREG MELLO:  Thank you, Suki.  Seely I meant.

          25   This is the third hearing on the subject that I've


                                                                    67


           1   been to this week.  And I'm surprised that not one

           2   single person testifying at any of the locations

           3   including Los Alamos spoke in favor of increasing pit

           4   production.  And, in fact, no one spoke in favor of

           5   retaining a nuclear deterrent.

           6            Now, in the past I would have expected

           7   somebody to step forward and sort of defend the

           8   nuclear deterrent and the need for safety,

           9   reliability, and so forth.  But it didn't happen.  Not

          10   yet.  Maybe tonight.

          11            We're all here and so we have kind of voted

          12   in a way to invest this process with our faith.  So

          13   we -- but we have to be careful with this.  Few I

          14   think here, certainly few last night, felt that this

          15   was a good faith process in which the policy choices

          16   facing the country would be adequately heard, you

          17   know, in the three minute comment period and so forth,

          18   which deals with a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of the

          19   issues involved as Bill Christison pointed out so very

          20   well.

          21            So in a way I've already said my peace as far

          22   as the oral testimony to the NNSA.  I want to talk to

          23   us as a community.

          24            We have to be careful about our own focus and

          25   our own energy level and our own commitment to this


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           1   because this isn't a good faith process.  And, if we

           2   fall into without really thinking about it the idea

           3   that by coming here and saying our peace that this is

           4   going to stop pit production here in Northern New

           5   Mexico, we will be making a very, very big mistake.

           6   In fact, there are a lot of people who would like us

           7   to make that mistake.

           8            Now, whoever organized the -- who talked to

           9   the city councilors and got this draft resolution

          10   which follows one passed last year which was even

          11   stronger, but this one is quite timely, did a very

          12   good thing.  And that can be generalized to other

          13   cities.

          14            The Town of Madrid has also passed a

          15   resolution.  The Town of Taos has considered a

          16   resolution.  The County of Taos has heard the subject

          17   and has thought about it.  I urge you to get involved

          18   in reaching local officials just like someone did so

          19   effectively in the City of Santa Fe.

          20            Get to those officials, get to the state

          21   legislators.  It's going to affect our economy, our

          22   society, our culture, our morale, our mental health,

          23   everything.  And, by appealing to the neoconservatives

          24   in the Bush Administration, that's what Linton Brooks

          25   is, we are not going to -- it's not going to come out


                                                                    69


           1   well.

           2            And that's what this process is, it is an

           3   appeal within the executive branch.  So that's fine,

           4   we're here, we are speaking out strongly.  But this

           5   has to be an inspiration for us and not something that

           6   we go away from and think, ah, we really told them

           7   something.

           8            We have to organize within ourselves, within

           9   our friendship networks, and support the organizations

          10   who are working on this.  Get involved, put your

          11   energy there, put your life there.  Freedom has never

          12   been as they say defended just by kind of like a

          13   hobby, like, oh, maybe after a latte.  We have to

          14   really care.

          15            Now, I'd like to take the logic that Bill

          16   Christison mentioned about the relationship of these

          17   nuclear weapons to our foreign policy and take it

          18   back.  For us in New Mexico, this is the most

          19   effective thing we can do for many of us, to affect

          20   the foreign policy of the United States and limit its

          21   violence.

          22            Just as Bill said, it's absolutely essential

          23   for the United States to have nuclear weapons as the

          24   ultimate guarantor of the safety of our expeditionary

          25   forces.  Nuclear weapons are what make war possible.


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           1            In the Middle East, usable nuclear weapons

           2   are what make -- nuclear deterrents and nuclear

           3   coercion are compellants, they use the word

           4   compellants now, the Defense Science Board.  That's

           5   what makes that possible.

           6            Those usable nuclear weapons are the

           7   objective together with the so-called responsive

           8   infrastructure.  Well, that's not responsive to us,

           9   it's responsive to Linton Brooks and The White House.

          10   We once built -- these facilities are not really

          11   controllable by Congress.

          12            This process is an attempt to prejudice and

          13   make an end run around the Congressional

          14   decision-making process, put hundreds of millions --

          15   billions of dollars of projects, get the environmental

          16   approval, and a kind of an executive branch commitment

          17   while we still have George Bush in The White House and

          18   before the full impact of debt and war begins to

          19   settle in in Congress.

          20            These facilities and this agenda is already

          21   very controversial in Congress.  And so, by speaking

          22   out and committing yourself to fight it, you are

          23   joining with a lot of people in Congress who are

          24   already fighting it.  This is a conservative activity.

          25            Now, I know my time is up, but I just want to


                                                                    71


           1   say -- okay.  Just one more thing then.  Much of what

           2   has been said tonight has focused on the increase in

           3   pit production activity at Los Alamos.  And in a way

           4   that's proper because that is what this EIS is about.

           5            Innovation and new capacity is absolutely

           6   essential for the maintenance of the nuclear weapons

           7   program.  You can't have a huge complex project like a

           8   nuclear weapons complex and have it just idle for year

           9   in and year out, decade in and decade out.

          10            The weapons managers are desperate to restart

          11   this because they fear that the tacit knowledge and

          12   the ideological certainty in the younger generation

          13   won't be there to continue the nuclear weapons mission

          14   into a new generation.  They're right, they're

          15   absolutely right.

          16            It's not really about an increase in

          17   capacity, it's about continuing at all.  And a vote,

          18   an effort to keep Los Alamos from making plutonium

          19   pits condemns -- the nuclear weapons program puts it

          20   on a path toward oblivion.

          21            We should be very clear about that so we

          22   don't get suckered into a technical argument with

          23   people who have a lot of classified information in

          24   their back pocket.  So it's only by -- as has been

          25   done by many speakers here this evening, we clarify


                                                                    72


           1   our moral and our evaluative stance.

           2            We can make common cause with people who are

           3   working for education, for healthcare, for the type of

           4   values which could create sustainable economy in New

           5   Mexico; because this has not brought us prosperity, it

           6   has hurt us economically very badly.

           7            We will be putting ourselves in an economic

           8   cul-de-sac, committing ourselves to a path of economic

           9   decline, increasing economic disparity when we could

          10   be looking at real national security challenges and

          11   building sustainability, community, and putting our

          12   economics together with our spirituality in a way that

          13   makes sense so our kids won't kill themselves.

          14            MS. BRANDIN:  After Mr. Parrish will be

          15   Andrew Culp.

          16            WILL PARRISH:  My name is Will and I'm a

          17   graduate of University of California-Santa Cruz class

          18   of 2004.  And the University of California as many of

          19   you know was the manager of the Los Alamos National

          20   Laboratory from its inception until very recently,

          21   when it partnered with Bechtel and Los Alamos

          22   Security, LLC, to privatize the management of the Los

          23   Alamos Laboratory.  And the University of California

          24   also managed the Lawrence Livermore National

          25   Laboratory from its inception.


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           1            Every nuclear weapon in the United States

           2   arsenal was designed by an employee of the University

           3   of California.  Now, I'm here tonight all the way from

           4   Santa Barbara along with five other students and

           5   recent graduates of the UC basically for the reason

           6   that we want to be here in solidarity of every single

           7   person in this room who opposes the production of new

           8   nuclear weapons and is working for nuclear

           9   disarmament.

          10            And we want to be in solidarity also with

          11   everyone everywhere who is working for disarmament of

          12   nuclear weapons and production of new nuclear weapons

          13   materials.  The reason that we're here tonight is that

          14   we think that there is no more important place to be

          15   in the struggle to disarm the United States nuclear

          16   weapons arsenal than right here right now.

          17            And like Greg Mello I have been to each of

          18   the hearings that the NNSA has conducted over the past

          19   three nights.  And like Greg mentioned there has not

          20   been a single person who has risen to this microphone

          21   and spoken in favor of production of new plutonium

          22   pits.  There has not even been a single person who has

          23   spoken in favor of the U.S. having a so-called nuclear

          24   deterrent.

          25            Every single person who has spoken out in the


                                                                    74


           1   last three nights has opposed the production of new

           2   plutonium pits.  So I think that the sentiment of

           3   people of New Mexico has been made pretty clear.

           4            And, with that in mind, I would propose that

           5   we actually -- some of us take on a little different

           6   mode in the discussion for the rest of this evening,

           7   because the question isn't any more what we think

           8   about plutonium pit production.

           9            The people at the NNSA aren't really

          10   listening to us anyway, they don't value our opinions

          11   very much anyway.  What they do respect and what they

          12   do value is when we organize ourselves politically to

          13   make a stand.

          14            And with that in mind I propose that, in

          15   contrast to the process that's taking place right now,

          16   that we have somewhat of a genuine democratic process

          17   where we actually talk about what we're going to do to

          18   stop the production of new plutonium pits in New

          19   Mexico for the rest of the night.

          20            So, with that in mind, I invite some of my

          21   colleagues and other people to come up here and make

          22   some proposals about how we are going to come together

          23   and stop production of new plutonium pits and do so as

          24   a step toward nuclear disarmament in the U.S. and

          25   around the world.  Thank you very much.


                                                                    75


           1            MS. BRANDIN:  Mr. Culp.  And after that we're

           2   going to take a short break.

           3            ANDREW CULP:  I would actually prefer to take

           4   the break before I speak, if that's okay.

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  Fine.  Five minutes, everybody.

           6            (Break)

           7            MS. BRANDING:  Before we get started, I would

           8   like to make an announcement.  Everybody ready.  The

           9   purpose of this meeting is to take the testimony of

          10   the people who have signed up to talk about the

          11   site-wide EIS.  I want to make sure that everybody who

          12   has done that has an opportunity to do so.

          13            There have been some discussions about having

          14   other meetings here, but that's not the purpose of our

          15   meeting.  If you would like to have a meeting, that's

          16   fine.  But I want to make sure that everybody who

          17   wants to comment on the site-wide EIS and the purpose

          18   of the meeting has the opportunity to do that first.

          19            ANDREW CULP:  Hello.  I'm kind of a geek for

          20   kind of participatory interactions and all that kind

          21   of stuff.  So I'll start this out.  Good evening.

          22            Okay.  So first things off, I think we should

          23   give props to the court reporter.  So, as my colleague

          24   Will brought up, it's fairly unanimous, the people's

          25   sentiment here.  And so I really encourage people to


                                                                    76


           1   come and talk if they have interesting and new things

           2   to say about pit production.

           3            But I want to take this to the next step

           4   because I feel that this great convergence of people

           5   is not something that always happens and it's

           6   something that we have to take into consideration

           7   because we're here right here and right now.  And

           8   there is some wonderful energy and we can go really

           9   far with it.

          10            So the first thing I want to do is just up

          11   the energy just a little bit more.  I've got a little

          12   chant that I really like.  Okay.  It's the people

          13   united will never be defeated.  Okay.  And let's do

          14   that three times.  One, two, ready, go, the people

          15   united will never be defeated, the people united will

          16   never be defeated, the people united will never be

          17   defeated.

          18            So, in using this forum as kind of a safe

          19   space for people who don't always come together, I

          20   want to open it up to more of a question and answer,

          21   more of a forum, less of a hearing, and see what

          22   people might propose.

          23            Now, it's not a propose what we should do in

          24   ten years, what the policymakers should do.  I want to

          25   know what the people should do because we're the


                                                                    77


           1   people, we're not the policymakers.  So who is a

           2   person who would like to give me a proposal so we can

           3   talk about it?

           4            SPEAKER:  Fire all Congress.

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  Excuse me.  Please, let's not

           6   do this.  The purpose of the meeting --

           7            ANDREW CULP:  I think this is my free speech.

           8            MS. BRANDIN:  You're allowed to be up there

           9   but not to take testimony from other people in the

          10   audience.

          11            ANDREW CULP:  I think it would be important

          12   testimony for the people to decide what to do about

          13   plutonium pit production.  So anyone else have an

          14   idea?

          15            SPEAKER:  I think that everybody should call

          16   their Congressman or Representative, every single

          17   person.

          18            ANDREW CULP:  Every person should call their

          19   Congressman or Representative, every person.  So how

          20   can we do that, how can we ensure that everyone is

          21   going to be calling their representatives and that

          22   they have a focused goal in mind?

          23            SPEAKER:  We have postcards out here, that

          24   you can send the postcards.

          25            ANDREW CULP:  There are postcards outside


                                                                    78


           1   that people can pick up.  And where can they pick them

           2   up?  Shannyn has them.

           3            SPEAKER:  Give them to all your friends.

           4            ANDREW CULP:  And I would like to hand it off

           5   to my colleague to continue this conversation.

           6            SOPHIA RITCHIE:  My name is Sophia Ritchie,

           7   I'm also signed up to speak.  I'm going to dedicate my

           8   three minutes as well to opening up this room so that

           9   we can discuss together.  Does anyone else have

          10   anything they would like to add or propose?

          11            SPEAKER:  Remind all our elected officials

          12   that they all took an oath to protect and defend the

          13   Constitution of the United States and of New Mexico

          14   and we will hold them accountable.  It is time that we

          15   hold them accountable.

          16            SPEAKER:  There is a 1-800 number that you

          17   can use to call any member of Congress.  You call,

          18   they ask you who do you want to talk to, and that's

          19   the best number to use free.  That number is

          20   888-355-3588.  That's all you need to call any member

          21   of Congress.

          22            SPEAKER:  Repeat it again.

          23            SPEAKER:  All right.  888-355-3588.

          24            SOPHIA RITCHIE:  I encourage everyone to

          25   write this number down and give it to your friends and


                                                                    79


           1   people in your community.

           2            SPEAKER:  Shannyn has the postcards right

           3   here that you can give out to your friends.

           4            ASTRID WEBSTER:  I've heard rumors that the

           5   Department of Tourism and our illustrious governor

           6   want to have a peace conference in New Mexico.  And I

           7   think we should help him do that, because there are

           8   some things that aren't well understood; and that is

           9   how important Los Alamos is to our present future,

          10   et cetera, how important Eunice is to our present and

          11   future, and how important Carlsbad is.

          12            So, if we're going to mention peace in New

          13   Mexico, by God, we ought to take people to see all of

          14   our nuclear installations, because that would say the

          15   word peace and New Mexico don't go hand in hand.

          16            We have diplomacy by trident here.  And so I

          17   think we should let all the tourists who come to New

          18   Mexico know that Los Alamos really is the pits.

          19            CHRISTY ESCOBAR:  We're also going to be

          20   passing around a contact info sheet for everyone in

          21   this room that would like to be further involved in

          22   the rest of the process.  And that will be passed

          23   around throughout the remainder of this hearing.

          24            SPEAKER:  Maybe we could develop a pledge

          25   like there is a peace pledge now about Iraq.  Maybe we


                                                                    80


           1   can develop one about this issue here and promise

           2   civil disobedience if something is not done.

           3            SPEAKER:  I do want to mention quickly that

           4   there is a call for nuclear disarmament.  Everyone

           5   please sign it.  We all are here for this process.  We

           6   do all want nuclear disarmament.  Let's all work

           7   together please to support this.

           8            SOPHIA RITCHIE:  The woman in the back

           9   mentioned civil disobedience.  And I would just like

          10   to propose that as an option.  I know that once we go

          11   back to California, we will be participating in

          12   nonviolent civil disobedience and solidarity with the

          13   people of New Mexico until pit production is stopped

          14   and not continued further in this state.

          15            And, if anyone has proposals at this time for

          16   other things that we could do, solid ideas, we can

          17   take those or open up the floor.

          18            SPEAKER:  We need a moratorium to stop all

          19   nuclear activity in the state of New Mexico and the

          20   United States.  We also need an independent

          21   investigation of all the nuclear facilities here in

          22   New Mexico and around the United States.

          23            They have grossly contaminated the ecosystems

          24   of the world.  And we are drinking radioactive water.

          25   You know, it needs to stop.  We do need a moratorium,


                                                                    81


           1   it's got to stop.  I've been an activist 16 years and

           2   it has escalated instead of dying down.  So it is time

           3   that we get a moratorium throughout the United States.

           4            WILL PARRISH:  I'd like to take just a little

           5   bit of our remaining free speech time to talk about a

           6   few proposals that some of us talked about before this

           7   hearing began.

           8            And a few of those included -- and I want to

           9   see a show of hands of people who support these when I

          10   say them, please.  These included organizing car pools

          11   to meet with Congresspeople to express our opposition

          12   first of all to the process by which this SWEIS is

          13   being carried out and also to express our opposition

          14   to production of new plutonium pits and to other

          15   activities in the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

          16            So who favors going in car pools to meet with

          17   Congress people about that?

          18            So what we're going to do -- we happen to be

          19   working with the Los Alamos Study Group which many of

          20   you may have heard of, I assume most of you have.

          21   And, if you sign up on the Los Alamos Study Group

          22   sign-up sheet, we promise that we will be in touch

          23   with you about any of these plans that we propose over

          24   the course of the time that we're here.

          25            We're here through August 18 working with the


                                                                    82


           1   Los Alamos Study Group.  And we would also love to

           2   work with the other wonderful community organizations

           3   in New Mexico who would like to be a part of these

           4   plans also.  Okay.

           5            So another plan that we talked about was

           6   performing nonviolent civil disobedience.  I don't

           7   want to go into too much detail beyond that right now

           8   because some of those things should probably be worked

           9   out privately.  But engaging in nonviolent civil

          10   disobedience to help bring about a halt to plutonium

          11   pit production at Los Alamos Laboratory.

          12            Who is interested in that idea?  Great.

          13   Okay.  So those were the two ideas that we were most

          14   in favor of.  Thanks to those of you who are

          15   interested in those, we will be in touch with you.

          16   And, in our remaining free speech time, we'll give it

          17   over to other people in the audience who have ideas.

          18            SPEAKER:  I'm going to state again, Shannyn

          19   has these postcards and the labels for Udall,

          20   Bingaman, and Domenici.  All you have to do is give

          21   them to ten people.  And she's got the labels for

          22   those ten people, three to each person with the label.

          23   She's got them.  This is a really good opportunity to

          24   make a difference.  She's got them already, she has

          25   thousands of them.


                                                                    83


           1            SHANNYN SOLLITT:  I printed 18,000.

           2            SPEAKER:  This is an important move that

           3   she's made here, she worked really hard to get these

           4   together.  So I encourage everybody to get their stack

           5   of ten with their labels.  And give ten to each person

           6   with the three labels.

           7            KAMARA O'CONNOR:  My name is Kamara O'Connor.

           8   And I just want to bottom line everything that we as a

           9   community took democratically to discuss in this

          10   incredibly undemocratic process to note that we

          11   decided, one, that everybody in this room was going to

          12   sign one of these postcards and send them in.

          13            Two, that everybody in this room is going to

          14   sign your name and carpool with us to sit in on

          15   Congressional offices and let them know what we think

          16   about the nuclear weapons production.  And three,

          17   we're going to, I don't know, block Los Alamos, shut

          18   that place down.  Like are you guys ready to do this?

          19            The NNSA needs to understand that the New

          20   Mexican community is united to defeat this together,

          21   forget all the petty stuff, this, that, and the other,

          22   we're all going to work together and we can then

          23   succeed.  Thank you so much.

          24            MS. BRANDIN:  Okay, guys.  I have a request.

          25   There are a number of people here from Albuquerque who


                                                                    84


           1   have a long way to go back.  And they have requested

           2   to be put ahead.  Their time is not on until about 15

           3   people.

           4            And so I agreed to put the question to the

           5   audience, because I said I will take people in the

           6   order that they registered, whether you would extend

           7   them the courtesy of going to the head of the line now

           8   even though they're out of order.  Okay.

           9            SPEAKER:  The people from Dixon too.  The

          10   people from Dixon are downwind.

          11            MS. BRANDIN:  So the folks from Albuquerque

          12   who made that request, can one of you tell me your

          13   name so I can find your card.

          14            SPEAKER:  I do think that it's true that

          15   other people who have come a long ways, you know,

          16   should also be able to testify, from Dixon,

          17   Vallecitos, Chamisal.

          18            SPEAKER:  Las Vegas, Mora.

          19            MS. BRANDIN:  I'm going to request that you

          20   go out and give your names to the people out in the

          21   registration table so that we don't take up too much

          22   valuable time trying to find you.  In the meantime the

          23   folks from Albuquerque who requested to come up, where

          24   are you?  Can you give me your name, please.  Floy

          25   Barrett.


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           1            FLOY BARRETT:  I'm a member of Albuquerque

           2   Center For Peace and Justice and I have been active in

           3   all of this issue for many, many years.  I think

           4   everyone who has spoken before has put my sentiments

           5   out there already about the whole issue of the new

           6   site environmental impact statement.

           7            I support all of that.  What I would like to

           8   do tonight is just to reflect a moment about the great

           9   minds that are up at Los Alamos.  The people who

          10   invented and came up with this horrible, horrible

          11   nuclear bomb have got some intelligence that could be

          12   used for very positive things.

          13            I think we should challenge them to use their

          14   great minds to come up with renewable energy for all

          15   of us, to come up with many ways of using the

          16   technology to clean up everything out there that's in

          17   nuclear waste and also to use their great minds to

          18   work with our communities to develop the very best

          19   that is possible in health.

          20            I think that they have the brains to think of

          21   all kinds of technologies that could be used in the

          22   health field.  They've already done something with

          23   lasers for eyes and a few things.  But it's just a sad

          24   affair that they're wasting those great minds on

          25   destruction instead of something that could be


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           1   constructive.  And I think that's what I'd like to

           2   challenge the scientists to do.

           3            JUDITH KIDD:  Hi, I'm Judith Kidd with the

           4   Albuquerque Center For Peace and Justice.  And I

           5   really appreciate all the information that I have

           6   learned from all the excellent speakers tonight and

           7   the organizing ideas that have come out of our

           8   friends.

           9            I feel so strongly about some of the same

          10   ideas that the preceding speaker just gave.  And I'm

          11   not going to repeat all that.  But we do, we need to

          12   work on getting Los Alamos -- let those people work on

          13   things that support our future.  I'm thinking of our

          14   children, our grandchildren, our grandchildren's

          15   children.

          16            What will those people, what will those young

          17   people think of us down the road if we haven't put

          18   energy at this critical time into sustainable

          19   environmental living, into climate control, into all

          20   the kinds of things that are going to create a better

          21   world.  We really need to focus on that.

          22            And I hope all of our energies, our

          23   organizing energies, are speaking to the people in Los

          24   Alamos, get us to work together on that.  We must work

          25   to create a peaceful sustainable world for those


                                                                    87


           1   future generations.  Thank you.

           2            MS. BRANDIN:  Anybody else from Albuquerque?

           3            BOB ANDERSON:  My name is Bob Anderson, I'm

           4   from Albuquerque, I'm with a group called Stop the War

           5   Machine.  And our group's focus is the military

           6   industrial complex which runs the state of New Mexico

           7   and most of this country ever since World War II.

           8            And we try to broaden it out a little bit

           9   past nuclear weapons.  But we want to speak to what's

          10   happening with this EIS and the process of it.  Two

          11   things I want to point out on that.

          12            One, there's a big silence of why there's no

          13   hearing in Albuquerque for this process, the largest

          14   city in the state, the state that's down river from

          15   where all this crap is going to be washed out and has

          16   been washing out for 50 years up there downstream into

          17   our water supply.

          18            There's no hearing scheduled for that.  And I

          19   have written and asked for that.  And no word, no

          20   response to it why Albuquerque has been omitted from

          21   this.

          22            Santa Fe and Albuquerque and all the places

          23   downstream are going to be switching to drinking

          24   surface river water.  We know that because our aquifer

          25   has been drained.  The water quantity question has


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           1   become a water quality question also.

           2            And we know that, with the expansion of

           3   production in Los Alamos with this pit production,

           4   we're going to have a problem like a super Rocky

           5   Flats.  If there's an accident, a volcano, an

           6   earthquake, or an accident in production or waste

           7   transport or whatever, that stuff is going to all come

           8   downstream.

           9            And I don't think any of the politicians care

          10   about the people who are going to be drinking this

          11   stuff.  I agree with everything everyone else has said

          12   about this is a nonproliferation issue, we should be

          13   stopping this, we shouldn't be continuing it.  So, in

          14   terms of process, I want to bring that into it, that

          15   the EIS has some very serious omissions in it.

          16            Also I want to point out some other omissions

          17   in the process and the draft statement.  In a sense

          18   all that's preceded us here tonight is a political

          19   statement in a lot of ways.  An environmental

          20   statement should look at not just health and water but

          21   should look at environment, the social environment we

          22   live in, the political environment we live in, the

          23   military environment we live in in the world.

          24            Those should all be in there.  There's none

          25   of that in that.  None of this will be reflected in


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           1   the statement unless you can bring it in in some

           2   technical kind of way.  And we have to expand it out

           3   from that.  In a way this is sham.  But in a way it's

           4   a preparation for us to be able to try to organize

           5   ourselves.

           6            The reason they're pushing this thing is Pete

           7   Domenici, he wants the pork for the state, the

           8   military people want the jobs and the money.  But the

           9   military of the country is facing global resistance to

          10   our empire that they're trying to build.

          11            And they're resorting to all kinds of devious

          12   destructive weapons.  The B-61, like Jay Coghlan was

          13   talking about, if they use that weapon on a small

          14   scale and they breach the threshold of the horror of

          15   using nuclear weapons in warfare on a global situation

          16   in the world, that opens the door to a whole new

          17   horrible world that none of us want.

          18            We're living in a state I think that is very

          19   much like the people of Germany in World War II, when

          20   the Nazis were preparing the global war machine.

          21   That's where we're at.  And it's not just nuclear

          22   weapons.  That's the most horrible thing.  But there's

          23   a whole family of weapons and systems that they're

          24   developing here.

          25            And I just want to draw your attention to the


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           1   green flier that we produced about the beam weapons

           2   that they're developing here in the state between Los

           3   Alamos, Sandia, and Kirtland Air Force Base to control

           4   and kill people with laser weapons, microwave ovens,

           5   directed energy weapons.  This is the new generation

           6   of where they're headed.

           7            We've got to stop all that.  It's got to be

           8   people like us right here in the state.  I just want

           9   to say that we've got to get this hearing down in

          10   Albuquerque, there should be a hearing for it down

          11   there on the plutonium pit production and the

          12   environmental problems of it.

          13            And most of all it's a criminal enterprise.

          14   The politicians behind it are criminals and they

          15   should be put in jail and this project should be shut

          16   down.  Thank you.

          17            JANET GREENWALD:  Hi, I'm Janet Greenwald,

          18   and I'm one of several coordinators of Citizens for

          19   Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping.  We deal mostly

          20   with issues of contamination of people and land and

          21   water and potential contamination.

          22            When I first joined CARD which is the

          23   acronym, I lived in Dixon, New Mexico.  And my family

          24   has a farm there and that's where two of my children

          25   still live.  They have other jobs, but they also farm


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           1   like most people in the area.

           2            They sell their produce at farmers markets

           3   and so forth.  And a lot of our organic produce comes

           4   from that area of the world, in New Mexico and outside

           5   of New Mexico.

           6            After the Los Alamos fire, a friend of mine,

           7   Carol Miller, sent samples of her broccoli to Los

           8   Alamos.  And they tested the broccoli and found that

           9   it was high -- had unusually high levels of americium.

          10   And the broccoli -- Ojo Sarco is the next valley over

          11   from Dixon, it's kind of up from Dixon.

          12            And then I went to the resulting meeting.

          13   And at the meeting the state and Los Alamos said that,

          14   given the average consumption of an American of

          15   broccoli per week, that a little bit more americium

          16   there in the broccoli was fine.

          17            But, of course, we know, those of us who have

          18   lived in the country or live in the country know that,

          19   when your broccoli comes in, you eat a whole lot of

          20   broccoli, you feed your children broccoli, you take

          21   broccoli to your grandmother, you take a lot of

          22   broccoli to the farmers market, and so on and so

          23   forth.

          24            In Ojo Sarco there was also -- right after

          25   the Los Alamos fire, there were aberrations in animal


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           1   birth, goats, chickens, and horses.  And also those

           2   same aberrations were seen in Sapello which is north

           3   of Las Vegas and in Gallinas which is north of Las

           4   Vegas.

           5            There was a young woman who just came into

           6   the state who had a metals body count before she came

           7   in.  And she didn't really know about Los Alamos, she

           8   was camping.  And the ash started falling like it did

           9   in Ojo Sarco and Penasco and many places.  And she

          10   just took videotapes of it, wow, this is really a

          11   trip.  So then afterwards she had a metals body count.

          12   And her body was full of all kinds of metals.

          13            So, due to that information and other

          14   information that is still coming in unfortunately

          15   about contamination of soil and plants, our

          16   organization believes that an environmental injustice

          17   has been done to the low-income, resource-light

          18   communities, mostly of color communities surrounding

          19   Los Alamos and especially downwind from Los Alamos.

          20            And we believe that, to put an additional

          21   burden on people who are already stressed, whose

          22   health is stressed, environment is stressed, is an

          23   environmental injustice and also violates Title VI.

          24            So this is another approach that we can use

          25   to fight back.  And I urge us to develop that


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           1   approach.  I think that in this modern age

           2   environmental justice is very important because, if

           3   you cannot dump on the resource-light people of the

           4   earth, can you really have a second nuclear age?  What

           5   do you think?  Thank you.

           6            DORIE BUNTING:  Janet Greenwald has devoted

           7   about 20 years of her life to this issue and at great

           8   sacrifice.

           9            MS. BRANDIN:  Can I get your name.

          10            DORIE BUNTING:  My name is Dorie Bunting, I'm

          11   from Albuquerque.  And I'm just saying that Janet has

          12   spent years and years on this issue starting with the

          13   WIPP facility down at Carlsbad.

          14            I would just like to say that, looking back

          15   over of years of these hearings, many years, we've

          16   come to a point in our history here in this country

          17   that is apocalyptic.  And I think that's what we're

          18   saying here tonight, that we stand on a precipice.

          19            And I think we are up to drawing back from

          20   this precipice.  We all have strength and ability to

          21   do this.  And we can do it.  All during the Cold War

          22   we said that the Soviet Union -- we couldn't make

          23   treaties with the Soviet Union because they wouldn't

          24   abide by them.  And this evening we're talking a lot

          25   about the nonproliferation treaty to which we are


                                                                    94


           1   party.

           2            And that you have to realize that our country

           3   up to before this administration put in a great deal

           4   of effort into coming to agreements and trying to stem

           5   the nuclear holocaust.  And that's what we have to get

           6   back to, to a civilized approach to the world

           7   community.

           8            And also I want to urge you to watch the

           9   media in your communities and look for openings to use

          10   the media because the media as we know is being more

          11   and more taken over by the corporate interests and

          12   leaving us out in our opinions.

          13            So I just want to say that the Tribune and

          14   the Albuquerque Tribune in the last couple of years

          15   has moved quite a bit toward publishing a lot of

          16   opposition to the nuclear issue.  And, if you watch

          17   that and then respond and encourage them to do that,

          18   call them.

          19            And these are two headlines from 2003 at the

          20   time of the previous hearings.  A bomb factory That's

          21   the Pits.  And Deadly Silence on Nukes.  And they

          22   recently had an editorial about Sue Dayton, a very

          23   complimentary editorial.  So don't give up on the

          24   media, write letters to the media and use that as a

          25   means of communicating to your community.  Thank you.


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           1            MS. BRANDIN:  Is that it for the Albuquerque

           2   group?  I'll go back to the list until I get another

           3   list.  Sarah Miller.  And following her is Dominique

           4   Mazeaud.

           5            SARAH MILLER:  My name is Sarah Miller and I

           6   am part of -- I'm an intern at the Los Alamos Study

           7   Group this summer which is a great organization, much

           8   like all the organizations that you all work for.  And

           9   I urge you strongly to unite and support each other in

          10   this process, in this major event coming towards us

          11   recently to disarm Los Alamos, New Mexico, the U.S.,

          12   and the world.

          13            We must unite, we must support each other,

          14   and in that support bring an end to this atrocity that

          15   is nuclear weapons that is being supported by LANL and

          16   the DOE and the U.S.  We must end this.  So please, I

          17   call you all to urge everyone that you know to stop

          18   nuclear weapons, to stop arming the U.S., to stop this

          19   increase of militarization, please, please do what you

          20   can, please.

          21            MS. BRANDIN:  After Dominique Mazeaud is

          22   Shama Beach.

          23            DOMINIQUE MAZEAUD:  My name is Dominique

          24   Mazeaud and I'm from Transylvania, I'm not from here

          25   originally, you can hear that.  I became an American


                                                                    96


           1   citizen in 1989 because I started coming to these

           2   hearings.  And I decided I had to become one.

           3            I have been brought up by a French father who

           4   really was so grateful to America for what America had

           5   done for Europe and the world.  I believe totally in

           6   the American soul as put out by our forefathers and

           7   foremothers.

           8            However, today my heart is really feeling

           9   very broken because I wonder about where our soul is

          10   going.  And in terms of -- I agree with everything

          11   that has been said.  I don't want to add anything on

          12   those hearings.

          13            But, in terms of actions, September 21st is

          14   International Peace Day as put out by the United

          15   Nations.  And every year more and more people are

          16   marking and taking that day very seriously.  And there

          17   is a call for all women and, of course, bringing along

          18   with us our men to really unite and speak up and share

          19   some of the things that we've been speaking about

          20   tonight.

          21            So I keep tuned and let's all get together on

          22   the 21st of September.  We have enough time to get

          23   organized and unite and we are.  Thank you.

          24            MS. BRANDIN:  Thank you.  Shama followed by

          25   Erich Kuerschner.


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           1            SHAMA BEACH:  I have three simple sentences.

           2   And I thought that -- I have been coming to these

           3   meetings for 15 years.  And I just thought of another

           4   simple sentence to add to the other three which was

           5   that, if 15 years ago they had listened to the good

           6   people who were speaking at the hearings, we would

           7   have shut down the lab at Los Alamos as we know it and

           8   we would have a first class institute creating

           9   alternative clean energy and all the other good stuff

          10   we need.

          11            So these three sentences I decided to write

          12   so that my five year old grandson could understand

          13   them.  I think we are drowning in words.

          14            I say no to Los Alamos National Lab's plan to

          15   quadruple plutonium pit production.  We have enough

          16   triggers for nuclear warheads that will be reliable

          17   for the next 60 years.  Under the nuclear

          18   nonproliferation treaty which our country signed, we

          19   should be dismantling what we have.

          20            Yes, it is very polluting.  It is polluting

          21   our atmosphere, our drinking water.  What else did I

          22   say here?  Oh, so we are polluting more.  Quadrupling

          23   the plutonium pit production is bad, it is a bad thing

          24   to do.  You know it, I know it, and everyone in this

          25   room knows it.  So, as an elder in this community, I


                                                                    98


           1   ask you to do the right thing.  Dismantle and clean

           2   up.  We will help.

           3            MS. BRANDING:  Following Mr. Kuerschner will

           4   be Andrew Tongate.

           5            ERICH KUERSCHNER:  Boy, I like the way

           6   this -- the way this direction is going.  Just as a

           7   background, my father worked for weapons all his life

           8   starting working out working for Hitler on the B-2,

           9   the guidance system, and came to this country and

          10   worked on weapons systems until he retired in 1978

          11   including doing national intelligence estimates.

          12            So I think it's all clear to us now, whether

          13   we have democracy or not, it's always been hard to try

          14   to explain to my children Hitler came into being.  And

          15   it ought to be clear when we can't have a democratic

          16   process on how best to determine the future role of

          17   Los Alamos in our communities.

          18            But some outsider that we don't know tries to

          19   tell us how to do it and we have unanimous consent.  I

          20   mean it should be clear that it's not a matter of

          21   keeping democracy, it's a matter of regaining

          22   democracy, because, you know, let's be clear here, we

          23   do not have a democracy.

          24            The first thing that I want to state is that

          25   I want to make a formal request for an extension of


                                                                    99


           1   time.  I would like hearings, new hearings to begin

           2   one week after -- I mean 30 days like they're supposed

           3   to be after the EIS became generally available.  So

           4   that makes a new set of hearings happening on

           5   September 5th and then we have a comment period until

           6   October 5.

           7            Now, I've worked on EISs almost from the very

           8   beginning with Skip Morings and Merrills.  So I know

           9   what an EIS is supposed to look like.  This is a sham.

          10   The sad thing is the economics of this thing, if it

          11   were done properly like we did EISs back in the

          12   seventies, it would be so obvious that all these

          13   things you guys are saying would be so clear.

          14            There's no numbers in socioeconomics.  I mean

          15   there's a few dribbly senses by someone who has one

          16   year as PR.  I mean there's plenty of Ph.D.s in the

          17   military and in Iran and everywhere that could laugh

          18   at this.  So this is really an issue of three boys or

          19   a small group of men just like Hitler wanting to see

          20   how far they can get an empire in their lifetime

          21   before they pass away.  Let's just really be clear

          22   about that.

          23            So it's really a question of like either

          24   extending these hearings and let's all work on the

          25   same side and hopefully we're all in the same country.


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           1   Except for a small group of people, everyone is

           2   unanimous on this.  So let's extend these hearings and

           3   have a legitimate process.

           4            The second part I wanted to make, if you look

           5   at the impact, the earlier speaker implied that the

           6   greatest impact here is air quality and waste

           7   management.  I mean it's nonsense.  We all know it's

           8   pit production and weapons production, I mean that's

           9   the really big issue.

          10            This needs to be quantified.  If somebody

          11   really thinks pits are useful -- and I mean my

          12   understanding is that, by the time we could possibly

          13   use these pits, the building which we're proposing to

          14   build from it will be obsolete.  They won't come into

          15   play after that building is no longer -- I mean the

          16   whole thing is absurd.

          17            And, if one were to quantify this and treat

          18   economics with the seriousness that one, you know,

          19   addresses chemical and air quality, I mean it would

          20   just be so obvious.  And the sad thing is the person

          21   who coined the term voodoo economics, ridiculing

          22   Reagan's nonsense use of lack of numbers or

          23   quantification, was George Herbert Bush.

          24            Anyway there's no evidence to support pit

          25   production, and any honest scientific study would make


                                                                   101


           1   that really clear.  So anyway let's go to what we can

           2   do.  I mean I do suggest that we try to force reason

           3   and science back into our society and we do use --

           4   this EIS statement addresses the real thing.

           5            If it were done in good faith, we would have

           6   those extra 30 days after we get the EIS and so a

           7   whole new set of hearings.  And, if we don't get

           8   those, I mean it's time for litigation or civil

           9   disobedience.

          10            And so let's just make it clear that maybe

          11   it's more cost-effective to talk this out like adults

          12   and let's secure the national defense for our children

          13   and for the future and let's all work on the same

          14   side.  I mean the sad thing is, if you read carefully

          15   what the mandate of LANL is, one of them includes

          16   providing for the national security, another one is

          17   disarmament.

          18            I mean a real EIS would give you a table,

          19   give you numbers, give you marginal products and say

          20   an extra dollar spent in pit production relative, an

          21   extra dollar spent in disarmament, or an extra dollar

          22   spent on non-nuclear proliferation or whatever.

          23            You know, it would be obvious, there's no

          24   numbers there because there aren't any.  It's

          25   nonsense.  And that's what it is.  But I still think


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           1   we should take an honest step to address this rightly

           2   before we go into litigation and civil disobedience.

           3            And one way we can do it is just start right

           4   now.  I like the tone that the Los Alamos Study Group

           5   took in terms of saying whose meeting is this, who are

           6   we deciding for.  I mean does Bush get to decide how

           7   this country goes and whether we have nuclear arms?

           8            I mean let's face it, World War III has

           9   started.  I mean with Iraq, if you look at what

          10   happened in Germany, I mean we are in this.  And the

          11   real issue now is are the Americans -- do they value

          12   freedom enough, are they willing to fight for what our

          13   forefathers did, a democracy, and return democracy

          14   back to America.

          15            I saw the rubble, I saw the destruction, I

          16   know, any one is welcome to come to my house and look

          17   at the evidence of what Hitler had.  He had much more

          18   superior military hardware than this country has at

          19   that time.  But look what happened.  In the end, like

          20   Eisenhower said, it's not the size of the dog in the

          21   fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

          22            And this is not a fight that we can win.  You

          23   know, so we're on a precipice here, whether we open up

          24   this nuclear Pandora box and go in that direction or

          25   whether we have the guts and courage to stand up for


                                                                   103


           1   our kids and secure the kind of country that we want.

           2            I mean they're doing the same thing now that

           3   happened to the Native American population, it

           4   happened to the Spanish population.  It's always a

           5   bunch of people saying this is mine, I get to decide

           6   process, I get to decide what we do, where we go.

           7            Let's be clear about this.  This is what Skip

           8   Morings and Merrills on their first EIS back in 1970,

           9   the Baltimore Beltway group.  May I talk for a few

          10   minutes?  It's not your country, please.  I mean it's

          11   our country, the people get to decide what this

          12   process is, this is none of your business quite

          13   frankly.

          14            MS. BRANDIN:  There are other people here who

          15   would like to have their opportunity to speak.

          16            ERICH KUERSCHNER:  Do we have a democracy

          17   here or do we not?

          18            MS. BRANDIN:  No, we don't, because there are

          19   other people --

          20            ERICH KUERSCHNER:  I would like the record to

          21   reflect that the facilitator said we do not have a

          22   democracy here.

          23            MS. BRANDIN:  Only because you are not being

          24   democratic to other people in this room.  Please let

          25   other people talk.


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           1            ERICH KUERSCHNER:  Let's have a vote on who

           2   is being democratic.  Am I being democratic?  Is the

           3   facilitator being democratic?

           4            MS. BRANDIN:  I'm just trying to give other

           5   people the chance to talk too, sir.

           6            ERICH KUERSCHNER:  Anyway, what I suggest we

           7   do is we keep this thing as a start of our commitment.

           8   I mean we saw how things changed in Vietnam, those of

           9   you who saw that.  We've got civil rights.  I mean

          10   that's what gets you anything, it's the guts that you

          11   have and the way that you show them, your willingness

          12   to stand up for what you believe in.

          13            So, as a beginning of that -- and I like a

          14   lot of the suggestions that the Los Alamos Study Group

          15   had.  But, in addition, I'd like to suggest that we

          16   keep -- I talked to the hall monitor.  He said we can

          17   keep this building open and this room open as long as

          18   we like.

          19            So I think we can show the public like who is

          20   really interested in making America secure, who is

          21   really interested in America's defense.  Is it the

          22   people who want to try to collect their knowledge and

          23   work together on this problem or is it a facilitator

          24   who just wants to go home and call it a done deal.

          25   Thank you very much.


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           1            MS. BRANDIN:  I implore you to please try to

           2   keep your comments to a reasonable time.  So we're

           3   about halfway through.  And I would really like people

           4   to have an opportunity to talk.  If we have time at

           5   the end and you would like to speak again, we'll try

           6   to give you that opportunity.  But it's just common

           7   courtesy to the other people who would like to speak

           8   here.

           9            With that Mr. Tongate.

          10            ANDREW TONGATE:  My name is A.J. Tongate.

          11   And I must appreciate and respect everybody here for

          12   doing what they feel they need to do.  I have a lot to

          13   say and I don't really know to where to begin.

          14            But I want it to be known that I am one

          15   individual, but my voice is for my community.  It is

          16   not solitary.  I'm here on behalf of everyone at my

          17   community, Santa Fe, New Mexico, the United States,

          18   and the world.  The entire world.

          19            We do not want increased production, we do

          20   not want production of any kind of nuclear weapons.

          21   This is no way to grow, this is no way to behave,

          22   let's all be adults here.  Come on.

          23            So that being said I must appreciate you for

          24   bringing me here because I was very much unaware of

          25   what was going on.  And without this meeting I


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           1   probably wouldn't have taken action for a long time.

           2            And now that I am here, I need to say that

           3   this is not enough, this meeting will not accomplish

           4   anything.  We must keep growing, we must keep acting,

           5   we must bring this to a halt.  We must do something.

           6            Do not leave tonight feeling you have

           7   accomplished something, because you have not.  We have

           8   not accomplished anything until we see the complete

           9   collapse of this horrible, horrible industry.

          10            It's taking me a lot of effort to smile

          11   tonight.  I am smiling because I do have hope, because

          12   I see so many people coming tonight and expressing

          13   their desires for peace, for love, for humanity.

          14            And I just need to say that I value my life

          15   and I imagine everybody here values their life.  And,

          16   if that is true, think of the people on the receiving

          17   end of each one of those nuclear weapons.  They must

          18   value their lives as well.  There's no other

          19   reasoning.  If you value your life, you must value

          20   theirs because they do as well.  Thank you.

          21            MS. BRANDIN:  The next speaker is Miguel

          22   Pacheco followed by Linda Wiener.  Mr. Pacheco?  Okay.

          23   How about Linda Wiener?

          24            LINDA WIENER:  Hi, I'm Linda Wiener, I am

          25   with Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety.  I would


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           1   just like to agree with most of what's been said

           2   tonight and just add a little bit.  I'm just going to

           3   tell some things that have been -- these are the

           4   things that have gotten in the newspapers in the last

           5   six months about Los Alamos' environmental record.

           6            We have it was mentioned the hexavalent

           7   chromium found in the monitoring well that they had

           8   concealed for two years.  By the time we knew about

           9   it, it had doubled.

          10            There are PCBs in our water, there's

          11   perchlorate in our water.  Over 1,000 discharge sites

          12   at Los Alamos that should be monitored under the law,

          13   under the Clean Water Act, they fail to monitor.

          14            There's an issue of the fake monitoring

          15   wells.  This is my favorite.  $125 million spent on

          16   monitoring wells almost all of which failed to

          17   monitor.  They filter out the heavy metals and the

          18   radionuclides before monitoring.  And so it always

          19   looks fine.  It's everything is always fine.

          20            SPEAKER:  They're a bunch of criminals.

          21            LINDA WEINER:  And this is just the stuff

          22   that's been in the newspaper.  Imagine what doesn't

          23   get in the newspaper.

          24            So considering this record, their failure to

          25   obey environmental laws, their failure to monitor,


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           1   their failure to protect our air and water, doesn't it

           2   seem insane that we should increase the kinds of

           3   activities that Los Alamos does.  I think it's pretty

           4   clear that they're incapable.  Thank you.

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  Miguel Pacheco followed by

           6   Shannyn Sollitt.

           7            MIGUEL PACHECO:  I could have been -- I

           8   wanted to be in 100 or 200 different places than this

           9   tonight.  But I had to come here.  I grew up here,

          10   I've been here all my life, and I've seen the

          11   disrespect, the lack of respect that is happening.

          12            That's why certain mentalities wanted to

          13   create nuclear bombs, nuclear power.  A lack of

          14   respect, lack of respect for life and for the health

          15   of the people who live here.

          16            The last lady that spoke, it's true, there's

          17   been so many coverups.  We've been so polluted and

          18   full of toxins.  But this so-called government of ours

          19   is so busy trying to oppress people throughout this

          20   world.  They started here, they oppressed the local

          21   people.

          22            And now why else would they want to bring

          23   these toxic chemicals and heavy metals, uranium

          24   curtain.  A woman spoke of the Iron Curtain.  It's a

          25   uranium curtain here.  Sixty years, they buried all


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           1   those toxins up in Los Alamos.

           2            There are 15, 20 arroyos and rivers that go

           3   down to the Rio Grande.  What's that?  10 million

           4   people plus are taking that water.  The air after the

           5   fires that happened.  No one is immune to this.

           6            All this money that could be -- people have

           7   talked.  Where could this money be directed.  It could

           8   be directed to health, education, just helping people

           9   grow, helping people survive.  Too many people I have

          10   talked to, they couldn't come because they're too busy

          11   surviving, no gas money.  That's criminal.

          12            The Department of Energy, it's like a

          13   department of capturing energy, capturing the people's

          14   energy.  It's time to rise up.  You know, we're all in

          15   poverty, we're all being enslaved.  Why?  Because of

          16   certain invisible elite that want to take over the

          17   world.  Okay.

          18            They talk about weapons and space, right,

          19   nuclear weapons and space.  Who needs one bomb?  Who

          20   can really justify that dropping one bomb anywhere?

          21   What's happening in Lebanon?  Mainly innocent

          22   children, women, children, old people.  Iraq, depleted

          23   uranium.  Who is going to take this waste?

          24            The whole cycle from uranium.  And the

          25   Navajos and the Hopis, the Denai, they mined that


                                                                   110


           1   uranium.  That was the first initial step.  What

           2   happened to them?  The lungs, the cancers.

           3            Our water, you know, the limited water here

           4   has been polluted.  It doesn't make sense.  So it's a

           5   game to enslave people.  It takes more energy to

           6   create this nuclear power, nuclear weapons.  Why?  To

           7   enslave people.  So let's rise up.  It's time to say

           8   no more.  It's insane.  We shouldn't even have to be

           9   talking about this.

          10            We were given a beautiful earth, a beautiful

          11   world.  A certain mentality has no respect.  And how

          12   can we allow them to carry on?  They're not our

          13   leaders.  They have led us to destruction, to death.

          14   And why do we permit them to carry on?  One bomb, no.

          15   Plutonium, we could go into the volumes and volumes.

          16   That's not important.  No more bombs.

          17            All these Superfunds are not being funded

          18   right there in Los Alamos, all over the country.  The

          19   Columbia River, all the salmon are dying.  Why?

          20   Because all those barrels are rotting into the

          21   Columbia River.  Savannah, South Carolina, North

          22   Carolina, all over this country.

          23            You people, the Department of Energy, the

          24   Department of Defense, believes they're above the law.

          25   They're creating death all over and we still permit


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           1   them to do that.

           2            MS. BRANDIN:  Sir, can you wrap up your

           3   comments please.

           4            MIGUEL PACHECO:  So I'm just saying that we

           5   have to stop this.  I think we should have more

           6   hearings.  We need hearings in Albuquerque, down

           7   south, you know.  And then one more thing.  The

           8   nuclear fuel processing plant in Eunice, New Mexico,

           9   set up by the four, five European powers, right.

          10   Great Britain, Dutch, German, help me, Netherlands,

          11   and France bought into it.

          12            When Los Alamos delivered a couple hundred

          13   pounds of plutonium, the next day they bought over a

          14   half interest.  Something is going on.  Why are we

          15   funding the dictators of the world?  Do you trust the

          16   leaders in this country?  What are they doing?

          17   They're killing the world's population.  We're not

          18   immune to it, we're no better than them.  We're next.

          19   We have been next.  In fact, no more bombs.  Let's

          20   stop them.

          21            MS. BRANDIN:  Ms. Sollitt, Shannyn Sollitt

          22   followed by Richard Yunker.

          23            SHANNYN SOLLITT:  Hi, I'm Shannyn from Santa

          24   Fe.  This is the third hearing I've gone to this week.

          25   And I spoke extemporaneously at the first two hearings


                                                                   112


           1   and I decided, well, this time I would like to follow

           2   the rules.  It's very difficult for me to do that kind

           3   of thing.

           4            But, since this is a site-wide environmental

           5   statement that we're making here, I decided to write

           6   one out.  I understand that, when you come to the

           7   hearings, that you're supposed to get answers for the

           8   questions that you pose in the site-wide environmental

           9   statement.  Is that correct?  You don't know?

          10            MS. BRANDIN:  No, no.  The purpose of the

          11   hearing is to get your comments.

          12            SHANNYN SOLLITT:  But then what are you going

          13   to do with the comments?

          14            MS. BRANDIN:  They will be published in the

          15   final site-wide EIS and the responses will be also.

          16            SHANNYN SOLLITT:  These are a bunch of

          17   questions I have laid out here in this little bit that

          18   I wrote to be submitted to you.  I'll read it quickly.

          19   The Department of Energy has a deplorable record when

          20   it comes to the safety of citizens in regards to the

          21   weapons production facilities across the U.S.

          22            This track record has proven just as

          23   deplorable at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as

          24   elsewhere.  In the site evaluation of LANL facility

          25   that was made available to the public, I noticed that


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           1   they cite many instances where the Department of

           2   Energy has fallen very short in its ability to protect

           3   the environment.

           4            Los Alamos National Laboratories was put in a

           5   remote area high on a mountain because of the concerns

           6   for secrecy in the second world war.  Today the

           7   location of the laboratory is antithetical to its

           8   purposes, if its purpose is to produce nuclear

           9   weapons.

          10            I would like a response from my testimony

          11   here to explain to the public what kind of rationale

          12   puts a nuclear weapons production facility on top of a

          13   windswept mountain in the middle of a wildfire zone

          14   and at the source of a watershed that feeds the Rio

          15   Grande Bravo River, the lifeblood of New Mexico,

          16   providing water for 10 million people?  Not good

          17   science.

          18            Rocky Flats, the previous pit production

          19   facility in Colorado that was closed for its egregious

          20   environmental behavior, pumped plutonium contaminated

          21   waste into creeks that were feeding the public water

          22   supplies.  A horrific waive of infant deaths, cancers,

          23   and other problems followed.

          24            Not only was the water supply contaminated,

          25   but plutonium particulate was found in the soil and


                                                                   114


           1   sand surrounding the facility.  One particle of

           2   plutonium, if breathed or otherwise ingested, can kill

           3   a human or animal.  Documented cases of plutonium

           4   particulate found in the ashes of children from Rocky

           5   Flats were permitted after death attests to that.

           6            I would like a response for my testimony here

           7   to explain to the public what LANL intends to do with

           8   the waste storage problem that it is already plagued

           9   with before even thinking about creating more.

          10            Is the DOE intending to move 12,500 drums

          11   buried before 1971 that is currently contaminating the

          12   aquifer to WIPP.  Such action furthering endangering

          13   the population with the possibility of an accident or

          14   spill.  When an aquifer is contaminated, there is no

          15   way to remediate it.  What about the tritium,

          16   plutonium, and other radionuclides found in the

          17   canyons on the neighboring areas.

          18            On top of the Pajarito plateau is an enormous

          19   nuclear waste dump in a fire prone zone.  Is the plan

          20   to continue the storage of this waste?  What happens

          21   in the event of a fire or some major weather calamity?

          22   Plutonium doesn't burn.  But carried by the wind it

          23   can land on any farmer's land.  One particle of

          24   plutonium, if breathed or otherwise ingested, can kill

          25   a human or an animal.


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           1            Why would any rational person or agency want

           2   to put a nuclear weapons production facility on top of

           3   a windswept mountain in the middle of a wildfire zone

           4   and at the source of a watershed.  Please answer this.

           5            We are making comments not just to be saying

           6   things into the wind.  We want to know from your

           7   scientists why you would want to do this activity

           8   there.  It's not safe anywhere, nowhere, nowhere,

           9   nowhere but there.

          10            This is a site-wide environmental impact that

          11   we want -- I want an answer to.  And I want to see it,

          12   I want -- I have my address here, I want it written to

          13   me.  Because otherwise you're just completely

          14   disrespecting everybody who is getting up here to make

          15   any kind of testimony.  And I'm following the rules

          16   except I'm taking too long.  Okay.

          17            Something which is not addressed in the SWEIS

          18   review is the spiritual and psychological landscape.

          19   Why is there such an inordinately high teen suicide

          20   rate in Los Alamos, why did the travesty of Columbine

          21   High take place in Littleton, Colorado, a bedroom

          22   community for the Lockheed Martin plant.  Is this just

          23   a coincidence or is it water that could have been

          24   contaminated?

          25            Chemicals discharged from the plant that are


                                                                   116


           1   known to cause aggression, neurological disorders,

           2   depression, cancers, birth defects, leukemia and other

           3   types of problems are found in the Columbine Valley.

           4   Or is it the soul of the human being that has lost all

           5   hope for a just and compassionate world.

           6            Please, before you consider putting this

           7   production facility here, answer these questions.  I

           8   call for a definitive research of the towns close to

           9   all the weapons production facilities to be done on

          10   the psychological effects on children and adults of

          11   the weapons of mass destruction facilities.

          12            I do not want to see our children brought up

          13   in an environment that condones production of these

          14   weapons.  I want the children growing up here to see a

          15   bright future with the possibility of working at the

          16   Los Alamos National Laboratory on life-affirming

          17   activities, on technologies that bring answers to the

          18   real national security issues of global climate

          19   change, on the use of renewable energy forms, on

          20   technologies for the remediation of horrific waste

          21   from the nuclear industry that started here and that

          22   are causing such suffering here and all over the

          23   world.

          24            This is a common sense vision that I believe

          25   is held by the majority of people here and the world.


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           1   Thank you.

           2            RICHARD YUNKER:  My name is Richard Yunker,

           3   my friends call me Preacher, my friends here tonight.

           4   I've had to wait so long and now I'm mad.  We showed

           5   up tonight on really, really short notice to tell you

           6   that we don't need any more WMDs or plutonium pits or

           7   weapons of war, we already have too many.

           8            As a species we are committing ourselves to

           9   self annihilation.  We have a plethora of the most

          10   diabolical, sinister, outlandish weapons of murder

          11   imaginable.  And yet we rail hypocritically against

          12   those nations that we deem as enemies when they don't

          13   agree with us and want their share of these weapons to

          14   defend themselves against us.

          15            We are contaminating our air, soil, water

          16   around the world for eons to come as if we think we

          17   are the last generation on the planet.  Do we not

          18   believe in the continuing of mankind?  Are we not

          19   acting like we don't care about the futures of our

          20   children or our grandchildren or great grandchildren.

          21            They are our only guarantee of eternal life.

          22   We go around committing the world -- around the world

          23   committing degradations, atrocities on defenseless

          24   countries spouting freedom, democracy, and

          25   Christianity.  And, when a country emerges with a


                                                                   118


           1   democratically elected leader, we do everything to

           2   suppress and destroy it.

           3            The day after 9/11 the Iranians marched in

           4   the streets in support of the U.S., deploring the

           5   crime, what had been done to us.  This administration

           6   has so squandered that goodwill and so alienated Iran

           7   that Israel and the United States are the worst

           8   enemies.

           9            In the April 17 issue of the New Yorker,

          10   Seymour Hersh wrote about the administration's plan to

          11   nuke Iran's underground nuclear facility at Natanz 75

          12   feet below the surface and rock and steel reinforced

          13   concrete using the bunker buster, the B-6111, referred

          14   to as the mother of all bombs.  This, of course, will

          15   teach the Iranians that making nuclear weapons is

          16   wrong.

          17            The Pentagon has demanded that the

          18   administration take this option off the table, but

          19   they aren't listening.  Mr. "Shock and Awe" Rumsfeld

          20   and the DSB, that's the Defense Science Board, are

          21   telling the Pentagon we can build the B-61 with more

          22   blast, more robust, and less energy, less radiation.

          23            And Bush with his messianic vision says he

          24   will do what no one else has had the courage to do and

          25   that doing Iran will be his legacy.  On that day what


                                                                   119


           1   will 1.2 billion Muslims do?

           2            Why shouldn't Iran want a nuke.  They are

           3   surrounded by nuclear nations.  China, Russia, India,

           4   Pakistan, Korea, France, and oh, yes, Israel.  Last

           5   count 200 warheads.  And as of today they are still

           6   denying it.  We have to stop this madness.

           7            I have lived in a beautiful isolated village

           8   valley in the Sangre de Cristos for the last 38 years,

           9   with lots of big trees, rolling hills, terraced, and

          10   plenty of water, but downhill from Los Alamos,

          11   downwind from Los Alamos, blissfully and naively

          12   growing vegetables, thinking I'm doing the best for my

          13   family and friends, only to find out that the manure,

          14   the wood, ashes, the compost, and the fertilizers,

          15   organic fertilizers I used are contaminated with

          16   cadmium, mercury, americium, and cesium.  Such pretty

          17   names for such vile toxic substances.

          18            On August 6, 2004, we marched with Pax

          19   Christi from Asbury Park to the labs.  And, as we

          20   marched with our banners, we passed young people,

          21   probably technicians, scientists, and physicists.

          22   They wouldn't make eye contact with us as if they were

          23   ashamed of what they were doing, like they had sold

          24   out.

          25            What happened?  You were so brilliant,


                                                                   120


           1   educated, bright futures, full of hopes, ideas.  At

           2   what point did you think it was okay?  Why come you?

           3   Who are these thugs slouching towards Babylon, towards

           4   Santa Fe, Espanola, Dixon, Penasco, Taos, Chamisal,

           5   Truchas, Trampas, Vallecitos, and Llano.

           6            Their smooth, disarming manners, bland

           7   mendacious smiles, pockets full of money, poison,

           8   cancer and suffering, pockets full of plutonium,

           9   uranium 238, oil, bile, and the blood of the world's

          10   children, going to high schools at graduations,

          11   colleges at graduations, seducing young minds, the

          12   best minds of our generation, to come and be

          13   engineers, come and split some atoms, come and be

          14   scientists, make a good living for yourself.

          15            The Lord has given us the beautiful minds.

          16   He said here is the sun, the wind, the surf to create

          17   all the energy you need.  Be good stewards, love it

          18   and preserve it.  It's a no-brainer that a technology

          19   whose byproducts are so toxic and poisonous that it

          20   can't be disposed of and yet be used to make the most

          21   dangerous diabolical weapons imaginable is a bad idea.

          22            But we showed up tonight to tell you no.  How

          23   could you ever think it was okay to shove it in the

          24   arroyos, to bury it in the ground, to sneak it and

          25   leak it into the water table, to vent it into the air.


                                                                   121


           1   We don't need another environmental impact statement

           2   to know -- and you don't need one either to know that

           3   it stinks to high heaven.  And yet everything you

           4   want -- every time you want to commit another

           5   environmental atrocity, you come up with another EIS.

           6            Well, we showed up tonight to make sure you

           7   understand how we feel.  It never was right and never

           8   will be.  How can you?  Don't we breathe the same air,

           9   don't we walk the same ground, are we not all brothers

          10   and sisters?  Don't you have children you love and

          11   care about, their health and well-being?  Are you just

          12   in denial about this stuff?  How can you not see it as

          13   well?

          14            The labs should never be closed, they should

          15   be converted to peaceful, healthy nurturing,

          16   life-sustaining research and technologies to begin to

          17   heal the environment and reverse global warming,

          18   research for mega-epidemics, alternative resources, et

          19   cetera.

          20            It will be a great day when we have enough

          21   money -- when we don't have enough money for bombs and

          22   weapons because we spent it all on food and shelter

          23   for the world's poorest people who are living in

          24   grunge and poverty and despair, we spent it all on

          25   healthcare and education.  Sorry, no more money for


                                                                   122


           1   bombs.

           2            Then the lab will truly become the beacon of

           3   hope at the top of the hill, the crown jewel of New

           4   Mexico.  We showed up here tonight to tell you that we

           5   are hopping mad as well and we're not going to take

           6   this shit anymore.

           7            And every time you come, this will still be

           8   here, we will still be here, and we'll tell you the

           9   same thing.  And we'll do everything we can to stop

          10   you.  And, when you realize that you're wrong, we'll

          11   do everything to help change it.

          12            So the DOE should go back to Linton Brooks

          13   and say those people in the mountains don't want this

          14   shit and neither do we and you should quit your jobs

          15   and work for peace.  It's not much money, but it feels

          16   real good.  Nuclear arms, may it rest in peace.

          17            MS. BRANDIN:  Our court reporter needs a

          18   break so we're going to take another five-minute

          19   break.

          20            (Break)

          21            MS. BRANDIN:  I'm going to make another plea

          22   to please keep your comments short because our court

          23   reporter, Jan, is really beginning to come apart at

          24   the seams.  She's working pretty hard.

          25            Okay.  Our next speaker is Carol Benson


                                                                   123


           1   followed by Eduardo Krasilovsky.

           2            ASTRID WEBSTER:  I'm not Carol, I'm Astrid,

           3   but Carol is headed for Albuquerque as we speak and

           4   she wanted me to say several things.  She wanted me to

           5   draw attention to the yard signs, the billboards that

           6   the Los Alamos Study Group has put out.  You too can

           7   we have one of these.  You can do more than float

           8   words on the air, you can put a picture in people's

           9   minds.  And these are really good pictures.  So see

          10   lasg.org on the web site to get one.

          11            Also the Los Alamos Study Group has a call

          12   for nuclear disarmament.  Over 4,000 people have

          13   signed it, over 400 businesses have signed it, and

          14   about 110 organizations have signed it.  I think,

          15   ladies and gentlemen, we ought to quadruple this

          16   number.  Quadruple something safe rather than nuclear

          17   weapons.  And Carol last of all wanted to say thank

          18   you for letting them go first.  Thank you.

          19            MS. BRANDIN:  Eduardo Krasilovsky.  Astrid,

          20   you're next.

          21            ASTRID WEBSTER:  All right.  Here I am back

          22   as me.  I respectfully disagree with the second

          23   speaker representing Tom Udall.  A 15-day extension

          24   with a mere three minutes per objecting citizen is

          25   more than enough when you listen politely without


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           1   really hearing anything.

           2            Those of you who were in Los Alamos Tuesday

           3   night already know that I grew up in a don't ask,

           4   don't tell home.  My German rocket scientist father

           5   used to preach children should be seen and not heard.

           6            To cement the lesson in place, he often

           7   pulled us by our ears, almost dragging us to the site

           8   of our sins or transgressions.  Is it any accident

           9   that I've become a listening therapist, using music to

          10   connect children's hearts to their intelligence and

          11   their voice.

          12            I could not stop dreading my father's next

          13   unexpected appearance until he was safely sequestered

          14   in a nursing home in his early eighties.  I didn't

          15   even know when I was growing up that my father had a

          16   Ph.D. in physics and meteorology until I was dating my

          17   husband and he said so what does your dad have a Ph.D.

          18   in.  And I said (gesturing).

          19            And he said, well, why don't you ask him.

          20   And I said, hey, dad, what do you have a Ph.D. in?

          21   And he said who wants to know.  Talk about don't ask,

          22   don't tell.  I grew up terrified of this man.

          23            My boyfriend wants to know.  Okay.  Physics

          24   and applied meteorology, no big thing.  I didn't ask

          25   him would you have answered that for me because I sort


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           1   of knew the answer.

           2            I was the victim as were my siblings of all

           3   kinds of indignities, not the least of which was not

           4   being listened to, not even really much of the time

           5   wanting to be seen.  Erich grew up a few blocks from

           6   us.  And I asked him Tuesday night over dinner do you

           7   think your father cared one whit about you?  No.

           8            Now, those people who are taking home sizable

           9   checks from Los Alamos need to think about your

          10   children because your hand is not harming them, they

          11   are so obedient to your will that their own hands are

          12   harming them.  The children of this universe are

          13   crying for some positive attention, especially those

          14   of color.  And what are we doing?  We're designing

          15   bombs to get rid of them.

          16            Who in this room thinks nuclear weapons are

          17   the stupidest idea that mankind has ever come up with?

          18            All right, you California kids, I have a new

          19   cheer for you.  And that is nuclear weapons, stupid,

          20   stupid, stupid.  Three times.  Nuclear weapons,

          21   stupid, stupid, nuclear weapons, stupid, stupid,

          22   stupid, nuclear weapons, stupid, stupid, stupid.

          23            Linton Brooks, take that to the bank.  You

          24   are dragging the human race with all kinds of helpers

          25   with little badges on to the precipice of human


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           1   existence.  We're dying here in case you don't know

           2   it.  And you know what your cheer is?  Bring it on.

           3            Well, I think those of us who live in this

           4   state ought to do you a favor because you can't stop

           5   yourselves because you're addicted.  And that is, when

           6   somebody says we're going to have a peace conference

           7   in New Mexico, well, guys, let's show them.

           8            Let's be there, let's point to the largest

           9   waste dump in the Southwest.  Let's point to the

          10   eight, what is it million, whatever, the new chemical

          11   metallurgy building that's going to cost us a billion

          12   bucks and going to be obsolete in eight years.  Let's

          13   bring peace tourists to New Mexico and let's us tell

          14   them the truth because we know the other guys won't.

          15   Thank you.

          16            MS. BRANDIN:  And we have Mr. Krasilovsky?

          17   The next speaker is John Otter followed by Norman

          18   Budow.

          19            JOHN OTTER:  I'm going to emphasize a few

          20   points I feel deserve it and then I'll make a

          21   practical suggestion for political action.  Nuclear

          22   weapons are a moral issue.  I think that's pretty well

          23   been brought here today.  As Bishop John Deere said a

          24   couple days ago, war and nuclear weapons are the

          25   greatest sin of mankind.


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           1            And you may not be of a Catholic or Christian

           2   persuasion.  But, even if you're a Darwinian or an

           3   otherwise, the evolution of the earth might sometime a

           4   few billion years from now create life again after

           5   we've destroyed it.  But I don't think that's a

           6   premise that we want to follow.

           7            The point is that nuclear weapons can destroy

           8   the entire life on earth.  And we have 20,000 of them,

           9   each of which is 1,000 times more powerful than the

          10   ones that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  No

          11   problem.

          12            And I think that particular knowledge is

          13   available to us and our children.  And it sets a tone

          14   of a background of anxiety in the youth which I think

          15   underlies a lot of our youth's social problems.

          16            We have these wonderful efforts these days on

          17   sustainability and countering global warming and

          18   recycling as contrasted to nuclear weapons which are

          19   wasting things rather than reusing them.  But what can

          20   we expect from our youth in terms of a focus on the

          21   future when their outlook on living to an old age is

          22   degraded, diminished greatly by a nuclear weapons

          23   presence on earth.

          24            I guess I'll move on to the suggestion.  So

          25   we don't want nuclear weapons.  What can we do about


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           1   that?  And there's been quite a bit of commentary

           2   which leads to the idea of a revolution.  And that's

           3   not a bad idea, particularly a nonviolent revolution.

           4            We've seen Ecuador, we've seen Argentina,

           5   we've seen Venezuela, Brazil.  But the United States'

           6   prospects for that kind of a people's revolution isn't

           7   quite so good because we have kind of a -- not such a

           8   good political involvement in the populace currently.

           9   It's certainly worthwhile to work on that.

          10            And I know that appeals to us because it

          11   seems to have a short kind of time scale to maybe do

          12   it next week and get rid of nuclear weapons.  But I

          13   think we ought to couple that with a longer term time

          14   scale approach.

          15            And so we need to ask ourselves now who makes

          16   the decisions that brought us all these nuclear

          17   weapons.  Well, our federal Congresspersons and our

          18   state Congresspersons had a lot to with that.  How did

          19   they get elected?

          20            They're supposed to be representing the

          21   people, but they seem to be representatives of

          22   corporate interests primarily and other ideas for

          23   dominating the world.  And that's because our election

          24   system allows them to be elected on the basis of the

          25   funding that they receive from corporations and large


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           1   interests.

           2            So how do we counter that?  Well, we need to

           3   reform our electoral election system.  And, of course,

           4   these people who are in power are not going to just

           5   decide to do that for us.  We're going to have to

           6   start where we have the power and we can -- and that

           7   is in our own municipalities and counties and working

           8   at the state level and the federal.

           9            And there are public financing of elections

          10   and there are -- and what I want to just pursue for a

          11   minute is what's called brain choice voting or instant

          12   runoff voting, where you rank the candidates.  And it

          13   has many advantages in terms of encouraging more

          14   candidates to run, encouraging more people to vote,

          15   increasing the accuracy of the representation so that

          16   it really does -- the people who get elected really do

          17   represent the people.  And the charter and new

          18   commission is considering this.  And it will I think

          19   go to the ballot before the people in Santa Fe city.

          20            MS. BRANDIN:  Sir, can you wrap up, please.

          21            JOHN OTTER:  It's been used in San Francisco

          22   and recently two times in Burlington, Vermont.  And

          23   other cities have voted to use it and it's being

          24   considered by a number of others.  It's been used in

          25   Australia for their government, their Congress


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           1   elections for 40 years -- 80 years and in Ireland and

           2   other places around the world.

           3            It's a great system.  And, if you would like

           4   any information about that to use or try in your

           5   groups and your city, I would be happy to help you

           6   with that.  And my name is John Otter, I'm the only

           7   Otter in Santa Fe.

           8            EDUARDO KRASILOVSKY:  My name is Eduardo

           9   Krasilovsky.  And I'm sorry, I'm tired, so my accent

          10   gets worse as the night progresses.  But I want to say

          11   that I am not going to read those three volumes or

          12   going to the Internet to read those 17 CDs because the

          13   purpose of that technical jargon there is to keep us

          14   down, to keep us in tunnel vision, the wrong vision of

          15   life instead of helping us to go with the eagles and

          16   take the view from above.  And that's how they want to

          17   win all this.  They have done that over and over

          18   again.

          19            So why -- instead of reading volumes, just,

          20   if you can do it, look for Helen Caldicott's book.  If

          21   you did, maybe an idea just came up from me, maybe we

          22   should buy this book and put one book in each house in

          23   Los Alamos.

          24            Maybe we can win over some scientists,

          25   because they are ignorant of many things.  They are


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           1   not perfect.  They may be very intelligent.  But it

           2   doesn't mean that they know and understand everything

           3   especially with their hearts.

           4            Now, why don't I want nuclear weapons.  I

           5   think we shouldn't talk about what they want us to

           6   talk, I think we should close Los Alamos.  The U.S.

           7   currently, as of 2002, has 2,000 intercontinental land

           8   based hydrogen bombs, 3,456 nuclear weapons in

           9   submarines roaming the seas, 15 minutes from their

          10   targets, 1,750 nuclear weapons on intercontinental

          11   planes ready for delivery.

          12            In total there is now enough explosive power

          13   in the combined nuclear arsenal of the world to

          14   overkill every person on earth 32 times.  That's one

          15   reason why we don't need these weapons.

          16            Now, if you'll Google Eduardo Goncalves, he

          17   wrote an article in The Ecologist in 2001 and showing

          18   the following, using the official radiation risk

          19   estimates published in 1991 by the International

          20   Commission of Radiological Protection, in 1993

          21   radiation exposure data calculated by the UN

          22   Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic

          23   Radiation, researcher Rosalie Bertell, author of the

          24   classic book No Immediate Danger, has come up with a

          25   terrifying tally.  358 million cancers from nuclear


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           1   bomb production and testing, 9.7 million cancers from

           2   bomb and plant accidents, 6.6 million cancers from the

           3   routine discharges of nuclear power plants.

           4            As many as 175 million of those cancers could

           5   be fatal.  Added to this number are no fewer than 235

           6   million genetically damaged and diseased people and a

           7   staggering 588 million children born with a range of

           8   teratogenic effects including brain damage, mental

           9   disabilities, spina bifida, genital deformities, and

          10   childhood cancers.

          11            These are my two reasons why we need to close

          12   Los Alamos.  By the way I am a member of Veterans For

          13   Peace, Bloomfield Peace Action, and Cornucopia of New

          14   Jersey which makes me somebody who just is for life

          15   and not for death which is what people in Los Alamos

          16   do.  Thank you very much.

          17            MS. BRANDIN:  The next speaker is Norman

          18   Budow.  Is Norman Budow here?  Elizabeth Stow.  How

          19   about -- I can't read this.  Willem Malten.

          20            WILLEM MALTEN:  So my name is Willem Malten.

          21   You know, I'm not going to read that EIS book either

          22   because, you know, the environment that I'm concerned

          23   with is a slightly different environment than I think

          24   is being described.

          25            I think I'm concerned with the psychic


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           1   environment that a place like Los Alamos creates.  I'm

           2   concerned with trashed international treaties that Los

           3   Alamos has taken a part in.  I'm also concerned with

           4   the degradation of democracy that weapons of mass

           5   destruction inevitably lead to.

           6            You know, last year we had a Hibakusha here

           7   from Hiroshima.  And her name is Shika Husasamori.  I

           8   don't know, some of you may have met her.  You know,

           9   and she, you know, is kind of like a reborn human

          10   being or resurrected human being rather, kind of like

          11   an angel.

          12            And I think what, you know, her message

          13   was -- you know what a Hibakusha is, right?  A

          14   Hibakusha is somebody that was the victim either in

          15   Hiroshima or in Nagasaki and, of course, now, you

          16   know, we can include also the Bikini Atolls, we can

          17   include Kosovo, we can include Iraq, we can actually

          18   include Laguna, Navajo, we can start including

          19   Espanola.  It comes really close.

          20            And in a way the vision that expanded pit

          21   production gives us is that we all have to have peace

          22   with becoming Hibakusha and our children will become

          23   Hibakusha and it's unacceptable.

          24            In a world where most of the money is spent

          25   on weapons, most of the problems start looking like


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           1   military problems and most of the solutions,

           2   therefore, look military as well.  Yet we need to open

           3   our eyes to the bankruptcy this has wreaked on the

           4   civil society.  Ultimately this is the cause for

           5   proliferation of weapons of mass destruction including

           6   nuclear worldwide.

           7            Nuclear weapons are the very spare point of a

           8   culture of violence, the logical end point of the

           9   failure of true diplomacy.  These weapons are not just

          10   aimed at the people of the world, they are not just

          11   taking away the resources of the next generation,

          12   these are weapons -- these weapons are aimed at the

          13   heart of human dignity.

          14            Through security comes from a stronger sense

          15   of community for common causes.  And that is why it's

          16   been so great that actually Santa Fe last year signed

          17   up as -- with Mayors for Peace and has become a

          18   community of peace.

          19            Now, it's up to us to get this meaning.  When

          20   over 80 percent of the American public has expressed a

          21   desire for nuclear disarmament and yet the U.S.

          22   national laboratories such as LANL at Los Alamos and

          23   Sandia Laboratory in Albuquerque, both in New Mexico,

          24   keep pursuing renewed testing, upgrading nuclear

          25   weapons, and building a new pit production facility,


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           1   there's something wrong with this picture.

           2            It illustrates that the magnitude of nuclear

           3   weapons is incompatible with a functioning democracy.

           4   And democracy may have to be rebuilt from the bottom

           5   up.  Neighborhoods, communities, and cities are now

           6   vehicles that express people's will and have to

           7   represent the changes that we are seeking.

           8            So this is the main thing, you know, we have

           9   to -- we have to figure out how to give meaning to

          10   Santa Fe being a city of peace.  And, if that means

          11   civil disobedience, resistance, disruption of

          12   transportation of nuclear weapons or pits, we should

          13   face those possibilities.  The call for nuclear

          14   disarmament, as was mentioned before, this is a small

          15   good step in the right direction.  Thanks very much.

          16            MS. BRANDIN:  Thank you.  Virginia Miller.

          17            VIRGINIA MILLER:  Hi, I'm Virginia Miller.

          18   And I'm a member of a number of peace groups.  And

          19   I -- a lot of things that I was going to say have

          20   already been said.  And I support so much of what has

          21   been said.  So I will go over -- I'll probably leave

          22   some of it out.  But I will try to hit on a couple of

          23   things that will maybe add something.

          24            Let's see.  I vigorously oppose any

          25   continuance and expansion of nuclear weapons design


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           1   and production at Los Alamos National Laboratories as

           2   called for in the LANL SWEIS.  And I won't go through

           3   all the different things because everybody has already

           4   said that.

           5            But one thing that hasn't been talked about a

           6   whole lot is to protect explosive open air experiments

           7   of up to 6,900 pounds of depleted uranium every year

           8   when the use of DU weapons is a war crime under the

           9   Geneva Convention, resulting in grievous health

          10   problems shows a blatant disregard for the health and

          11   safety of the people and environment of Northern New

          12   Mexico for our land, our water, and our air.

          13            The people in Iraq, the children in Iraq and

          14   Afghanistan have suffered and they are dying from the

          15   use of depleted uranium weapons.  I find this

          16   absolutely horrible that the lab would even consider

          17   doing open air experiments with this material.

          18            They should all be banned.  All of this --

          19   the proposed activities of the LANL SWEIS is at a site

          20   located above the Rio Grande.  This has been noted.

          21   But to me this is incredible.  It's a source of water

          22   for many communities in both New Mexico and Mexico.

          23   But it shouldn't be done anywhere.  But the fact that

          24   it is above the Rio Grande River is just unbelievable

          25   that they would do this kind of activity there.


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           1            All of this, all of this -- all of these

           2   proposals, they are unnecessary, immoral, and illegal.

           3   The current pits will last -- we are told by the

           4   scientists that the pits will last 60 to 90 plus

           5   years.  And every one of these pits should be

           6   dismantled.  We don't need any more.  Every one of

           7   them and just no more.

           8            The World Court has condemned the use and the

           9   threat of the use of nuclear weapons.  Nuclear weapons

          10   threaten our very planet and all life on it.  It is

          11   immoral.

          12            I love this planet and I love all life on it.

          13   And there's no way I'm going to allow this to

          14   continue.  It must stop, it must end.  In 1970 the

          15   U.S. signed a nonproliferation treaty under the

          16   Constitution International Treaty, the supreme law of

          17   the land.

          18            In Article VI all nuclear powers are called

          19   upon to engage in worldwide nuclear disarmament.  It's

          20   a law.  This is the law.  And the work at Los Alamos

          21   National Laboratories is breaking the law, it's

          22   against the law.  And it's a crime, a crime against

          23   humanity.  I just found this out in an email recently.

          24            MS. BRANDIN:  Ma'am, are you getting close to

          25   wrapping up?


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           1            VIRGINIA MILLER:  Okay.  That Representative

           2   Dennis Kucinich introduced House Current Resolution

           3   950 calling for the administration to lead in

           4   negotiating a treaty abolishing nuclear weapons.  He

           5   submitted it to the House and the International

           6   Relations Committee.

           7            And we need to support any of our leaders who

           8   are willing to speak out and have the courage to call

           9   for a nuclear disarmament.  And I was very glad to

          10   hear Greg Mello speak earlier of the fact that there

          11   are a number of Congresspeople who are willing to do

          12   this.  They need our support.  It's going to require

          13   all of us working together to get this job done.

          14            MS. BRANDIN:  Are you about done?

          15            VIRGINIA MILLER:  Yes, I'm almost done.  I'd

          16   like to call for the transformation of LANL as others

          17   have done and all of the national laboratories.  There

          18   is so much work that they can do that will really

          19   contribute to the well-being of humanity.

          20            They can begin to clean up the radioactive

          21   contamination, develop renewable sustainable energy

          22   independence, work to help prevent and curb the

          23   impacts of global climate change.  These are things

          24   that would really make a genuine contribution.

          25            And they certainly have the brilliance and


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           1   the means to carry this out.  This should become a

           2   national priority.  And these laboratories could do

           3   that.  And just think of the jobs that that could

           4   provide for our state and the positive impact that it

           5   could have on the world.  That's our true national

           6   security.

           7            MS. BRANDIN:  Ma'am, please.

           8            VIRGINIA MILLER:  All right.  My last

           9   sentence.  If our leaders and the NNSA and the DOE and

          10   the nuclear industrial complex choose to ignore the

          11   law, they will be held accountable one way or another.

          12   So stop this madness.  Basta.

          13            MS. BRANDIN:  Clarissa Duran.

          14            CLARISSA DURAN:  Hi, I'm Clarissa Duran.

          15   This is my sister Danielle Duran.  We're from

          16   Espanola.  And I just want to thank the nice people

          17   who gave me water because I almost passed out because

          18   it's so damned hot in here.

          19            Anyway first of all I want to say look around

          20   this room.  And I know everybody here knows somebody

          21   of color.  Next time bring them with you.  And I'll do

          22   the same.

          23            The other thing I want to really tell people

          24   is for those of you who want to close the labs, no,

          25   because 25 percent of my community works there.  And


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           1   we can't have a 25 percent unemployment rate.  Our

           2   community was an agrarian society until the road to

           3   Los Alamos was built.

           4            We are like Afghanistan and probably now like

           5   Iraq.  Our way of life was taken away from us.  And

           6   who is going to be there to help us rebuild our way of

           7   life.  Nobody.  Nobody is doing that now.

           8            SPEAKER:  We will.

           9            CLARISSA DURAN:  All right.  Well, we want to

          10   see it.  Come hang out with us and help us out.  You

          11   know, there are a lot of kids in our community who are

          12   dying, who are on drugs, and will do anything not to

          13   have to deal with the oppression that we live with

          14   every single day.

          15            And that's the effect of what Los Alamos is.

          16   And yeah, I'm telling you not to close it because we

          17   still need whatever money we need to make a living.

          18   But we don't need to do it by producing nuclear

          19   weapons.  I'm on the Dennis Kucinich campaign for New

          20   Mexico because he said to me that no, we wouldn't have

          21   to close the labs, that we could change it into a

          22   research facility that would help humanity.

          23            And that's what I want you to think of, is

          24   that your neighbors will suffer if you guys close the

          25   labs.  But we can do something positive with that


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           1   energy and that intelligence up there.  We're

           2   starting -- in Espanola I'm telling you about the hard

           3   conditions.

           4            But we've started to clean up our own waste.

           5   And we did that by electing a brand-new city council

           6   and a brand-new mayor.  Our former mayor used to kiss

           7   the asses of all the top people in Los Alamos.  We

           8   don't have that going on anymore.  So, you know, you

           9   guys can shove it because my sister here, Espanola

          10   City Councilor Danielle Duran, is going to tell you

          11   what she's going to do about Los Alamos.

          12            DANIELLE DURAN:  Thank you.  My name is

          13   Danielle Duran, I'm a city councilor for the City of

          14   Espanola.  And I was recently elected in March.  One

          15   of my big issues is economic development for the city

          16   of Espanola.

          17            And one of my major issues is how people

          18   believe that Espanola is reliant on Los Alamos.  And

          19   just because we have 25 percent of our community

          20   working in Los Alamos doesn't mean that we're totally

          21   reliant.

          22            And I wrote down some points which is that

          23   Espanola existed before Los Alamos did.  When it was a

          24   boys' camp and it was farmers there, Espanola existed

          25   as a commercial venue within the state.  It was the


                                                                   142


           1   heart of Northern New Mexico commercial activities.

           2   So to say that Espanola is completely reliant on Los

           3   Alamos and it exists because of Los Alamos is a

           4   complete fabrication.

           5            The other thing is I have a degree in

           6   economics and I do believe in Keynesian economics and

           7   I believe in government crowding out which means the

           8   more money and more activity that goes to the

           9   government, the less that local businesspeople do, the

          10   less that private people do.

          11            So, of course, we don't have a lot of

          12   business in Espanola because all of our time, all of

          13   our talent, all of our people, and many of our

          14   resources are going up to Los Alamos and being taken

          15   over by Los Alamos.

          16            When we talk about salaries, I mean Nambe

          17   Mills is in Espanola.  Do you think Nambe Mills can

          18   compete with the salaries for machinists when it comes

          19   to Los Alamos?  No, they can't.  So I mean that's

          20   another issue for us.  And that's not something --

          21   that's not a reliance that Espanola has on Los Alamos,

          22   that's a problem Espanola has with Los Alamos.

          23            And so finally I would just like to say that

          24   I don't want to close the labs, not because 25 percent

          25   of our people live up there -- work up there, I'm


                                                                   143


           1   sorry.  But because I know scientists working in Los

           2   Alamos on hydrogen fuel cells, on solar power, on wind

           3   power, on other renewable energies and sustainable

           4   development issues.

           5            And I respect those people.  And they do not

           6   work on nuclear issues.  And some people will say, if

           7   you didn't have the nuclear part, you couldn't have

           8   the renewable part.  And I think all of us know that

           9   that is a bunch of B.S.

          10            When we look around us and we see the energy

          11   crisis that is looming in our future, we know that

          12   energy can take a huge portion of our budget from now

          13   on.  And it doesn't have to be solely focused on the

          14   production of uranium or plutonium.  It can be focused

          15   on renewable energies, it can be focused on automation

          16   technologies, it can be focused on micro and

          17   nanotechnologies.

          18            And that's the future that I see for Los

          19   Alamos.  And I hope that all of you will share that

          20   vision with me for Los Alamos.

          21            And before I finish I just want to say that I

          22   believe these things.  I have not discussed these

          23   things with other members of our city council.  And,

          24   for those of you who have gone to all the meetings, I

          25   apologize for not being at the Espanola meeting


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           1   yesterday, I did have an economic development

           2   committee meeting and we talked about the future of

           3   economic development in our valley.

           4            And so I apologize for not being there.  And

           5   I would like to thank all the speakers who have gone

           6   before me because I have learned so much tonight, I

           7   have learned more than I thought possible.  So I want

           8   to thank all of you for speaking tonight and for your

           9   action.

          10            And finally I want to ask Los Alamos, if you

          11   are really serious about being responsive to the

          12   communities around you, please tell us.  If you go

          13   ahead with the increase in production of pits, how you

          14   are going to safeguard the communities around you, how

          15   are you going to make sure that none of that comes

          16   down in the form of waste, of pollution, of

          17   degradation of our environment or our people.  And

          18   that is what I would like a response to in this EIS.

          19   Thank you.

          20            MS. BRANDIN:  Next we have Elizabeth West

          21   followed by Barbara Conroy.

          22            ELIZABETH WEST:  Good evening.  My name is

          23   Elizabeth West.  And thank you all for helping put

          24   this on, for being here, and I have a bunch of mixed

          25   feelings as don't we all.


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           1            Of course, I would like to add my comments to

           2   the list of people and to the comments made by these

           3   people against added Los Alamos pit production.  I

           4   also would like to make sure that my name and address

           5   is written in.  I'm speaking solely to help you,

           6   because I do want a response and I would like to be

           7   one of the people who gets that response.

           8            My name is Elizabeth West, 318 Sena Street,

           9   that's S as in Sam, e-n as in Nancy, a Street, Santa

          10   Fe, New Mexico, 87505.  Thank you very much.

          11            I actually did speak up years ago about the

          12   WIPP, the waste isolation pilot project down in

          13   Carlsbad.  And I did get a response from the

          14   government.  And I still have them someplace in my

          15   basement.  I really do want to hear back from you all.

          16   Thank you.

          17            I woke up this morning thinking about what I

          18   was going to say and feeling a little discouraged.

          19   And thank heavens I'm following so many great people,

          20   especially these two women.  It's just fabulous.  I'm

          21   so proud to be in a state with people like you two.

          22   It's great.  And lots of other people too.

          23            I'm known to be a little bit of a Pollyanna.

          24   And a Pollyanna I used to think is just somebody who

          25   is, oh, everything is going to be just fine.  And


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           1   actually Pollyanna is persistence.  And so yes, I'm

           2   kind of positive.

           3            That's my job, I'm a librarian, and I want to

           4   be nice to everybody.  I also like to learn things.

           5   And so those two things sometimes are a little bit in

           6   conflict.

           7            I also have a lot of good friends in

           8   Washington, D.C., from all parts of the spectrum.  So

           9   this morning, when I woke up, I was thinking all these

          10   funny jumbled thoughts.  And what popped into my head

          11   was George Wallace.  George Wallace.

          12            Well, I'll be 62 in November so I'm older

          13   than some of you and younger than others.  And George

          14   Wallace, of course, I remember was a tremendous

          15   antisegregationist, horrible, horrible, unbelievable.

          16   And then late in his life he completely changed.  So

          17   it's possible, it's possible.

          18            And I know it's possible.  What we're going

          19   through now is another version of a kind of fascism.

          20   It's a petticoat fascism, of course.  It's another

          21   kind of anti -- a discriminatory situation, it's an

          22   environmental problem.  It's a mess of stuff as

          23   segregation was and as a lot of other issues have been

          24   and are.  But that changed and this can change.  This

          25   will change.  And I'm taking my vitamins and I'm going


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           1   to be around to see the change.

           2            So the last thing -- I have a moment or two I

           3   think.  My Washington friends, I'm very interested in

           4   a lot of topics.  And one of emails I sent to a friend

           5   of mine who is a pretty nifty Republican and -- no,

           6   not necessarily, there are all different kinds of

           7   Republicans.  He's a pretty good one.

           8            And we differ on some things, of course.  But

           9   he is not a Conservative Without a Conscience, a

          10   referral to a book, of course, because I'm a librarian

          11   by John Dean.  Anyway, when I wrote to him -- he is

          12   very high up in the government under the previous big

          13   Bush.  No, excuse me, under Reagan.  And then pretty

          14   high up recently until Condoleza Rice came in.

          15            A very connected guy.  I'm not going to

          16   mention his name because he is still alive and he is a

          17   friend of mine.  But I will say that, when I wrote to

          18   him about something I'm going to do in November, I'm

          19   going to go down to the School of Americas and I sent

          20   them some email about that.  And he said oh, well,

          21   that's interesting.  I don't think I've heard anything

          22   about that.

          23            And I gave him the new name, you know, the

          24   unlisted long name and I didn't give him the School of

          25   Assassin's name.  But anyway I was appalled.  And then


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           1   I realized our friends and our nonfriends and our

           2   people who we would have dinner with hopefully at Nora

           3   in Washington.  For anybody that goes to Washington,

           4   that's a great -- the first organic foods restaurant

           5   in the United States.

           6            I hope that they will learn about these

           7   things.  There are so many things to learn about.  And

           8   Los Alamos is one of them.  So I'm hopeful, but I'm

           9   feeling really tough.  So I'm going to be friendly and

          10   talk to my friends in Washington.  And thank you very

          11   much.  I hope I have not spoken too rapidly.  I

          12   appreciate what you're doing.

          13            And for the record again I do want a response

          14   to any of the questions that have been asked here.

          15   Any and all of them.  Thank you very much.

          16            MS. BRANDIN:  Barbara Conroy.  I think it

          17   says Monika Steinwald.

          18            MONIKA STEINWALD:  So, you know, the people

          19   have brought up that they want -- you know, many of

          20   us -- I see the same things, many of us have been here

          21   many years.  The first WIPP hearings and everything.

          22            And I did expect a response, but all I got

          23   was this amazingly mind-boggling, mind numbing stuff,

          24   you know, scientific stuff about this and that and

          25   that had no relevance really in any way to life.


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           1            And so I'm a little ambivalent about wanting

           2   to give anything.  And I don't give my email out or

           3   anything like that because I'm into life.  You know, I

           4   live my little -- I have a little actually colored,

           5   you know, personal colored granddaughter because I

           6   adopted a kid from Brazil 21 years ago.  And I also

           7   have a little Anglo child.

           8            And I look at those little -- they're both

           9   little tiny things, they're under six months.  And,

          10   you know, I look at those magical beings, I think

          11   little tiny hands, perfect little hands.  I am filled

          12   with love and vitality.

          13            And I wonder if the people who make the

          14   bombs -- I'm going to direct my remarks to the people

          15   who seem to be up from Los Alamos.  I also have two

          16   adopted kids from Los Alamos.  One of them is back up

          17   there.  And she used to say, oh, mom, they don't make

          18   the bomb, you're nuts.  They don't make something like

          19   that.

          20            Well, as she got to be a teenager, I got to

          21   know a lot of kids who lived under bridges in Los

          22   Alamos.  And the reason I got here quite late was

          23   because I decided to use the mass transit.  I do that

          24   periodically.  It took me two hours to get from

          25   downtown Santa Fe.  And I thought now, if we spent a


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           1   little more money on mass transit and less money on

           2   the bomb, maybe lots more people would be here.

           3            And then, if I could go back to the WIPP

           4   hearings for a moment, because they told us over and

           5   over and over that this was temporary and it was low

           6   level.  I'm married to a lawyer.  I hear all these law

           7   stories, et cetera.  Well, I knew that the first group

           8   of lawyers who worked for the government quite because

           9   they told the truth in government.  They hired another

          10   group who would lie to them.  And now you know it's a

          11   lie.

          12            I mean we have huge, huge roads going through

          13   New Mexico down to WIPP.  I grew up in Alamogordo.

          14   And that way you know who my dad is maybe a little

          15   bit.  Carlsbad is amazing, it's like rich, you know.

          16            The DOE, the government bribes people to ruin

          17   their environment, ruin their kids and everything,

          18   lots of money.  You know, someone said if your check

          19   -- I think it was Einstein said something like that.

          20   If your check comes from -- if you earn a check from a

          21   particular organization, it's very hard to loosen

          22   yourself from them and tell the truth about them.

          23            And I think that's part of Los Alamos'

          24   problem.  So I am totally against the pits.  You know,

          25   when we began -- Israel began bombing Lebanon, I cried


                                                                   151


           1   a whole day because I thought about kids like mine,

           2   little grandchildren, perfect little beings get

           3   bombed.  It happened -- I cried when we bombed

           4   Afghanistan.  And have we fixed Afghanistan?  I'd like

           5   to know.  Is that fixed?

           6            And those weren't nuclear bombs, those are

           7   just ordinary bombs.  And now we are in Iraq and we

           8   have made an incredible mess of Iraq.  If our

           9   government makes such a mess of a country -- and they

          10   want to go into Syria and into Iran and into Egypt.

          11            There's a document out there that probably

          12   most of you have not heard of.  Clean Start, look it

          13   up on the Internet.  That's the future for us.  War

          14   forever.  But, you know, you talked about the storm

          15   earlier.  I thought a storm, we need a really good

          16   storm.

          17            We had a fire at Los Alamos and it went just

          18   to the gate.  It did dispense some of that nuclear

          19   stuff and I have proof of that actually.  We need a

          20   really good storm that will shake up the world up

          21   there.  A really good storm to show what nuclear waste

          22   does, what plutonium does.

          23            I saw the film from -- I saw the film from

          24   Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  But I also saw the film, the

          25   Russian film, The Lesson at the UN.  All these kids


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           1   with tumors.  Instead of a little, sweet, perfect

           2   child like I have, kids with tumors that are as big as

           3   the rest of their bodies.  That's what nuclear waste

           4   does.

           5            You know, and we can make bombs, but can we

           6   make a child?  Until we learn how to make a child, we

           7   better stop forgetting those bombs.  And I think

           8   anyone with their heart open -- I remember the day I

           9   walked out of my bedroom one day, because I had a

          10   father who made bombs and he treated us in a

          11   particular way that only -- if you really make bombs,

          12   you don't treat kids like a loving father with a

          13   heart.

          14            But my dad did have a heart, I learned that

          15   later.  But I realized I had a numb heart.  And I even

          16   knew as a 12 year old in Alamogordo that I would have

          17   to suffer a lot before I really knew what love was.

          18   And I have suffered a lot.

          19            And I think that the universe is a moral

          20   place.  And I think all the ill that we have done.

          21   You know, my husband used to say we have the greatest

          22   country.  All his friends, everybody used to say we

          23   have the greatest country.  Well, I would like to

          24   know, I would like that in the EIS statement, how we

          25   have the greatest country.


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           1            We are the greatest bomb makers.  We have the

           2   worst transportation system.  How many people here,

           3   raise your hands, how many people have taken the bus

           4   here ever?  The young people.  How about the people up

           5   there?  Great.  Okay.  Here in Santa Fe, though?  I

           6   think we need a little more money here in Santa Fe.

           7   It's horrible, you're right.

           8            And then you have to hear Bush on the radio

           9   and the advertisement on the radio which drove me

          10   crazy.  Anyway, if your heart is alive, if your

          11   heart -- everyone has brains up at Los Alamos.  I have

          12   known many scientists.  I have never heard of one who

          13   admits making -- helping to make the bomb.

          14            And I think like Cristo said, the son of the

          15   big Cristo, when he was at the last thing, you know,

          16   remember he said you all are all dead.  And I think,

          17   unless you have a heart, and you don't make bombs if

          18   you have a heart, you are dead.

          19            Your brain may be alive.  But your brain is

          20   like a computer.  It cannot make life even though we

          21   tried making all these different things.  You cannot

          22   make life.  And the universe is moral.  And whatever

          23   ill we are doing now and what we keep doing will come

          24   back to us.  Thank you.  And I hope for a big storm.

          25            MS. BRANDIN:  Sheri Kotowski.


                                                                   154


           1            SHERI KOTOWSKI:  I'm Sheri Kotowski.  And

           2   Clea Mustakis was going to speak with me, we were

           3   going to talk about some things together.  She has put

           4   hundreds of hours into researching the site-wide

           5   environmental impact statement.  It's grueling.  1,500

           6   pages.

           7            And it's not technical, that's the really

           8   worrisome part of it.  It's gook, it's nonsense, it's

           9   convoluted.  I mean there's no scientific background

          10   to it.  It's like we finally got the 15 CDs or the 19

          11   CDs that were the reference material today.  She had

          12   them in her hand.  This document was issued on July 7

          13   I believe.  I actually didn't get my document until 15

          14   days ago because it got lost in the U.S. postal

          15   system.  So that's number one.

          16            I think it's -- this situation is grueling.

          17   It's 15 minutes until 11.  We've all been here since

          18   six o'clock this afternoon.  We asked in our

          19   negotiation process, when these hearings were being

          20   negotiated, we asked to have more than one session on

          21   the day.

          22            We asked for additional sessions.  We asked

          23   that these sessions start at three o'clock in the

          24   afternoon, go to five, have a break, and have an

          25   evening session because people have kids, people have


                                                                   155


           1   jobs, and that has to be considered when you're making

           2   public comment.  We're humans, we have lives.

           3            And, you know, the whole process is

           4   destroying our lives.  Modern pit facilities.  A lot

           5   of what I'm going to say has been said tonight

           6   already.  And I'm going to say it again because we've

           7   been saying this for years.

           8            We defeated the modern pit facility two years

           9   ago.  It's back again.  This document says it goes

          10   from 20 pits for 80 pits.  And then every part of the

          11   summary it says, oh, and we also calculated it for the

          12   modern pit facility which is 450 pits per year.  So

          13   you've heard that.

          14            One of the things I also wanted to point out,

          15   three minutes.  A 1,500 page document, what is it, $5

          16   million SWEIS, that's how much it cost.  One of the

          17   people that I work with likes to do demos and

          18   illustrate things.  I thought I would do a little demo

          19   with that.

          20            I think that it's probably a little

          21   exaggerated and it might be a little bit inaccurate.

          22   But I think, if we filled this whole room with beans,

          23   we call that $5 million for the SWEIS, for the draft

          24   SWEIS.

          25            I'm going to be that one little bean outside


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           1   of this room.  And that's how much energy has been put

           2   into this and how much consideration my opinion gets

           3   and all of the hard work that I have also put into

           4   researching this document.

           5            What I really wanted to talk about is water.

           6   Water is so precious.  It's not just precious in this

           7   state, it's precious to everybody.  I mean it's life.

           8   The planet, we survive because of water.  Our whole

           9   life is based on water.

          10            With the increased pit production, we go from

          11   500 acre feet of water per year used by LANL.  This is

          12   discharge water, this is industrial wastewater, this

          13   is sanitary effluent.  You can't use this water, you

          14   can't drink it, all you can do is make more pits with

          15   it.  But they don't make more pits with it, they flush

          16   it into the canyons.

          17            In dry years all the contamination, it

          18   just -- it sticks on the soil.  When it's windy, it

          19   blows around.  When these big storms come, it just

          20   washes into the river.  Albuquerque is going to be

          21   drinking this water.

          22            And who is going to pay for cleaning this

          23   water to drinking water standards?  Not the

          24   laboratory.  It's up to the municipalities, the

          25   municipalities to clean this water so that Albuquerque


                                                                   157


           1   can drink it and Santa Fe can drink it.  So we're at

           2   500 acre feet of water.  We're going to go up to 822

           3   acre feet of water used per year.

           4            Another demo.  I live in a really small --

           5            MS. BRANDIN:  Can you wrap it up.

           6            SHERI KOTOWSKI:  I'm going to just continue

           7   because, you know what, I've been here since 6:30 and

           8   I've worked on this document for the last two weeks,

           9   I've been sweating blood and I want to finish what I'm

          10   going to say.

          11            MS. BRANDIN:  The problem is --

          12            SHERI KOTOWSKI:  I'm going to finish and I'm

          13   not going to take that much longer.  But I do want to

          14   illustrate how much 822 acre feet of water is.  I live

          15   in a really small community in Northern New Mexico.

          16   They've told us we have to district our water because

          17   us little tiny communities are using too much water.

          18            We are allotted 37 acre feet of water a year.

          19   With increased pit production and expanded weapons, it

          20   would take us 20 -- that's the equivalent of 20 years

          21   of our allotted water supply.

          22            And I also want to say that Los Alamos is

          23   taking more than their allotted water supply.  We get

          24   charged, we get fined.  And they will stand up and say

          25   we're going to take more water.  And that's a


                                                                   158


           1   violation.  It's against the law for us to take more

           2   water and we get charged for it.  And they can just

           3   say that they're going to use all the water that they

           4   want.

           5            And one more thing.  1,400 sites, potential

           6   release sites at the laboratory.  Every single time it

           7   rains, the snow melts, all of that washes down.  It

           8   doesn't make any sense.  And we really have to stop

           9   and protect our water.  Thank you.

          10            MS. BRANDIN:  Our last speaker Catherine

          11   Montano.

          12            CATHERINE MONTANO:  My name is Catherine

          13   Montano and I'm a member of the Citizens of the

          14   American Constitution.  A few months ago LANL was

          15   burning depleted uranium nuclear waste, diesel, an

          16   open burn, a bonfire, throwing whatever they wanted to

          17   get rid of.

          18            And we're downwind in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

          19   And we drink surface water.  So they are poisoning the

          20   water that we drink.  The very fabric of creation is

          21   in danger.  Our school yards.  This is a most crucial

          22   time.

          23            And you know that I never volunteered to do

          24   this work.  I was physically thrown out of my bed by a

          25   higher power.  And I was told that I had to get


                                                                   159


           1   involved in stopping the nuclear madness.  At the time

           2   I couldn't even pronounce the word plutonium, I used

           3   to tell the Anglo women, how do you say that word.  I

           4   could hear it in my brain but it just wouldn't come

           5   out of my mouth.

           6            For 16 years I have gone to nuclear hearings.

           7   And they have all been like this one tonight.  A dog

           8   and pony show, because that's all they are.  You know,

           9   they do it to satisfy the letter of the law, that they

          10   had a public hearing for the people.

          11            And the people -- you know, when I first got

          12   involved, I went home and I turned on the television.

          13   It said, oh, New Mexicans don't care one way or the

          14   other if they bring nuclear waste into the state of

          15   New Mexico.  And I thought that's not true.  Because

          16   there was hardly anybody at the hearings.

          17            The media wasn't there.  You know that I went

          18   to channel -- one of the channels here in Albuquerque,

          19   TV stations.  And I asked them how come you guys

          20   aren't covering these hearings.  It's the most

          21   important -- these were the WIPP hearings.

          22            These are the most important -- it's the most

          23   important issue facing the state of New Mexico.  They

          24   want to bombard us with everybody's waste from all

          25   over the United States.


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           1            See, New Mexico, they think it's Mexico.

           2   They think, oh, they live in the desert, it's just a

           3   bunch of Mexicans and Indians.  And you know what's

           4   interesting, everybody is flocking to New Mexico

           5   because it's predicted that the East Coast and the

           6   West Coast is going to be under water.  And the only

           7   place you can run to is the Southwest.

           8            But you're all going to run to the fire.

           9   Because New Mexico is rated number one in the nation

          10   highest in radiation spills.  You've heard tonight all

          11   the criminal activity at Los Alamos.

          12            A few months ago we put out a letter, a

          13   Constitutional letter.  I worked on petitions when

          14   WIPP first came out.  In our area we gathered 6,000

          15   signatures.  We presented 17,000 signatures to

          16   Governor Bruce King.

          17            And I happened to be the one to read the

          18   petition.  And I asked him to sign it.  And, when I

          19   put it over to him, he slammed it back and he said I

          20   don't sign petitions.  And I said, Governor, I thought

          21   you were a compassionate man, I thought you cared

          22   about the people of the state of New Mexico.  Oh, I am

          23   compassionate man.

          24            And at the end he came up to me because I let

          25   him know how contaminated the state of New Mexico is.


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           1   We are walking miracles.  We all have plutonium in our

           2   bodies.  If you don't believe me, get a hair analysis

           3   and you'll find out how much plutonium you have in

           4   your body.

           5            And, you know, there is a researcher, his

           6   name is Ernest Sternglass.  Right now he's 82 years

           7   old.  But all his life he researched what radiation

           8   does to our bodies.  He says that the more we get

           9   radiated and the more the animals get radiated, the

          10   more violent they will become.

          11            Look how violent our society is today.  And

          12   it's time that we stop this operation.  You know that

          13   the Constitution is a very powerful law, it's the

          14   supreme law of the United States.  And I've heard some

          15   of you talk about democracy, that we're a democracy.

          16   We're not a democracy, we're supposed to be a

          17   republic, a nation of laws.

          18            But we have ignored our laws.  And, you know,

          19   our activists here in New Mexico, we've been fighting

          20   administrative law.  Well, it's geared for them to win

          21   and for us to lose.  Constitutionally we closed down

          22   the operation at Los Alamos Labs.  It took us 40 days.

          23            And what we did is we sent out this

          24   Constitutional letter letting all our elected

          25   officials know that they work for us, we pay their


                                                                   162


           1   salaries, and we will hold them accountable.  You

           2   know, you can do all the civil resistance, all the

           3   protests, it doesn't work.

           4            We've sat in senators' offices, I mean we've

           5   done it all.  I'm 56 years old.  And we've done it

           6   all.  And the only thing that will work is the

           7   Constitution.  We have won over 300 cases here in the

           8   state of New Mexico.

           9            We stopped PNM in Las Vegas from burning

          10   diesel.  We stopped a plant that was putting out 800

          11   tons of carcinogens into the air of Las Vegas.  And

          12   how did we do it?  Through the Constitution.

          13            See, when you use the Constitution, you go to

          14   the individual that took that oath.  See, these guys,

          15   when they pick up that hand, they think it's just a

          16   party.  They don't realize that, when they say they

          17   will defend and honor the Constitution, and if they

          18   don't, we can set them aside from their position that

          19   they hold and sue them lawfully, criminally and

          20   civilly.

          21            And believe me, when you go after the person

          22   instead of the machinery of government, they get

          23   scared because they stand alone.  And that's the

          24   way -- that is the tool that we need.

          25            And, you know, I would like to tell our


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           1   President, because he went around telling people here

           2   in the United States that he was against abortion.

           3   He's for life.  Well, you know, I'd like to ask him

           4   this question, what's the difference in killing that

           5   baby before it's born or let that baby be born and

           6   radiated to death?  What is the difference?

           7            You know what the difference is?  Not only do

           8   you kill the baby, but you kill the parents, the

           9   grandparents, their siblings, it kills everything.

          10   And like I say it is time that we have a moratorium in

          11   the state of New Mexico and around the United States.

          12            We want cleanup of our state.  I know they

          13   can't clean radioactivity.  But we still want some

          14   cleanup.  And we also need an independent

          15   investigation of all the facilities.

          16            You know that one year I was coming from

          17   California and I was in Los Alamos.  And you know what

          18   he told me?  He says I work at Los Alamos Labs and I

          19   make so much money I don't have time to spend it.

          20   Then I ran into a little old man that said I have

          21   nuclear stocks, but they've all gone to hell.

          22            And I felt like saying to him I helped them

          23   go to hell.  And you know that during the nuclear

          24   hearings I had someone come up to me, and this was

          25   like 400 people.  And he gave me a message, he says


                                                                   164


           1   this message is for you.

           2            And I read it.  And, when I finished reading

           3   it, I told him a few things.  He says that's true.

           4   And I would like to share that message because this

           5   message comes from a herald angel.  And this is it.

           6            Opposition to WIPP, say no to the waste

           7   isolation project WIPP.  The massive hole dug in

           8   mother earth and into the salt of her veins is meant

           9   to house nuclear waste and dispose of them.  It is a

          10   lie.  There are entities from the dark forces at work

          11   here.  Skullduggery abounds.  Chemical warfare has

          12   become state of the art.

          13            Thanks to the dark forces that have spread

          14   out world disease, one of which is AIDS, there are

          15   bunkers throughout the country that are now

          16   contaminated which is all our nuclear facilities.  The

          17   cannisters have leaked and are earmarked to come to

          18   WIPP.  How dare they.  This will devastate our state.

          19            A secret underground base is planned by the

          20   dark forces to complete the H bomb.  The very fabric

          21   of creation is in danger.  Our school yards.  This is

          22   a most crucial time.  Your brothers and sisters of

          23   spacemen and are love, joy, hope, and peace.  To our

          24   brothers and sisters of earth, know that we are in the

          25   skies for you and we extend a hand of friendship and


                                                                   165


           1   we stand with you.

           2            Come forth like workers come forth.  I am

           3   Ashtar and I have spoken through a starfighter.

           4   Through those gentle warriors and warriors of the sky

           5   and so it shall be.  And at the bottom it had the Star

           6   of David, inside was his name and around it it had

           7   seven dots.  And I thought who is this.  And why would

           8   they give it to me.  It's got to mean something to me.

           9            And you know that during the day, if I go to

          10   the bathroom, I would ask my friends watch my stuff.

          11   At the end of the day, I picked it up again.  And it

          12   was interesting because around the opposition to WIPP

          13   it was like a white lettering.  The star was colored

          14   white.  And each little dot, there were seven dots

          15   around the star, they were colored like little

          16   spaceships.

          17            I have seen the ships line up in that

          18   formation.  And the night that I saw them line up in

          19   that formation, this man made the statement that he

          20   had been up on a ship and that Jesus had greeted him.

          21   And I was ready to laugh at him when the sky lit up

          22   with seven ships in the same formation that was on the

          23   Ashtar message.

          24            So I know that there's millions and millions

          25   of ships that are monitoring the earth and are


                                                                   166


           1   watching to see what we are doing here.  So it is

           2   important for you people that came from California,

           3   because the University of California is running Los

           4   Alamos Labs.  And we need help from all over the

           5   country to stop this ugliness in our state.

           6            MS. BRANDIN:  Ma'am, I'm going to interrupt

           7   for a minute.  For the benefit of the court reporter,

           8   you've gone past your time so I'm going to ask her to

           9   stop.

          10            CATHERINE MONTANO:  I want to make one more

          11   comment before you take me off the record.  My

          12   grandson came calling one day.  He says, Grandma, I

          13   saw the sticker.  You know what the sticker said?  It

          14   said may all nuclear weapons rust in peace.

          15            MS. BRANDIN:  That was our last speaker.

          16   It's been a very long, grueling night for all of you I

          17   know.  I appreciate you coming out for this public

          18   hearing.  And please be careful driving home.  And be

          19   safe especially if there's a storm out there.  Thank

          20   you again.

          21            (At 11:05 p.m. the hearing was concluded.)

          22

          23

          24

          25


                                                                   167


           1                   REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

           2

           3            I, JAN A. WILLIAMS, New Mexico CCR #14, DO

           4   HEREBY CERTIFY THAT ON August 10, 2006, the hearing

           5   was taken before me, and that I did report in

           6   stenographic shorthand the proceedings set forth

           7   herein, and the foregoing is a true and correct

           8   transcription of the proceedings had upon the taking

           9   of this hearing.

          10            I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am neither employed

          11   by nor related to any of the parties or attorneys in

          12   this case, and that I have no interest whatsoever in

          13   the final disposition of this case in any court.

          14

          15

          16

          17

          18

          19

          20
                                 __________________________________
          21                     Jan A. Williams, RPR
                                 Certified Court Reporter #14
          22                     License Expires:  12/31/06
                                 Bean & Associates, Inc.
          23                     Professional Court Reporting Service
                                 500 Marquette, Northwest, Suite 280
          24                     Albuquerque, New Mexico  87102

          25   (1563A)  JAW