Taos to LANL: No pits, thank you

(Photo by Chris Pesotski)

SANTA FE -- A proposal to expand LANL's role in nuclear weapons production is getting the cold shoulder from two more local governments.

Governing bodies in the Town of Taos and Taos County on Wednesday became the latest to lodge a formal protest against a federal proposal to expand plutonium pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory. At a joint meeting Wednesday, the Taos Town Council and the Taos County Commission both passed resolutions objecting to the National Nuclear Security Administration's "Complex Transformation," the agency's plan to overhaul and consolidate the nation's nuclear weapons complex.

Taos officials are upset that the NNSA didn't schedule public hearings in their area on the proposal. Hearings were held earlier this year in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Alamos, Socorro and Española. Wednesday's resolution also expressed environmental and moral concerns with the plan, which would designate LANL as the nation's permanent pit manufacturing center, capable of producing up to 80 plutonium pits per year. Pits are the highly radioactive cores of modern nuclear bombs.

Plutonium pits "are used as the `triggers' for weapons of mass destruction and plutonium creates health and environmental hazards," the resolution states. "The governing bodies of the Town of Taos and Taos County do not support the creation of further health and environmental hazards related to nuclear weapons for the citizens of Northern New Mexico."

The Santa Fe City Council passed a similar resolution in February, and other local community leaders, including Española Mayor Joseph Maestas and Picuris Pueblo Gov. Craig Quanchello have also said they oppose the plan.

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