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December 31, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Plutonium Factory Workers’ Comp Law Brings US Justice Dept. Threat

By John LaForge

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

The Trump justice department is threatening to sue the state of Washington to block enforcement of a new state law that helps employees who were sickened by their work at the Hanford Reservation, a former nuclear weapons production site. The Justice Dept. told Gov. Jay Inslee that the new law which allows compensation for illnesses, violates the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution because it “purports to directly regulate” the federal government. The letter to Inslee reportedly warns of legal action if a settlement isn’t reached by Nov. 30, 2018.

For decades, Hanford made plutonium for nuclear weapons and thousands of workers are now engaged in the perilous work of cleaning up the resulting radioactive waste, near Richland, Washington. Under the new workers’ comp statute, some cancers and other illnesses are assumed to be from chemical or radiological exposures at Hanford. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson told the press he would look forward to defending the law if the federal government filed a suit. “Hanford workers deserve to be compensated for the health issues caused by their dangerous work,” Ferguson said. Hanford Challenge, a nuclear watchdog group, and the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters, Local Union 598, both backed passage of the law.

—AP, Lewiston Tribune, Nov. 29; and The Columbian, Nov. 28, 2018

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

December 31, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

$1,280 Each for Air Force Coffee Cup

By John LaForge

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

The US Air Force has been using metal cups that cost taxpayers $1,280 each. Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson asking about the pricey “hot cups” that come with a plug-in heat element but have handles that keep breaking off. Sen. Grassley heard that the service was being charged more than $1,200 apiece to replace broken cups. “How many cups have been purchased by the Air Force during this time frame and what is the total cost of these purchases?” Secretary Wilson replied Oct 17, writing: “The item [cup] in question is a specially manufactured electronic water heater that plugs into aircraft systems…. The Air Force has purchased 391 of these items since 2016 at a total cost of $326,785.” Sec. Wilson’s letter admitted that Grassley was “right to be concerned about the high costs of spare parts.” Dan Grazier, at the Project on Government Oversight, told Air Force Times that the exorbitant spending on coffee cups is just the latest example. “Right now we’re talking about $1,200 on a coffee mug and two weeks ago we were talking about $10,000 toilet seat covers, and it just adds up,” he said.

—Business Insider online, Oct. 22; Air Force Times, Oct. 23, & July 9, 2018.

Filed Under: Military Spending, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter

December 31, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

England Dumps Rad Sludge in Welsh Waters

By Kelly Lundeen

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

A plan to continue dumping some 330,000 tons of contaminated mud was approved by the Welsh Assembly on Oct. 10, 2018 following its inadequate testing for radioactivity. The sludge is being dredged from England’s Hinkley Point C reactor construction site, loaded onto a barge, often at night, and taken across the Bristol Channel into Welsh waters, where it is dumped. The first round of dumping ended in October, and will resume in January 2019. The Welsh Assembly’s decision relied on data from a study verified by Natural Resources Wales that stated, “The material tested did not have unacceptable levels of chemicals or [radioactive] materials and was suitable for disposal at sea.”

However the material tested was only skimmed from the top two inches of sediments. Past discharges of radionuclides (radioactive materials) from Hinkley Point would have been found in higher concentrations at deeper levels. Moreover, the tests did not look for uranium, plutonium or about 90% of other radionuclides potentially present. Not surprisingly, the tests found that the mud “poses no threat to human health or the environment,” and therefore was not classified as radioactive and not subject to international treaties prohibiting such dumping. The question is begged: If the mud poses no threat, why don’t the English dump it in their waters?

—Beyond Nuclear International, Oct. 15, 2018; Natural Resources Wales, Updated Oct. 9, 2018; Wales Online, Aug. 16, 2018.

Filed Under: Environmental Justice, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

December 31, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

US Mass Murder School

By John LaForge

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

While the UN General Assembly moves toward banning nuclear weapons, nuclear-armed states led by the USA continue teaching the unthinkable. Planning and training for thermonuclear mass destruction is done at the Defense Nuclear Weapons School on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. Two courses are illustrative:

1) “Theater Nuclear Operations.” Synopsis: The Theater Nuclear Operations Course (TNOC) is a 4.5-day course that provides training for planners, support staff, targeteers, and staff nuclear planners for joint operations and targeting. The course provides an overview of nuclear weapon design, capabilities, and effects as well as US nuclear policy, and joint nuclear doctrine….

Objectives:

• Understand both US and NATO Nuclear Policy

• Understand the US nuclear planning and execution process…

• Understand the targeting effects of nuclear weapon employment…

• Apply the Theater Nuclear Planning process as part of an end-of-course [end-of-world?] exercise. Course Classification: TOP SECRET//RESTRICTED DATA.

2) “Integrated Munitions Effects Assessment-2” Synopsis: A 5-day course that provides … proficiency in importing and creating target models, developing attack plans using conventional or nuclear weapons, performing consequence assessment to WMD [weapons of mass destruction] scenarios….

Objectives:

• Import, edit, and modify target sites…

• Calculate probabilistic attacks…

• Develop attack plans using … nuclear weapons

• Defend… estimates of attack plan options. Course Classification: SECRET.

—See all the course offerings at Air Force Nuclear College, at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency: and dtra.kirtland.J10.mbx.dnwsregistrar@mail.mil

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

December 31, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

US Nuclear Weapons “Sharing” in Europe

Protest and Resistance

By John LaForge
Winter Quarterly 2018-19

Regular readers will recall that for two summers in a row, Nukewatch has organized a delegation to Germany made up of US peace activists, and joined forces with Germany’s nation-wide campaign to oust the remaining 20 US nuclear weapons from Germany’s Büchel Air Force Base.

Under a program called “nuclear sharing,” the United States positions nuclear gravity bombs known as B61s at six NATO air force bases in five European states, one base each in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Turkey, and two bases in Italy.

Military pilots in these NATO states reportedly train for loading the US nuclear bombs on their own fighter jets and are prepared to use them on orders from the president of the United States.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was asked last spring whether NATO’s “nuclear sharing,” was becoming “obsolete.” Speaking at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, April 5, 2018, Mr. Stoltenberg said:

Nuclear sharing, for those who don’t know … the United States, they have the weapons. But then other NATO allies, for instance, deliver the planes that can carry the nuclear bombs. So, then different nations work together to provide a nuclear capability. That’s nuclear sharing…. [I]t’s not obsolete. … I cannot comment on which countries are a part of our nuclear sharing arrangements…”

Protest and Resistance

German activists have worked for 20 years to see the bombs removed from Büchel, and hundreds have been engaged in protest and nonviolent resistance at the base.

Hundreds of activists have participated in the campaign “20 Weeks for 20 Bombs,” a 5-month peace camp organized by Nonviolent Action for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (GAAA) which is supported by 60 national and regional peace groups around the country. The Nukewatch/US delegation has twice joined the camp during its “International Week” in July.

In the years 2017 and 2018, International Week saw nuclear weapons opponents conduct uninvited “go-in” actions 58 times at the base, GAAA coordinator Küpker reports.

From left, Susan Crane, Marion Küpker, Gerd Büntzly, and John LaForge held banners outside the state prosecutor’s offices in Koblenz, Germany July 25, 2018 after delivering a letter. Büntzly has appealed his conviction on trespass charges stemming from a July 16, 2017 protest in which he, Crane, LaForge, Bonnie Urfer and Steve Baggarly all got deep inside the Büchel Air Base and occupied a heavy bunker. The other four were never charged, and the letter complained of his “selective prosecution.”
Selective Prosecution for Bunker Occupation

In one of the 2017 actions, a group of four US citizens, including this reporter, and German activist Gerd Büntzly set out to inspect a nuclear bomb bunker. After spending an hour on one of the heavily fortified and earth-covered bunkers, and being picked up and briefly detained by air base authorities, the action made headlines. Of the five, only Gerd Büntzly was charged and convicted of trespass and damage to property.

Büntzly will be in Koblenz, Germany on January 16, 2019, for an appeal of the low-level conviction. (check back for updates!)

In protest of the apparently selective prosecution of Gerd, Plowshares activist Susan Crane and I (who along with Bonnie Urfer and Steve Baggarly had joined Gerd on the bunker) submitted a formal letter to the German prosecutor’s office in Koblenz on July 25, 2018. The letter complained of the offices’s unfairness in charging just one for actions taken by five.

The prosecutor’s office first claimed that it could not find contact information for the US citizens. When it was reminded that the German Air Force, the civil police and the US Air Force all had the addresses, the prosecutor simply replied that our letter of complaint had not been persuasive in changing the offices’s position.

With the help of Küpker, translators, and GAAA, Susan Crane and I will travel to Koblenz in January to testify at the appeal hearing on Gerd’s behalf. To support Gerd’s defense of necessity in the case, German attorneys are helping arrange for our testimony and for the submission of formal declarations from international law experts.

Prosecutor’s Warnings to “Go-in” Activists

GAAA’s Küpker reports that over the last 20 years, so-called “go-in” protest actions involving crossing into air force property have led to charges and convictions for trespassing, and sometimes for property damage if the fence was cut. However, it is striking that prosecutors have always refused to charge activists from European countries outside Germany.

This year for the first time, letters of warning from the German military and in some cases from the state prosecutor have been sent to at least 16 activists from various countries informing them that the charges could be pending. Peace activists from The Netherlands, England, and the United States have received notices which strangely do not contain official charges. Küpker suggested the letters could be an attempt at intimidation.

Join the Effort to Oust US Nukes from Germany

The camp, set just outside the gates of the Büchel Air Force Base in west-central Germany, is again scheduled to run from March 26 to August 9, 2019. Contact Nukewatch to join this year’s delegation running July 8-16.

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

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