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Maj. Gen.: ICBMs “incredibly dangerous”

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021

Maj. Gen. Anthony Genatempo, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center in New Mexico, told Air Force Magazine in June that replacing today’s Minuteman III missiles is crucial for the Air Force personnel “who have to be around that incredibly dangerous weapon system.” Genatempo said the things that keep him up at night regarding Minuteman missiles are heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems … that have never been replaced — and the failure of “which would take a missile offline for an unknown amount of time as it is fixed.”

Genatempo then pivoted and claimed that the long-range, land-based nuclear weapons are “safe and reliable.” He was trying to promote the Minuteman’s retirement and said, “We are building [the replacement] to be a 70-year weapon system….” Never mind the 1970 Nonproliferation Treaty in which the US pledged to pursue nuclear disarmament “at an early date.”

The general’s concern may be feigned, since even a computer failure that cut off contact with 50 Minuteman III missiles at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming in October of 2010 was said by Lt. Gen. Arlen Jameson to have had “no real bearing on the capabilities of our nuclear forces…” inadvertently confirming that land-based nuclear weapons are obsolete and needless. 

— Air Force Magazine, “New GBSD Will Fly in 2023,” June 14, 2021; CNN, “Computer problem blamed for missile site malfunction,” Oct. 28, 2010

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Workers Evacuated after “Alarming” Leak from Maryland Research Reactor

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By Christine Manwiller

On February 3, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland had a radiation leak during the restart of its research reactor. Temperatures inside a single fuel element reached over 850⁰ F leaving it damaged. An alarm sounded, and the reactor was shut down. Although the amount of radiation released has not been revealed, it was high enough to warrant decontamination of ten employees who were then sent home. Federal regulators revealed later that the leak was “three times higher than originally thought.” This fact was followed with the assurance that the leak posed no danger to thousands of residents living in homes or visiting several large shopping centers close to the reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported a month later that it was “satisfied that people around and near NIST remain safe.” However, the National Academy of Sciences concluded in its book-length Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation-VII that any amount of radiation exposure is dangerous, especially for women and girls.

Residents around the NIST complex were “alarmed” that they were not notified about the incident. No official announcement was made. The fact that workers were exposed to radiation and evacuated is unusual. David Lochbaum, a nuclear researcher with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says, “It’s alarming and uncommon to hear of an incident that requires the evacuation of workers inside a reactor.” The level of caution prompting decontamination and evacuation of workers would also warrant notification of local communities. Four months later the reactor remains shut down.

— NIST, May 6; NBC News, Mar. 31; Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mar. 4, 2021

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“No First Use” of Nuclear Weapons — Complicated Common Sense 

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By Kelly Lundeen 

On April 15 Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Representative Adam Smith, D-Wash., re-introduced a bill declaring that the United States would “not use nuclear weapons first.” 

“This bill would strengthen deterrence while reducing the chance of nuclear use due to miscalculation or misunderstanding,” Rep. Smith said. Smith’s construction is mistaken. A no-first-use law would in fact re-establish deterrence. Today’s Pentagon plans to strike first with nuclear weapons are the destabilizing and terrifying opposite. A first strike is what deterrence is supposed to prevent. 

The effect of a no-first-use law would be that in a conflict situation there would be no danger of surprise nuclear attacks, which unnecessarily escalate tensions. An “opponent” receiving warnings of an incoming missile could feel reassured that the weapon isn’t nuclear and would not have to consider responding with immediate nuclear retaliation. However, critics point out that countries potentially targeted with US nuclear weapons would have to trust the US no-first-use pledge. 

Some of the Pentagon’s B61 thermonuclear bombs in storage, probably at
Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. US government photo.

If the no-first-use bill passed, it would follow in the footsteps of four of the eight other nuclear-armed states. China started a trend in 1964 making a pledge, which it has reaffirmed many times, “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances.” Additionally, China has called for an international no-first-use treaty among the nine nuclear-armed states, which would constitute a significant move toward keeping the weapons from ever being used again. 

In 1998, India adopted a no-first-use pledge, and in 2016 North Korea made the same commitment. In a 2018 statement by Vladmir Putin, Russia declared that it would use nuclear weapons only as retaliation. Even though the promise was reported by the AP, and the other pledges have all been covered in mainstream media, they are not often considered effective commitments, which raises the question of their usefulness. 

The new no-first-use bill is literally 14 words long, leaving questions about implementation unanswered. If Congress’s policy of no-first-use becomes law, who enforces the law: Congress, the president, or the military? For other countries to believe that a US pledge has been made in good faith and will continue under changing circumstances, the law would need to be backed up with structural changes to the nuclear arsenal. Many of the weapons would need to be dismantled since they were built primarily for first-strike capability. The purpose of the 400 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles is to destroy “opposing” nuclear forces before they are launched, which would also cause deaths in the millions. They could be taken off hair-trigger alert and decommissioned. Air- and sea-based nuclear missiles and bombs could be physically separated from bombers and submarines, as China has done. 

Of course, a no-first-use policy is common sense, and a cheaper policy than the status quo. However, if the US wants to pave the path to true security, all 5,550 nuclear warheads must be decommissioned and subject to a never-use policy. 

— Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Apr. 15, 2021; AP, “Putin: Russia would only use its nuclear arms in retaliation,” Oct. 18, 2018; Global Zero, Sept. 2018; The Independent, “North Korea will not use its nuclear weapons first, Kim Jong-un tells Congress,” May 8, 2016 

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Weapons Wastes Spark Concerns across New Mexico

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021
By Christine Manwiller 

Plans are in motion to expand the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The underground nuclear waste repository is licensed to store low-level transuranic waste from US nuclear research and testing. This waste, consisting mostly of clothing, tools, rags, debris, and other items contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements is stored in areas mined in a salt bed layer about 2,000 feet below the surface. The new expansion would replace space lost due to radioactive contamination during a February 14, 2014 accident. A single drum of nuclear waste burst open, releasing radioactive uranium, plutonium, and americium after organic cat litter was substituted for inorganic, causing an explosion in the drum that had been packed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). As a result of this accident, 22 workers and approximately 30,000 cubic meters of storage of WIPP’s underground capacity were contaminated. WIPP was closed for three years and the area is still unsafe for workers. The current expansion is only one of many that are planned, which if approved would all together double the number of storage rooms at WIPP. 

The expansion of WIPP is largely to accommodate the increase in waste scheduled to be produced by LANL. The Biden administration has approved expansion of the US nuclear arsenal. Nuclear trigger production will resume, and LANL will begin producing 30 plutonium cores per year. Besides the nuclear waste that will be produced, questions regarding LANL’s facilities and safety have been raised. Greg Mello with the Los Alamos Study Group expresses his own concerns about the increase in production. “LANL’s facilities are simply too old and inherently unsafe, its location too impractical … LANL could not undertake this mission successfully.” LANL’s 2019 record supports this concern, with multiple shutdowns caused by accidents. Again on February 26, 2021 improper packaging of pyrophoric materials (which spontaneously combust when exposed to air) caused sparks to fly from a waste drum. 

While the primary purpose for the expansion is to replace the space contaminated in the 2014 incident, the underground site’s operation now extends to 2033, nine years past its mandated 2024 closure. According to Don Hancock, of Southwest Research and Information Center, the expansion pushes WIPP “well beyond its historical limit.” Hancock contends that this plan is only part of the larger picture, revealed in a 2020 report from the federal Government Accountability Office “that discussed plans to add up to nine new disposal panels to WIPP.” Hancock argues that WIPP’s repeated “piecemeal” enlargement plans are deliberate, because “laying out the long-term scheme for the public would inevitably result in opposition” to the increased amounts of radioactive waste shipped into and stored in the state. 

— Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, and Southwest Research and Information Center, Apr. 29; Carlsbad Current-Argus, Apr. 14, 2021 

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New York Times Editors Make Radiation Disappear 

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021

At China’s Taishan nuclear reactor complex 80 miles south of Hong Kong, several damaged uranium fuel rods caused an unusual buildup of radioactive gases, according to China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). On June 14, a spokesperson for EDF, the French designer and part owner of the reactors, said the problem meant that the gases had to be released into the atmosphere, BBC reported.

The New York Times reported June 16 that the NNSA “said no leak into the environment had occurred.” What NNSA did announce was, “At present, monitoring results of the radiation environment around the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant show that there is no abnormality in the radiation level around the nuclear power plant.” The Times’ rewording of the NNSA’s message eliminated its acknowledgement of a “radiation environment” around the reactors.

A separate controversy erupted when EDF reportedly said in a June 8 memo that the NNSA had raised the allowable “off-site dose limits” around the reactor in order “to avoid shutting it down.” China’s environment ministry then announced that the report was not true. The two Taishan reactors are only 3 years old, and are of a new design to begin operating anywhere in the world.

— BBC, World Nuclear News, and New York Times, June 16; BBC, June 15; and CNN, June 14, 2021

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