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January 22, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Hanford Clean Up Hiccups

(https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/hanford-nuclear-site-washington-state-tank-farms-workers-sickened-investigation/281-48a540ea-1fa5-4de9-8ab7-b1dc9db6e5c8) – Photo Credit
By Adrian Monty

Radioactive waste has piled up at the Hanford, in Richland, Washington, since the production of plutonium began there in 1943 for use in the very first atom bomb, code-named “Trinity,” detonated outside Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the plutonium bomb, dubbed “Fat Man,” dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

The first round of single-shelled radioactive waste storage tanks on the site began leaking early in the 1950s, prompting the use of double-shelled tanks in the 1960s. These million-gallon tanks, 177 in total, house over 55 million gallons of low- to high-level radioactive waste, are prone to leaking, and are stored in a 150 foot deep football field-sized crater. Since the early 2000s, it has been the goal of the Energy Department to build a Waste Treatment Plant with the capacity to immobilize a large portion of the waste by mixing it with molten glass for permanent storage in a process called vitrification. The DOE’s plan is to start with low-level waste, including liquids separated from high-level radioactive waste in the double-shelled tanks, and to go from there.

On October 8, the 300-ton vitrification melter began heating up, the first step of the process, and the program had its first hiccups. The melter, designed to liquefy glass to be mixed with radioactive waste, is supposed to gradually heat to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit over a period of weeks. In the first attempt, the melter began to overheat, and workers had to halt heating after only two days, to figure out the next steps. The melter was still empty, so there was no danger to workers or the environment. Leaders at the site have acknowledged that this is a first, and they want to make sure the melter can get up to temperature and melt glass mixed with other materials before bringing radioactive materials into the picture. Vitrification has successfully stabilized radioactive wastes in the past but on a much smaller scale.

Meanwhile on August 9, Nagasaki Day, two tribes, nine agencies, and governors Kate Brown of Oregon and Jay Inslee of Washington sent letters to President Biden urging him to expand the budget for cleanup efforts at what has been called “the most toxic place in America.” In October, every Washington State Congressional leader, Democrat and Republican, followed suit with a letter of their own. As we go to print, they are still awaiting a response.

— Hanford Site, 2022; Tri-City Herald, Oct. 9 & 20, 2022; The Spokesman-Review, Oct. 9, 2022

— Adrian Monty works with the Oregon State University Downwinder Project. She is an environmental journalist with a focus on atomic issues.

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

January 20, 2023 by Nukewatch 4 Comments

John’s Letter from Jail – January 15, 2023

Sent by Marion Küpker and typed by Felice Cohen-Joppa.

January 15, 2023

This month has three important political anniversaries, anti-war and anti-nuclear holidays if you will, events I’ll celebrate privately for a change, since I’m temporarily cooling my heels in a German prison on the west end of Hamburg. It’s not that I killed or robbed very many people, but I have acted contemptuously toward the court system here and have refused to cooperate with its deeply corrupt and thoroughly dishonest protection of the nuclear weapons establishment.

Because Susan Crane and I had the gall to occupy the top of a nuclear weapons bunker that holds U.S. hydrogen bombs here in Germany, and then refuse to apologize by paying a fine for trespassing, the court has decided that seven weeks in this modern prison ought to mend my ways, or at least discourage other abolitionists.

The three war-weary events are Martin Luther King Day, January 16; the second anniversary of the Entry into Force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, January 22; and the yearly setting of the “Doomsday Clock,” January 24 – that weirdly formulaic gauge of nuclear armageddon’s likelihood concocted by a group of scientific nuclear eggheads.

The establishment of the MLK holiday and of the TPNW were both monumental achievements made against fierce, wealthy, bigoted and colonialist forces of reaction. Advocates of nonviolent action and campaigners for a world free of nuclear weapons this Monday and next Sunday, then get back to work Tuesday when the alarm goes off again on the Doomsday Clock. Of course the clock’s “up one year, down the next” assessment of nuclear war risks has been ignored as a worn out rewrite of the Chicken Little tale. Yet the five metric tons of plutonium dust that was lofted into the upper atmosphere by nuclear weapons tests is all making its way back down to earth. So yes Mr. Watson, in fact the worst part of the sky is falling.

Dr. King and opposition to nuclear weapons will always be connected in my mind because MLK said, “We have guided missiles and misguided men” and “the ultimate logic of racism is genocide,” and because nuclear weapons are nothing if not genocidal.

Dr. King’s books, and the hard-won triumphs of the fearlessly nonviolent Civil Rights Movement, inspired a group of us in the 1980s to repeatedly blockade the entrance to the Grand Forks air force base in North Dakota which then controlled 150 land-based, long-range nuclear-armed missiles. Over a ten-year period, our band of nuclear resisters served enough county jail time after staging so many marches, protests and stunts – once pouring blood across the 100-ton concrete lid of a locked-and-loaded Minuteman III missile silo – that when the air force later decided to eliminate over half of its land-based missiles, the Grand Forks nukes were some of the first to go.

Our small group efforts were encouraged back then by news of hundreds of thousands across Europe who took to the streets demanding – successfully it turned out – the ouster of U.S. Cruise and Pershing missiles. Any prospective use of the weapons was almost universally viewed in Europe as suicidal. 

We never know if our demands will be realized — only that nothing is gained without venturing. Anti-nuclear marchers in the ‘80s never guessed they’d see the U.N. General Assembly vote 122-to-3 to endorse a treaty banning nuclear weapons. This overwhelming majority of the world’s governments have agreed that nuclear weapons can only produce massacres, that any chance of a successful medical response to their effects is impossible, that these effects would illegally cross neutral borders, do long-term criminal damage to the environment, and then recoil to maim and destroy the very militaries that unleash them. (That’s why I wrote “B61 = Suicide” on the weapons bunker just before being detained.)

Today, the groundbreaking TPNW has permanently shamed and stigmatized the nuclear weapons states as hypocrites, scofflaws and rogues who ridicule and ignore the treaty’s means, while cynically claiming to desire its ends.

The nine-member thermonuclear cartel, like a gang of coldblooded mobsters, acts outside and above the law by rewarding their judicial, police and prison authorities for the cover they provide, authorities who then wink and pretend that the protection racket is necessary and that the Bomb is legal.

Maybe our marching, our rebellion and the law of nations can’t denuclearize the cabal of atomic weaponeers. Maybe the nuclear mobsters won’t re-direct their war chests to useful purposes before they run our earthly train off the rails. But then nothing changes unless we demand it.

John LaForge
Billwerder Prison, Hamburg

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, Office News, US Bombs Out of Germany

January 18, 2023 by Nukewatch 4 Comments

John’s Jail Updates – RELEASED!

John LaForge at an anti-war rally during work release 3 days before his final release from prison for nuclear weapons actions in Germany.

Nukewatch’s John LaForge was released from Glasmoor Prison in Hamburg, Germany on February 28, 2023 as planned after completing his 50-day sentence for his part in actions aimed at removing US nuclear weapons from Germany. Learn more about the campaign to remove US nuclear weapons from Germany HERE.

Read John’s letter after being released HERE.


John LaForge entering Billwerder prison in Germany on January 10, 2023 (Photo by Marion Küpker)
Read John’s first letter from jail January 15.
February 22, 2023

John was able to celebrate his birthday in prison, with a balloon and all. He shared herring with his cellmates and received many birthday wishes in the mail which were much appreciated.

February 14, 2023

John is doing well. He has 2 weeks left of incarceration. You can still send mail since it has only been taking 7-8 days to reach him from the U.S., especially since his birthday will be coming up February 22.  He is still being released on weekends making it all more tolerable.


January 30, 2023

Today the German group Nonviolent Action Abolish Nuclear Weapons sent an open letter to the German Constitutional Court (signed by 77 people) to demand the acceptance of John’s constitutional complaint to review the illegality under international law of the US nuclear bombs stationed in Germany.

Read the press release.

Read the letter of support from retired judge Bernd Hahnfeld, board member of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms


January 28, 2023

John emailed the Nukewatch office during his first full 32-hour ‘work release’ day outside the Glasmoor prison camp. He went to the Cotton Club for a wonderful Jazz concert with friends.

He wrote to make sure we were doing our work spell-checking and proofreading. He mentioned that a friend had recently come across a letter he had written February 14, 1983, from solitary confinement in Leavenworth Federal Correctional Institution! He wrote, “after 40 years of this, I don’t have anything to prove any more. It’s like my friend Jeff always says: ‘You have to start young if you’re going to stick it out.'”

John is able to make daily phone calls out within Germany, so we know he is doing well. From now on every weekend John will be allowed to leave every Friday at 3pm and has to be back in prison on Sunday afternoon. His release date is February 28 so you still have time to write him a letter at the address above.

 

January 24, 2023

At the Nukewatch office we received a poem for John from Sharon Cody a Nukewatch supporter.

I hope you like this little spoof-
A tribute to my favorite goof:
Enjoy your 50-day vacation
But keep alive your dedication
To the cause we both desire-
That Earth avoids a full-on fire
Caused by dropping bombs galore,
Thus ending life forevermore.

January 22, 2023

Hooray! John LaForge was given an unexpected 10-hour furlough today from the JVA Glasmoor Prison and was able to participate in the Nuclear Ban Treaty festivities at the Hamburg City Hall.

Out of Jail for a Day Celebrating the 2nd Anniversary of the Nuclear Ban Treaty!
Photo by Hinrich Schultze

January 21, 2023

John welcomed his first visitors in prison today, his wife Marion Küpker (also spokewoman for the campaign “Büchel is everywhere! Nuclear-weapons free now!”) and brother-in-law Gerrit Küpker, where they found him in good condition. He will sit in the prison a little over one month longer. He is happily receiving about 15 letters each day and looks forward to receiving more mail.

A voice recording of John was played at the European Regional Meeting of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (watch for a future upload of the video). In the recording he praised the passing of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(TPNW) and condemned the international law breaking by the United States and Germany in their nuclear-sharing agreement that violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Nuremburg Principles, and the TPNW.

January 18, 2023

John already received very early mailings from Canada and the US. He is in good condition and shares a cell with two men at the new prison where he has a shower room that is always available. They also have their own refrigerator and can make their own tea and coffee throughout the day. His nickname in prison is “Greenpeace.”

January 17, 2023

Today John was moved to a halfway prison “Glasmoor.” His new address is: John LaForge, JVA Glasmoor, Am Glasmoor 99, 22852 Norderstedt, Germany. He will also receive the mail going to the former prison, but this always takes extra time.

He was able to make a phone call out today. In this new prison he finally received all his books and vitamin and mineral supplements that he took in with his personal luggage.

January 10, 2023

A vigil with 24 people accompanied John to prison today. He was also allowed to call out of the prison a few hours after entering to say he was fine and that he will be sent in a halfway prison next week, which is in northern Hamburg and much nicer: big garden and free movement in the garden until midnight…

Filed Under: Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, On The Bright Side, US Bombs Out of Germany

January 18, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

American Activist Enters German Prison for Protesting U.S. Nuclear Weapons Based There

Right before John enters the prison (Photo by Marion Küpker)

Amidst heightened nuclear tension between NATO and Russia in Europe, U.S. peace activist John LaForge entered a German prison on January 10, 2023 to serve jail time there for protests against U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiled at Germany’s Büchel Air Force Base, 80 miles southeast of Cologne. LaForge entered JVA Billwerder in Hamburg as the first American ever imprisoned for a nuclear weapons protest in Germany.

24 people attended a vigil outside prison before John began his sentence (Photo by Marion Küpker)
The 66-year-old Minnesota native and co-director of Nukewatch, the Wisconsin-based advocacy and action group, was convicted of trespass in Cochem District Court for joining in two “go-in” actions at the German airbase in 2018. One of the actions involved entering the base and climbing atop a bunker that likely housed some of the approximately twenty U.S. B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs stationed there.
Germany’s Regional Court in Koblenz affirmed his conviction and lowered the penalty from €1,500 to €600 ($619) or 50 “daily rates”, which translates to 50 days incarceration. LaForge has refused to pay* and has appealed the convictions to Germany’s Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, the country’s highest, which has not yet ruled in the case.
John speaks outside of the prison before the start of his sentence (Photo by Marion Küpker)

In the appeal, LaForge argues that both the District Court in Cochem and the Regional Court in Koblenz erred by refusing to consider his defense of “crime prevention,” thereby violating his right to present a defense.

Before entering prison, LaForge said: “U.S. and German Air Force plans and preparations, currently ongoing, to use the nuclear weapons stationed here in Germany are a criminal conspiracy to commit massacres with radiation and firestorms. The court authorities in this case have prosecuted the wrong suspects.”

Both courts ruled against hearing from expert witnesses who had volunteered to explain the international treaties that prohibit any planning for mass destruction. In addition, the appeal argues, Germany’s stationing of the U.S. nuclear weapons is a violation of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which explicitly forbids any transfer of nuclear weapons between countries that are parties to the treaty, including both the U.S. and Germany.

Prison address

(note that it takes two weeks for mail to arrive from the U.S.)

JVA Glasmoor

Am Glasmoor 99

22852 Norderstedt

Germany

Filed Under: Direct Action, Nuclear Weapons, On The Bright Side

January 15, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Misinformed ‘Small’ Talk About Nuclear Weapons

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
By John LaForge

Gideon Rachman claimed October 31 in a Financial Times column that, “… senior US officials point out that the smallest tactical nuclear weapons might kill hundreds of people, rather than thousands — and devastate and irradiate just a few square miles.”

Rachman’s use of the phrases “might kill hundreds” and “just a few square miles” is outrageous in its callous or ignorant trivialization of what would occur inside the kill zone.

The crude “small” atomic bomb the United States used to smash and burn Hiroshima was a 15-kiloton device which incinerated over four square miles and “turned into powder and ash the flesh and bones of 140,000 men, women and children,” as historian Howard Zinn noted in The Bomb (City Lights Books 2010). In Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial, Robert Lifton and Greg Mitchell reported that the bomb’s detonation resulted in “killing 100,000 people immediately, and fatally injuring at least 50,000 others.”

Today, the “smallest” US nuclear weapons are the B61 gravity bombs deployed in Europe, which have a maximum explosive force of between 50 and 170 kilotons, and as such are between 3.3 and 11.3 times more devastating than the US Hiroshima bomb. There are 2.9 million people in Kyiv, and one 170-kiloton US B61 could potentially kill 1.5 million of them and burn 40 square miles with firestorm.

The creation of firestorm or mass fire — simultaneous combustion of many fires over a large area, causing a great volume of air to heat, rise, and suck in large amounts of fresh air from the periphery at hurricane speeds — is the unique contribution that nuclear weapons make to humankind’s mechanized, poisoned warfare. In Whole World on Fire (Cornell Univ. Press 2004), Dr. Lynn Eden details how and why the US government vastly underestimates the destructiveness of nuclear weapons by failing to consider damage from firestorms. At Hiroshima, Eden recounts, “The fire covered an area of roughly 4.4 square miles and burned with great intensity for more than six hours.”

Rachman and his unnamed “senior officials” vastly understate the grotesque incendiary force of so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons. They either misunderstand, are uninformed, or lie outright about its effects, and they cynically imply that the deliberate use of uncontrollable, indiscriminate destruction of civilian populations using fire and radiation is a “military tactic.”

Richard Rhodes, in The Making of the Atomic Bomb reports, “People exposed within half a mile of the Little Boy [Hiroshima] fireball were seared to bundles of smoking black char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away…. The small black bundles now stuck to the streets and bridges and sidewalks of Hiroshima numbered in the thousands.” In The Bomb, Zinn notes that of 1,780 nurses in Hiroshima, 1,654 were killed or so badly injured that they could not work.

CNN reported on September 26 that nuclear weapons called “tactical” have “explosive yields of 10 to 100 kilotons of dynamite, [and] are also called ‘low yield.’” But Pentagon boss General Jim Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee in 2018, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a ‘tactical nuclear weapon.’ Any nuclear weapon used anytime is a strategic game-changer.”

Reuters reported on October 17, “These 12-ft B61 nuclear bombs, with different yields of 0.3 to 170 kilotons, are deployed at six air bases across Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and The Netherlands.” These “forward deployed” US H-bombs are so provocative and destabilizing that hundreds of European and US dissidents, including Members of the European Parliament and this reporter, have committed acts of civil resistance against air bases hosting them.

Whether conscious or subconscious, the chronic dread of impending catastrophe caused by the manufactured and ceaseless threat to “go nuclear” — known as deterrence — was described in all its homicidal absurdity by the coldblooded Winston Churchill in 1955. He said about our governments’ nonstop readiness to commit massacres with nuclear weapons: “Safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.”

By trivializing the effects of today’s nuclear weapons, Rachman, his unnamed senior officials, and his editors at The Financial Times, demonstrate that, unlike Churchill, they either lie about what they know or know nothing at all about the established facts of thermonuclear explosions. Such misinformed or intentional minimization weakens the near universal stigma of criminality that adheres to the Bomb, and increases the possibility that Hiroshima could be repeated. Such horrifying nuclear “small” talk sanitizes and routinizes military schemes for meaningless, genocidal violence — as if such a thing could be tactical.

–Financial Times; Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Reuters Oct. 17, 2022;  CNN Sept. 26, 2022; Defense News Feb. 6, 2018

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, US Bombs Out of Germany

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