Niagara County New York Radiation Disaster -discovered in 2024
, https://thewaynefocus.blogspot.com/2024/09/niagara-county-new-york-radiation.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawKBMSNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFDTTNHRFd0N0pwdkx2OTA0AR6FccTj8LP8Wpr9m0agp5nEln7TFC3Ld6AcVDU4Y4iWAAUTRe5z2YA7yZTtHQ_aem_xv_Ij8_zSCXoSMWjxV-mbw
Regarding the Niagara County, New York Radioactivity Contamination Disaster Discovered in 2024 as a result of surreptitious shipments of high, medium and low grade radioactive materials from Niagara County, New York to Van Buren Charter Township, Wayne County, Michigan Notes from September 19, 2024
Simplified Timeline of the Van Buren Charter Township Nuclear Waste Disaster Gleaned from newspaper reports, personal interviews, discussion and official remarks
1. Decision is made to create Fusion Atomic Bomb
2 For this timeline a bomb will be manufactured at the Hanford, Washington Nuclear Reservation a. This bomb will ultimately be delivered to Nagasaki for atmospheric explosion .
3. The work commences at the Hanford Reservation creating enormous amounts of radioactive waste. The waste was likely composed of but not limited to : a. Radioactive Soil b. Radioactive Water c. Radioactive Powdered Chemicals d. Radioactive Liquid Chemicals e. Radioactive wood, metal, ceramic, cloth and other radioactive materials
4. The liquid waste was deposited regularly in gigantic storage tanks a. The liquid waste burned through the containing steel and contaminated large areas b. That issue is still being addressed c. The materials are making their way towards the Columbia River
5. The solid waste was collected in many instances into giant piles a. Eventually it was decided to bury most of the solid waste b. The groundwater flow picked up radiation and other toxic chemicals from the buried materials and began their own migration towards the Columbia River c. This contamination is still being dealt with.
6. It was decided either immediately following the end of World War 2 or in the 1950’s that getting rid of the radioactive materials left over from the frenetic activity surrounding the creation of the Nagasaki Atomic Weapon would be a good course of action a A series of steps to neutralize or prepare the material to be buried without it contaminating ground waters, the Earth or the air was put together b. A contract was let out and a contractor selected to deal with the materials c. Either by rapid truck transport, as is happening in the present situation between Lewiston, New York and the Charter Township of Van Buren, Michigan, or train shipments by a presently unknown carrier over a presently unknown route, the materials were taken from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State and transported 2,514 miles to a new site in Lewiston, New York d. The material was deposited on the ground in an unknown manner. Indications are that it was an open dump.
7. The contractor began preparations to treat the materials. Indications were that the intent was to reduce overall radioactivity in some manner, but primarily, the work would center on making the materials easier to handle and somewhat inert by suspending them in glass and other materials for burial. a. At some point, apparently a year after the deposition of the materials in Lewiston, NY, the Federal Government abruptly changed the manner in which the work was to be done. Because of the high levels of radioactivity in the materials special buildings had to be erected, special clothing had to be provided to workers, workers could only be exposed to the materials for specific amounts of time and specialized ventilation and atmospheric equipment and filters would need to be installed b. Upon receipt of these new requirements and having completed a brief study of the impact on profits to the enterprise the contractor left. The work was abandoned. c. The radioactive materials that had been transported to Lewiston, NY from the nuclear reservation at Hanford, WA were left to the elements for at least one year, maybe two and possibly longer d. A decision was made at some unspecified time to bury the materials at the place where they were deposited. e. Due to the arrangements of the materials they were either laid out in a large area and then bulldozed into piles or had been deposited in piles initially. They were apparently buried without any sort of underground barrier. f. From a crude visual observation of the present state of the materials it appears they were buried on the surface in gigantic piles. Some have settled into the earth while others appear to have retained their mounding shape.
8. In 2016 after considerable wrangling and the realization that cancers and other dread diseases were spiking in the area and due to action by the Tuscarora nation and approximately 300 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency in New York or whatever organization had been caring for the materials for nearly a century, it was decided, after local public hearings, that the United States Army Corps of Engineers would remove all of the materials to another location.
9. One of the primary driving forces behind moving the materials, along with higher rates of cancer, other diseases, probable birth defects and possible birth mortality, was that the materials were burning their way to the Niagara River.
10. At this point, due to ionization and the natural dispersal of these unnatural elements, an area many times larger than the original point of delivery now existed. The materials had exited the property lines and have contaminated an enormous area around where they had been dropped off. Parallel and Interesting Points of Interest in a Somewhat Linear Timeline of Events in Some Order These may or may not figure in the final Niagara County, New York Contamination Disaster of 2016 :
(1.)A landfill was built abutting the nuclear waste dump in Lewiston, NY. a. The landfill was used for depositing materials from across Niagara County and perhaps elsewhere
(2) A driver for a paving company in Canada rolled his truck over a. The driver was subsequently fired by his brothers b. The driver started his own paving company c. At one point someone said to him, ‘You know, we sure could use someone to carry away all this waste when were done with the work.’ d. The driver began a waste hauling service e. The driver’s waste hauling service was successful and the driver opened or took control of a dump f. The driver became a successful businessman and the dump expanded g. The driver’s company became well known in the area h. The company purchased or controlled several area dumps (landfills) and they expanded
(3) During the course of all this there was a separate issue with the Love Canal and another location where chemicals were deposited in an irresponsible and unprofessional manner leading to health impacts across that area. The Love Canal is also in Niagara County
(4)At this point the timeline is murky and breaks up but these facts occurred : a. Along with the materials being collected and removed from the Lewiston Nuclear Storage Site that are being moved now against common sense there were even more hazardous and radioactive materials moved to Van Buren Charter Township, MI without telling any of the residents. b. It is not clear if the Michigan Governor know this, but certainly, it would have been the business of the State of Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy to be alerted or informed that the material was on the way. The words ‘alerted’ and ‘informed’ are used loosely here because according the processes of the State of Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy moving or depositing or releasing into the atmosphere, into the Earth or into the waters of the Great Lakes water system it is a simple manner not only to gain approval but to continue dumping and polluting in amounts of many tens of thousands of tons for a small fee, which may be deferred or excused according to the sentiments of the Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy employee assigned to the work. c. Niagara County and other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States of Army Corps of Engineers, the New York State department of the environment, local elected officials, state elected officials and possibly federal elected officials became aware of a widespread problem involving radioactivity across Niagara County. d. Many, many miles of State, County and local roads apparently have been paved with radioactive materials. e. The radioactive materials used in the paving were used in various ways, sometimes as a substrate, sometimes as a binder and sometimes included in the surface paving materials. It is likely that in some cases it was used in all three preparations and/or other situations f. Radioactive materials have been encountered in commercial parking lots, residential driveways, aggregate placement under foundations for private homes and at least one large cemetery had been covered in it from a depth of two to more feet. g. In one case a large deposit of radioactive material that was discovered near a large commercial construction project was noted by authorities. They could not determine where it came from. In a wicked denouement, that actually has not been resolved, upon return to the site the material had been removed by unknown persons for unknown reasons. So – they found a large amount of highly radioactive material near to a construction site, recorded the fact, went back at some undetermined time and found that the material was gone. h. Finely grained black sand with very high radioactivity levels was removed from several private residential sites.
(5) The waste disposal company (the dump and landfill operator) took over the collection business of Republic Waste in at least most of the areas in Niagara County, NY, if not all of them.
(6) Republic Waste has a dump located nearby the Niagara Nuclear Site in Lewiston, New York.
(7). The landfill owner died
(8). The company still exists and remains the largest and richest waste handling company in northwestern New York and eastern Ontario.
(9.) A decision was made unbeknownst to the local inhabitants in Michigan, to move the materials that have now placed the Columbia River and the Niagara River in jeopardy of further contamination by radioactive nuclear materials and other toxic waste to bury this material in the watershed of the Huron River and very close to Ford Lake and so, repeat the pattern of mismanagement of the materials and place even more Americans in peril while enriching private corporations. We also seen and are experiencing deflecting the responsibility from poorly run Federal and State organizations and departments ostensibly in place to protect the health and well being of Americans, but, which, instead, have seen to their own diverse interests and need.
(10.) Federal Michigan Elected Representatives point to the State Michigan Elected Representatives as the core to the solution of these co-occurring disasters while State Michigan Elected Representatives point to the Federal Michigan Elected Representatives to solve the problem.
(11. ) New York elected at all levels remain mute and do not remark nor comment on these disasters, the original one being clearly in there area of influence and duty in New York State.
(12.) Both Governor Whitmer of Michigan and Governor Hochul of New have been silent on the issue. We see no comments either supporting the resolution of these two disasters or mitigating the destruction clearly raging in Niagara County, New York nor the current assault on the heavily populated area in southeastern Michigan where this poisonous, dangerous and poorly managed material is being dumped to the peril of individuals, seniors, families, children and businesses in the local area, county and region. Possible Conclusions or Inference, including Possible Actions to take regarding the Niagara County, New York Contamination Disaster so as not to exacerbate the Van Buren Charter Township Waste Disaster now occurring – 1. There seems to be a very dangerous situation that has occurred with the infrastructure in Niagara County, New York. The roads will need to be checked. 2. Wherever the substrate came from that supply line needs to be discontinued. 3. The company that supplied the radioactive material needs to be discovered and their area of activity made known. 4. Was nuclear material to be used for paving also transported to Ontario across national borders without notification or was it imported from Canada into New York where it was used to pave roads, parking lots, cover at least one cemetery and be used for foundation preparations for homes, business and driveways? 5. I feel that an inspection of the garbage trucks and paving trucks in the area would be in order to ensure that they are not contaminated with radioactivity 6. I feel that MICares in Michigan should be alerted to the fact that this material has been passing into our environment for at least the past two to three years if not longer. 7. I feel that medical monitoring for the affected people in Niagara County, New York is in order 8. I feel that a radioactive survey of all the roadways, building sites, homes, commercial sites that have been built in the area since at least the 1960’s should be performed in Niagara County. This should include a review of all cemeteries and any locations that the paving/dump company owner provided services to, whether for profit or charitable purposes – with special attention to churches, elementary schools, high schools, private and public parks, hospitals and other locations. Thank you for your time and attention.
Updates on Palisades: Zombie reactor & “SMR” new builds
These so-called “Small Modular Reactors” are not small. At 300 Megawatts-electric each, their construction and operation would nearly double the zombie reactor’s 800 MW-e on the tiny site. They would each be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Fermi 1 reactor in southeastern Michigan, which on October 5, 1966 had a partial core meltdown, and “We Almost Lost Detroit,”
April 30, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/updates-on-palisades-zombie-reactor-smr-new-builds/
Holtec and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) zealous and reckless push for restart of the 60-year old zombie reactor, as well as “Small Modular Reactor” new builds, at the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Michigan, has continued non-stop recently. So too has Beyond Nuclear’s resistance to the unprecedented, unneeded, very dangerous, and insanely costly schemes, alongside our environmental allies in the area.
On April 29, 2025, the five Commissioners of the NRC held an Affirmation Session, and unanimously approved Palisades’ license transfer from previous owner Entergy, to new owner Holtec. Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future (MSEF) had petitioned to intervene against it, and requested a hearing. The coalition has opposed Holtec’s takeover at Palisades from the get-go in 2020-2021. But NRC staff, the NRC Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB), and the NRC Commissioners, have blown us off at every twist and turn. And still we persist, with no intention to slow down or give up!
Quite to the contrary, we continue our watchdogging, speaking environmental truth to nuclear power (or greed-driven corruption, anyway), sometimes on an intense daily basis.
Also on April 29, several environmental watchdogs attended an NRC-Holtec technical meeting, the latest of countless such meetings related to the nuclear nightmare of the restart scheme, which began three years ago this month. Representatives from Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago spoke out strongly against safety shortcuts regarding the potential for loss of power to operate vital safety and cooling systems at Palisades, due to the risk of an “open phase” flaw in the electrical systems. This problem dates back decades and has yet to be resolved.
The day before, on April 28, representatives from Beyond Nuclear and Don’t Waste Michigan spoke out at yet another NRC-Holtec technical meeting, regarding environmental review of the company’s scheme to add two SMR-300s, frighteningly close to the Van Buren State Park campground.
Kraig Schultz of MSEF-Shoreline Chapter in Grand Haven, MI made an audio recording of the April 28 meeting. Listen to it here.
These so-called “Small Modular Reactors” are not small. At 300 Megawatts-electric each, their construction and operation would nearly double the zombie reactor’s 800 MW-e on the tiny site. They would each be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Fermi 1 reactor in southeastern Michigan, which on October 5, 1966 had a partial core meltdown, and “We Almost Lost Detroit,” in the words of John G. Fuller’s iconic 1975 book title, and Gil Scott-Heron’s 1977 song title. They would also be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Big Rock Point reactor in northwest Michigan, which despite supposedly not having had a disaster, nonetheless shockingly released more than three million Curies of hazardous radioactivity into the environment.
The juxtaposition of the restarted zombie reactor, and the “SMR” new builds, would represent both extremes on the risk spectrum: breakdown phase risks, and break-in phase risks. Chornobyl Unit 4 in Ukraine in 1986, Three Mile Island Unit 2 in Pennsylvania in 1979, and Fermi Unit 1 in Michigan in 1966 are examples of break-in phase reactor disasters and catastrophes.
In addition to the decades-long electrical risks at Palisades mentioned above, there are multiple pathways to reactor core meltdown related to vital safety systems already pushed to the brink of breakdown. Palisades’ original owner, Consumers Energy (previously Consumers Power), listed them in a presentation to the Michigan Public Service Commission in spring 2006: “Reactor vessel head replacement; Steam generator replacement; Reactor vessel embrittlement concerns; …Containment coatings and sump strainers.”
None of these vital safety repairs or replacements have ever been performed, not by Consumers Energy in 2006, Palisades’ next owner Entergy from 2007 to 2022, nor by Holtec since 2022. Why not? Because the complicit NRC has not required it.
The Japanese Parliament concluded in 2012 that the root cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, which began on March 11, 2011, was collusion, between the company (Tokyo Electric), the safety regulatory agency, and government officials. Such collusion exists in spades at Palisades. And thus people and other living things live in deepening peril, downwind, downstream, up the food chain, and down the generations.
Regarding the needed “Steam generator replacement,” Holtec has no intention of doing so, despite giving the $510 million job some lip service in a secretive, smoking gun 2022 document Beyond Nuclear obtained from the State of Michigan via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Holtec’s rookie error (it has never operated a reactor) of neglecting steam generator maintenance from 2022 to 2024 has led to accelerated corrosion and degradation of exceedingly thin steam generator tubes in shockingly high numbers. It did not implement a chemically-preservative wet lay up, as repeatedly and publicly recommended by our coalition’s expert witness, Arnie Gundersen. The company has applied to NRC for a License Amendment Request (LAR) that represents mere BAND-AID fixes on the steam generator tubes. Our environmental coalition — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania — has every intention of petitioning to intervene, and requesting a hearing, in opposition to the LAR, by the fast-approaching deadline in June.
Speaking of LARs, our coalition has challenged four others. The NRC staff opposed our challenges, as did Holtec. The ASLB ruled against all of our contentions, in rapid fire fashion. We have appealed those rulings to the NRC Commissioners. If and when the Commissioners reject our contentions as well, we will appeal to the federal courts.
We still have a number of live new and amended contentions regarding NRC’s Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact. The ASLB has ordered another round of oral argument pre-hearings, scheduled for May 15, regarding them. As on Feb. 12, 2025, at our first round of oral argument pre-hearings on the four LARs mentioned above, our coalition’s legal counsel, Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, and Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will represent us before the ASLB yet again on May 15.
Yet another of numerous NRC public meetings regarding Palisades’ restart status was held in Benton Harbor, MI on April 23, 2025. Watchdogs attended and spoke out.
And, following the money, as reported by producer Chrystal Blair at Public News Service on April 25 (the eve of the annual commemoration of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Holtec the third installment of loan guarantees, this time for $47 million.
The second installment, awarded on March 17, was for $57 million.
The first installment, in early 2025, was for $38 million.
DOE announced on September 30, 2024 the final approval for $1.52 billion in loan guarantees for Holtec toward the zombie reactor restart. Holtec need not pay the money back. If Holtec defaults on repaying the loans, U.S. taxpayers will be left holding the bag.
See Beyond Nuclear radioactive waste specialist Kevin Kamps’ breakdown of bailouts at Palisades.
Blair quoted Kamps:
“A recent analysis by Dave Lochbaum, who is retired from the Nuclear Safety Program at Union of Concerned Scientists, placed Palisades at something like 84th out of 105 reactors in the country,” Kamps pointed out. “His analysis was they’re more like in the bottom rung of the industry, actually.”
[Palisades is ranked 81st out of 106 reactors, actually.]
Here is that Lochbaum analysis, as well as his chronicle of events (including mishaps) at Palisades, some quite serious, over six decades.
Lochbaum also authored a backgrounder in 2010, about Palisades’ problem-plagued Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM) seal leaks, the worst in industry. CRDM seal leaks are yet another potential pathway to reactor core meltdown.
Blair also reported:
Punkin Shananaquet, a member of Michigan’s Indigenous community, emphasized for many Native people, the issue is not just about public safety, it is about honoring the sacredness of the land and water and educating the next generation about protecting the earth.
“We just can’t be pushed through the corporate world because they have no spirit,” Shananaquet contended. “We have spirit. We are the ones with the feelings for this place.”
Shananaquet, and her family, graced and honored the World Tree Peace Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan at its grand opening, on Indigenous Peoples Day (October 12, formerly Columbus Day), 1996. Kamps co-founded the World Tree, and co-directed it till 1999, when he began a new job, at Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), in Washington, DC, as nuclear waste specialist there for eight years, before joining Beyond Nuclear. The World Tree focused on watch-dogging Palisades, as well as the Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant 30 miles south of Palisades, and various undertakings for the Chornobyl Children’s Project.
And regarding the very significant safety problem of “Containment coatings and sump strainers” mentioned above, NRC and Holtec held a related meeting last week. Don’t Waste MI attended and spoke out. In an emergency, containment coatings could dissolve into a viscous sludge with the consistency of Elmer’s Glue, clogging sump strainers. This could block coolant flow needed to prevent a reactor core meltdown. This pathway to meltdown at Palisades has been known about for a quarter-century, yet nothing meaningful has been done to address it — just NRC allowing Palisades’ three owners during those 25 years to kick the can down the road.
Last but not least, on April 12, 2025, the St. Joe-Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium reported that Holtec had transferred highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, from the indoor wet storage pool at Palisades, into outdoor dry cask storage.
Although such transfers ultimately represent an increase in safety — pools are vulnerable to mega-catastrophic fires, that could release unthinkable amounts of hazardous radioactivity into the environment — such transfers must be done very carefully, including with emergency preparedness measures in place. (It should be kept in mind, however, that the widespread quality assurance violations associated with Holtec’s dry cask storage containers’ fabrication call into question their structural integrity, even in on-site storage; see a summary of whistleblower allegations about this, here.)
Such emergency preparedness was not in place when Holtec undertook these irradiated nuclear fuel transfers. Palisades’ previous owner, Entergy, requested a waiver and exemption from emergency preparedness, as it permanently shutdown the reactor several years ago, and entered it into the decommissioning status phase.
Although Holtec has requested that NRC approve re-establishing emergency preparedness and planning, in order to restart the reactor and operate Palisades again, such NRC approval is not yet finalized.
The danger comes from moving such heavy loads as loaded highly radioactive waste containers over the vulnerable pool. The inadvertent drop of such a heavy load could damage the pool, and drain away vital cooling water.
Palisades had a near miss under its original owner, Consumers Energy, in October 2005, with just such a heavy load drop scenario.
See the April, 2006 NIRS backgrounder on this incident, prepared by Kevin Kamps, here.
See the related March, 2006 environmental coalition press release, here.
See the March, 2006 front page, above the fold Detroit Free Press coverage of the serious near-miss, here.
Holtec’s scheming, and NRC’s complicity, have continued apace for three years. So too has our resistance. It will only intensify in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Holtec has stood by its schedule to restart the Palisades zombie reactor by October 2025, and to fire up its proposed “SMR”-300s by 2030. We will resist these schemes at every opportunity, to the best of our ability.
To learn more about the past three years of this nuclear nightmare, and our resistance to it, see our chronicle of web posts (arranged backwards, newest posts at the top).
NUKE WASTE DUMP: Ojibwe Country once again targeted
May 1, 2025, Beyond Nuclear
JUST SAY NO TO NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPING IN NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO!
Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, presented “Water Is Life, Nuclear Waste Is Toxic” at the annual meeting of Environment North, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Superior, April 23, 2025.
Environment North is the lead local grassroots organization resisting the Canadian federal Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO, dominated by the nuclear industry, such as Ontario Power Generation) designation of the Ignace-Wabigoon Lake Ojibway First Nation area as the national radioactive waste dump.
A number of Ojibway First Nation Bands have also passed resolutions opposing the scheme, which would require long-distance, high-risk transportation of highly radioactive waste, from some two-dozen reactors to the east in Canada, on the Great Lakes, Saint Lawrence, and Atlantic.
See local coverage on April 22, 2025, quoting Kamps, by the Chronicle-Journal newspaper, here.
Watch a video recording of Kamps’ April 23, 2025 presentation, here. (Note that you can turn on the subtitles under Settings, to complement the audio.)
See Kevin’s slideshow presentation, here.
Listen to the audio recording, here, of Kamps being interviewed by host Scot Kyle, on the podcast “Wiley Koyote” on April 24, 2025. It was broadcast live on CILU Radio, 102.7 FM, as part of the Paradigm Shift Cafe, from the campus of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Environment North’s Graham Saunders was also interviewed.
See Environment North’s press release about Kevin’s presentation, here.
See Environment North’s flier for Kevin’s presentation, here…………………………………………………………………………… https://beyondnuclear.org/nuke-waste-dump-ojibwe-country-once-again-targeted/
Kingston Fossil Plant and Oakridge Nuclear Facility – an unholy alliance of radioactive pollution,
While no one was killed by the 2008 coal ash spill itself, dozens of workers have died from illnesses that emerged during or after the cleanup. Hundreds of other workers are sick from respiratory, cardiac, neurological, and blood disorders, as well as cancers.
The apparent mixing of fossil fuel and nuclear waste streams underscores the long relationship between the Kingston and Oak Ridge facilities.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, so much cesium-137 and mercury was released into the Clinch from Oak Ridge that the Department of Energy, or DOE, said that the river and its feeder stream “served as pipelines for contaminants.” Yet TVA and its contractors, with the blessing of both state and federal regulators, classified all 4 million tons of material they recovered from the Emory as “non-hazardous.”
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis confirms that the ash that was left in the river was “found to be commingled with contamination from the Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation site.
For nearly a century, both Oak Ridge and TVA treated their waste with less care than most families treat household garbage. It was often dumped into unlined, and sometimes unmarked, pits that continue to leak into waterways. For decades, Oak Ridge served as the Southeast’s burial ground for nuclear waste. It was stored within watersheds and floodplains that fed the Clinch River. But exactly where and how this waste was buried has been notoriously hard to track.
A Legacy of Contamination, How the Kingston coal ash spill unearthed a nuclear nightmare, Grist By Austyn Gaffney on Dec 
15, 2020 This story was published in partnership with the Daily Yonder.
In 2009, App Thacker was hired to run a dredge along the Emory River in eastern Tennessee. Picture an
industrialized fleet modeled after Huck Finn’s raft: Nicknamed Adelyn, Kylee, and Shirley, the blue, flat-bottomed boats used mechanical arms called cutterheads to dig up riverbeds and siphon the excavated sediment into shoreline canals. The largest dredge, a two-story behemoth called the Sandpiper, had pipes wide enough to swallow a push lawnmower. Smaller dredges like Thacker’s scuttled behind it, scooping up excess muck like fish skimming a whale’s corpse. They all had the same directive: Remove the thick grey sludge that clogged the Emory.
The sludge was coal ash, the waste leftover when coal is burned to generate electricity. Twelve years ago this month, more than a billion gallons of wet ash burst from a holding pond monitored by the region’s major utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA. Thacker, a heavy machinery operator with Knoxville’s 917 union, became one of hundreds of people that TVA contractors hired to clean up the spill. For about four years, Thacker spent every afternoon driving 35 miles from his home to arrive in time for his 5 p.m. shift, just as the makeshift overhead lights illuminating the canals of ash flicked on.
Dredging at night was hard work. The pump inside the dredge clogged repeatedly, so Thacker took off his shirt and entered water up to his armpits to remove rocks, tree limbs, tires, and other debris, sometimes in below-freezing temperatures. Soon, ringworm-like sores crested along his arms, interwoven with his fading red and blue tattoos. Thacker’s supervisors gave him a cream for the skin lesions, and he began wearing long black cow-birthing gloves while he unclogged pumps. While Thacker knew that the water was contaminated — that was the point of the dredging — he felt relatively safe. After all, TVA was one of the oldest and most respected employers in the state, with a sterling reputation for worker safety.
Then, one night, the dredging stopped.
Sometime between December 2009 and January 2010, roughly halfway through the final, 500-foot-wide section of the Emory designated for cleanup, operators turned off the pumps that sucked the ash from the river. For a multi-billion dollar remediation project, this order was unprecedented. The dredges had been operating 24/7 in an effort to clean up the disaster area as quickly as possible, removing roughly 3,000 cubic yards of material — almost enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool — each day. But official reports from TVA show that the dredging of the Emory encountered unusually high levels of contamination: Sediment samples showed that mercury levels were three times higher in the river than they were in coal ash from the holding pond that caused the disaster.
Then there was the nuclear waste. Continue reading
Ohio EPA slams DOE’s sloppy radiation sampling plan for Piketon plant demolition
Investigative Team April 30, 2025 , https://appareport.com/2025/04/30/ohio-epa-slams-does-sloppy-radiation-sampling-plan-for-piketon-plant-demolition/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=jetpack_social&fbclid=IwY2xjawKA6SFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR53xTzNJzPFjzVPspqmkVKeF7uYVgoFo-3JyRvLAWnkr4ofz6UTULG0jmZ6Bw_aem_Pf0iP9VXjHpnvVMH91GcuQ
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has raised serious concerns about the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) plans to demolish a key structure at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, flagging gaps in how contaminants and radiation will be tested before the teardown begins.
In a letter dated April 29, the Ohio EPA responded to the DOE’s proposed Materials of Construction Sampling and Analysis Plan for the X-330 Process Building—a massive uranium enrichment facility used during the Cold War. The building is scheduled for demolition as part of the long-term decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the Piketon site, but state regulators say the current plan lacks clarity and thoroughness.
One of the EPA’s primary concerns is DOE’s proposal to use composite samples to test for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), metals, PCBs, hexavalent chromium, and asbestos. Regulators questioned why composite samples—where multiple samples are blended into one—would be acceptable for VOC testing, since that can dilute concentrations and mask localized contamination.
n another comment, EPA noted that roof samples are currently clustered in the center of the building, suggesting that such grouping could fail to capture the full range of possible contaminants across the massive structure’s roof.
Most notably, Ohio EPA is demanding more transparency about future radiological sampling, which has not yet been fully described. According to DOE’s plan, further testing is needed to define the “radiological source term”—essentially, the type and amount of radioactive materials that could end up in the demolition debris. EPA officials asked whether a separate radiological sampling and analysis plan will be submitted, and emphasized the importance of establishing the building as “criticality incredible,” meaning it poses no risk of a nuclear chain reaction.
The letter was issued under the authority of a legally binding 2010 agreement between the state and DOE, known as the Director’s Final Findings and Orders, which governs how the contaminated site must be cleaned up.
The exchange highlights ongoing tensions between state regulators and federal agencies over how to safely dismantle one of the most contaminated Cold War legacy sites in the country. Local residents and activists have long raised concerns about cancer clusters, radioactive leaks, and environmental mismanagement at the Piketon plant.
The DOE has not yet publicly responded to the EPA’s letter.
LANL Plans to Begin Venting Large Quantities of Radioactive Tritium On or After June 2nd
May 1st, 2025, https://nuclearactive.org/
During the early days of the pandemic, on March 10, 2020, LANL mailed a notice to people on the facility mailing list about the proposed venting of radioactive tritium into the air from four metal containers stored at Area G. LANL’s request provided information about its plan to seek temporary authorization to vent from the New Mexico Environment Department, specifically from the Hazardous Waste Bureau. UTF-820200310 Resubmit Temp Authorization FTWC Venting LA-UR-20-22103
Use of the facility mailing list is a notification process for people who want to know about the LANL plans. The public may sign up on the Hazardous Bureau’s website in order to receive a mailed written notice. https://www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/lanl-permit/ , scroll down to LANL Hazardous Waste Facility Permit Mailing List and follow the instructions.
OR
Please notify Siona Briley by email at siona.briley@env.nm.gov , or by postal mail at Siona Briley, New Mexico Environment Department-Hazardous Waste Bureau, 2905 Rodeo Park East, Bldg. 1, Santa Fe, NM 87505. Please include your name, email (preferred communication method to save resources) or postal mailing address, and organization, if any.
Five years later, on April 9th, 2025, the public received email notification from LANL’s Electronic Public Reading Room that the proposed venting would be done on or after June 2, 2025.
Importantly, the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Act provide regulatory distinctions between a mailing to those on facility mailing list and those who receive an email through the Electronic Public Reading Room.
CCNS is on both notice lists. We received both the March 10th, 2020 Facility Mailing List notice and the April 9th, 2025 Electronic Public Reading Room notice.
The Environment Department is reviewing the request to determine whether to grant or deny it. Once the decision is made, people on the Facility Mailing List will receive notice through the mail. Parties will then have thirty days to appeal the decision to the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board. https://www.env.nm.gov/opf/environmental-improvement-board/
CCNS and the Communities for Clean Water < https://www.ccwnewmexico.org/general-2 > urge the Environment Department to require LANL to host hybrid public meetings now in frontline communities before making a decision for the following reasons:
it has been five years since the first notice;
many aspects of the proposal have changed, including the significant reduction in the amount of tritium from 100,000 curies five years ago to 30,000 curies today;
LANL has not publicly provided the technical reasons for the change;
LANL provided a list of 53 alternatives to the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite multiple requests from Tewa Women United, neither federal agency has provided the alternatives list; and
five years is typically a regulatory time period for review of proposed or on-going activities.
It is time for action!
Please communicate with your family and friends and encourage them to sign the Action Network on-line petition directed to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Environment Department Secretary James Kenney requesting denial of LANL’s request.
Online Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-deny-lanls-request-to-release-radioactive-tritium-into-the-air
Nuclear Watch New Mexico Fact Sheet: https://nukewatch.org/why-nmed-should-deny-lanls-request-for-tritium-releases
Six in 10 Americans Support US Participation in a Nuclear Agreement with Iran.
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 30 Apr 25
Majorities of Democrats and Independents support a potential deal similar to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but only a minority of Republicans agree.
For the first time since the United States withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), American and Iranian officials held direct talks to negotiate a new nuclear deal. These talks come amid reports of Iran’s rapid production of enriched uranium and acceleration of its nuclear weapons program.
A recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos survey, fielded April 18–20, 2025, finds a majority of Americans consider a nuclearized Iran unacceptable and believe the United States should negotiate a deal with Tehran to limit its development. While Democrats and Independents support a deal that would trade sanctions relief for limitations on Iranian nuclear enrichment, Republicans oppose such a tradeoff. However, they may end up following US President Donald Trump’s lead if current negotiations bear fruit.
Key Findings
- Eight in 10 Americans oppose Iran obtaining nuclear weapons (79%) and favor taking diplomatic steps (83%) or tightening economic sanctions (80%) to limit further nuclear enrichment.
- A smaller majority of Americans believe the United States should participate in an agreement that lifts some international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear program (61%).
- Partisan differences on a nuclear agreement are striking: 78 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independents support US participation in a deal with Iran compared to just 40 percent of Republicans.
- If diplomacy or economic sanctions fail, many Americans are willing to take more forceful approaches: Six in 10 support the United States conducting cyberattacks against Iranian computer systems (59%), and half support conducting airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities (48%).
- A majority oppose sending US troops to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities (60%).
Americans Favor Diplomatic Approach to Iranian Nuclear Development
The 2015 JCPOA, or the Iran Deal, was a landmark agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany) that limited Iranian nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief and other provisions. While it was initially successful in limiting Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, as the first Trump administration considered it insufficient in curbing Iran’s ballistic missile program and protecting American regional interests. Upon the US withdrawal from the agreement, Iran promptly lifted the cap on its stockpile of uranium and increased its enrichment activities; it has since reached weapons-grade levels of enriched uranium.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Conclusion
Although US President Donald Trump has not ruled out using military action to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, he said he favors a diplomatic agreement to address this issue. Recently, Trump administration officials have given contradictory remarks about current talks, and they have yet to specify how renewed negotiations will produce an agreement more stringent and impactful than its predecessor.
The pressure is on American diplomats to secure a deal that would limit Tehran’s nuclear enrichment without providing the sanctions relief that could potentially fund Iran’s efforts to further destabilize the Middle East or threaten the United States’ regional allies, including Israel. While the outcome of these negotiations remains to be seen, the public continues to express a preference for using diplomatic or economic coercion than direct military action. https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/six-10-americans-support-us-participation-nuclear-agreement-iran?fbclid=IwY2xjawKA64xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR7iwwVkEnczI_DJHzOGHWvNWeSlg2xdd9YJCsBz0_OiQmJcM48Ujd0ZNX8ZNQ_aem_5kroZ8t3KQ5RgYf4EfYdDA
Republicans Unveil Bill To Bring 2025 Military Budget to Over $1 Trillion
House Republicans unveiled a bill this week that would bring the 2025 US military budget to over $1 trillion.
The legislation would add $150 billion to the budget and includes $25 billion for President Trump’s ‘Iron Dome for America’
by Dave DeCamp, April 29, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/04/29/republicans-unveil-bill-to-bring-2025-military-budget-to-over-1-trillion/
House Republicans unveiled a bill this week that would bring the 2025 US military budget to over $1 trillion.
The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) totaled about $885 billion, and the new supplemental bill drafted by the House and Senate’s armed services committees would add $150 billion, bringing the 2025 military budget to a record-breaking $1.035 trillion.
The bill includes $25 billion for President Trump’s vision to create a new missile defense system for the United States, which he has called the “Iron Dome for America” or the “Golden Dome.” The project would be a boondoggle for US weapons makers and would likely kick off a new global arms race.
According to The Hill, the bill also includes $33.7 billion for shipbuilding, $20.4 billion for munitions, $13.5 billion for “innovation,” $12.9 billion for nuclear deterrence, $11.5 billion for military readiness, $11.1 billion for building up in the Pacific, $7.2 billion for aircraft, $5 billion for the border, $4.5 billion for the B-21 bomber, $2 billion for military intelligence, and $380 million for the Pentagon’s annual audit.
Republicans in the House initially proposed a budget plan to boost military spending by $100 billion, while Senate Republicans pushed for the $150 billion increase.
President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have already said they will seek a more than $1 trillion military budget for 2026, and the White House is expected to make the request for the 2026 NDAA in May.
The US has never officially had a $1 trillion military budget, but the actual cost of US military spending has exceeded $1 trillion for years. According to veteran defense analyst Winslow Wheeler, based on the $895 billion NDAA, US national security spending for 2025 was expected to reach about $1.77 trillion.
Wheeler’s estimate accounts for military-related spending from other government agencies not funded by the NDAA, such as the Department of Veteran Affairs and Homeland Security. It also includes the national security share of the interest accrued on the US debt and other factors.
Covering up Ukrainian Nazis is nothing new – the Canadians have been doing it for almost eighty years
Ian Proud, April 29, 2025. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/04/29/covering-up-ukrainian-nazis-nothing-new-canadians-have-been-doing-it-for-almost-eighty-years/
A number of topics remain taboo in discussing the war in Ukraine. Busification, Zelensky’s democratic mandate, Ukraine’s casualty numbers and anything suggesting that Ukraine cannot win are all off limits. Likewise the problem of alleged neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
One of the most embarrassing episodes since the Ukraine war started in 2022, was when Yaroslav Hunka, was given two standing ovations in the Canadian House of Commons public gallery by MPs during the visit of President Zelensky in 2023. Hunka has been accused by Russia of genocide, because of his alleged involvement in the Huta Pieniacka massacre of February 28 1944 in which more than 500 ethnic Poles were murdered in a village, in what is now western Ukraine. Hunka was a member of the SS Galicia Division, a mostly Ukrainian unit of the Waffen SS, which Commissions in Germany and Poland later found guilty of war crimes.
This was shocking because it opened the lid on a topic of conversation that has been largely silenced by the western mainstream media since the beginning of the war: Ukraine’s contemporary challenge of far-right ultranationalism. But the Hunka case also illustrates how western authorities airbrushed discussion of nazis in Ukraine after World War II too.
On 13 July 1948 the British Commonwealth Relations Office, what is now part of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, sent a telegram to Commonwealth governments, proposing an end to Nazi war crimes trials in the British zone of Germany. “Punishment of war crimes is more a matter of discouraging future generations than of meting out retribution to every guilty individual… it is now necessary to dispose of the past as soon as possible.”
After the conclusion of the Nuremberg War Trials in 1946 the western world faced a new enemy in the Soviet Union. Limited security resources in cash-strapped Albion and its colonies were re-deployed to uncover suspected Soviet agents and Communists, rather than to identify and track down lower-order Nazi war criminals.
Around this time, many Ukrainians fled the Soviet Union to settle in Canada. In the thirty-year period after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Ukrainian population in Canada almost doubled, from 300,000 to almost 600,000 people. While most of them, I am sure, would not have been Nazi collaborators, some, undoubtedly, were. They were joined by lesser numbers of Latvians, Hungarians, Slovaks and others.
Within that exodus would have been so-called “lesser” war criminals; persons who had organised the transportation of Jews, Slavs, gypsies and homosexuals to death camps, acted as informers, committed murders, or become involved in war crimes as other ranks and non-commissioned officers in death squads. They were the lower echelon collaborators, acting as the instruments of the genocide initiated by the Nazis.
Yet, following the British instruction, Canada progressively relaxed its immigration policy between 1950 and 1962, steadily removing restrictions against the entry of German nazis and non-German members of German military units like the SS Galicia Division.
However, in 1984 the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote a letter to the Canadian government claiming to have obtained evidence that the ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele had applied for a landed immigrant visa to Canada in 1962. Though this proved to be incorrect, it caused such outrage among Canada’s Jewish community that a Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada was established in 1985.
Known as the Deschênes Commission, it uncovered a list of 774 persons who had allegedly entered Canada and who required further investigation. Of that list, only 28 underwent serious investigation and trial.
Michael Pawlowski, accused of murdering 410 Jews and 80 non-Jewish Poles in Belarus in 1942, was acquitted as judges blocked the prosecution from gathering evidence in the Soviet Union.
Stephen Reistetter of Slovakia was not tried for allegations that he kidnapped 3000 Jews to have them sent to Nazi death camps while serving in the Hlinka party, a far right clerical-fascist movement with Nazi leanings. His case fell apart because a witness died.
Erich Tobias, was accused of involvement in the execution of Latvian Jews but died before his case went to court.
By 1995, with no convictions for war crimes having been secured, the Canadian Justice Department cut the size of its war crimes unit from 24 to 11 people. In the absence of criminal prosecutions, the Canadian Government tried civil proceedings to revoke citizenship from alleged war criminals.
Wasily Bogutin collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces in the town of Selidovo, in Donetsk, and was personally and directly involved in effecting the roundup of young persons for forced labour in Germany. In February 1998, Judge McKeown, of the Trial Division of the Federal Court, found that Bogutin had concealed his role in war crimes, but he died before he could be extradited.
Joseph Nemsila, who commanded a Slovak unit that sent civilians to Auschwitz died in 1997 after a decision not to revoke citizenship was overturned, but death prevented exportation.
In only 7 cases was order made for the suspect to be extradited or exported. This included Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, accused of involvement in the confinement of thousands of Hungarian Jews and their subsequent deportation to death camps. In July 1997, just before his trial was to begin, he decided not to oppose the loss of his citizenship and voluntarily left the country.
Vladimir Katriuk was accused of having taken part in the Khatyn Massacre in Belarus and Wasyl Odnynsky, a guard at SS labour camps at Trawniki and Poniaka. Moves were made to revoke their citizenship, but they were allowed to remain in Canada until all court proceedings were lifted in 2007.
Progress in prosecuting alleged war criminals in Canada was always slow, often held up by foot-dragging by often reluctant judges, and a refusal to allow for the gathering of evidence in the Soviet Union.
Today, the media and Jewish groups still pressure the Canadian government to reveal the names of all of the 774 persons considered by the 1985 Deschênes Commission with so far little success.
An American academic recently discovered what is believed to be a similar list of 700 suspects which included Volodymyr Kubiovych, a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator who helped organize the SS Galicia division and who was editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine compiled at the University of Alberta. A photograph of a parade in Lviv, Ukraine, in July, 1943, shows Mr. Kubiovych making a Nazi salute alongside Otto Wächter, a senior member of the SS who also served as governor of Galicia and Krakow.
Yaroslav Hunka was not on that list, raising questions about how many Nazi collaborators in Canada were never discovered.
I don’t think that Ukraine today is a Nazi society and, even at its high watermark, the Svoboda party only garnered 10% of the national vote. But ultranationalism is a major problem, particularly in the west of Ukraine, in that area known as Galicia during World War II. And the refusal of western governments to acknowledge the issue of ultranationalism in Ukraine or speak out means that we are turning a blind eye once more to activity that we would never tolerate in our own countries.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts US nuclear weapons will cost nearly a trillion dollars over the coming decade.
Greg Mello, Los Alamos Study Group, 30 Apr 25
Albuquerque, NM — Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest biennial estimate of the costs of nuclear weapons over the coming decade (2025-2034).
CBO’s nuclear weapons cost estimates are built from the budget projections of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), as well as CBO’s own estimates of likely cost increases for these programs over the period in question, based on CBO’s historical records for comparable programs.
CBO estimates that nuclear weapons will cost a total of $946 billion (B) over the coming decade, an average of about $95 B per year. This is $190 B (25%) higher than CBO’s estimate from two years ago.
Albuquerque, NM — Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest biennial estimate of the costs of nuclear weapons over the coming decade (2025-2034).
CBO’s nuclear weapons cost estimates are built from the budget projections of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), as well as CBO’s own estimates of likely cost increases for these programs over the period in question, based on CBO’s historical records for comparable programs.
CBO estimates that nuclear weapons will cost a total of $946 billion (B) over the coming decade, an average of about $95 B per year. This is $190 B (25%) higher than CBO’s estimate from two years ago.
In the case of the Sentinel silo-based missile system, CBO’s estimates explicitly “do not include all of the cost growth that the program is likely to experience” (pp. 6-7). In other words, CBO knows its estimate is too low but cannot provide a defensible better one, because it would only be a guess at this point. In other words, neither DoD nor CBO have any real idea what Sentinel will cost.
Many nuclear weapons-related costs, such as DOE environmental cleanup, are not included.
The report breaks down its findings in several ways, all clearly presented. Year-by-year estimates are not provided.
CBO’s findings include these items of particular interest regarding NNSA:
- NNSA’s facility modernization plans are likely to cost $72 B over the coming decade, out of a total of $110 B that NNSA will spend on facilities over this period (p. 5). NNSA’s facilities will thus cost much more than the $16 B earmarked for “stockpile services” (NNSA’s part in maintaining existing weapons), or the $67 B to be spent on “other stewardship and support activities” (p. 4).
- “CBO projects that the costs of nuclear acquisition programs would represent 11.8 percent of DoD’s total planned acquisition costs over the next decade as outlined in the 2025 budget submission…Competition for funding among
acquisition programs will force DoD to make difficult choices about which programs to pursue.” (pp. 5-6). - NNSA’s projected total 10-year costs have increased by 27% over just the past two years. Some 85% ($45 B / $83 B) of these costs are not associated with any particular warhead but are rather expenses associated with NNSA’s capabilities overall (p. 10). CBO believes NNSA’s programs will cost an extra $11 B over the decade beyond NNSA’s projections, a little more than $1 B per year.
- Regarding NNSA’s cost increase, “[a]bout 60 percent of the total increase comes from higher expected costs for operation and modernization of infrastructure, including establishing and operating new pit production facilities, secondary production facilities, tritium production facilities, and domestic uranium enrichment facilities. About 30 percent comes from support programs, such as scientific research to improve the weapon production and sustainment process, and federal employee oversight of contractors operating laboratories.” The balance of the NNSA increase comes from new programs and projects, leading to higher annual spending in the 2032-2034 years than in 2023-2024 years, which are now in the rear-view mirror.
- “CBO’s estimates come with substantial uncertainty stemming mainly from two sources: Future plans may not be achievable, leading to cost growth and delays; and the costs of developing, producing, and operating weapon systems are uncertain even when the plans are fully determined” (p. 8).
Study Group director Greg Mello:
“As CBO notes, most nuclear weapons costs are incurred by modernizing the arsenal and its production facilities, not by deploying and maintaining existing weapons.
“NNSA insists that its entire growing portfolio of projects and programs is necessary. There is no distinction between “needs” and “wants.” NNSA also believes, and has said, it is no longer “cost-constrained” [NNSA: “Evolving the Nuclear Security Enterprise,” Sep 2022, p. 3]. Under these assumptions, NNSA’s costs are certain to continue growing rapidly. If the present growth rate continues, NNSA’s warhead budget will double in less than 8 years.
“There is one high-dollar NNSA infrastructure program that is not generic to all warheads but rather needed solely for just one, namely pit production at LANL. LANL pit production is explicitly directed to the W87-1 warhead for the Sentinel missile and is unlikely to be sustainable beyond the needs of that program, if indeed it can be established at all. The jury is still out on whether LANL pit production will be possible, or stable and if so, for how long.
“NNSA will not be able to operate two pit facilities, even if it can set one up at LANL. Once the pit facility at the Savannah River Site begins production, every budget hawk on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon will eye LANL’s gerry-rigged pit program for closure, assuming it operates at all.
“As CBO notes, there will be increased competition for defense dollars as nuclear weapons programs grow. The huge expenses tallied in this report were not anticipated at the outset of the nuclear modernization program. Since 2015, and with every report, estimated nuclear weapons costs have increased beyond prior predictions, from $348 B in 2015 to $946 B today. The opportunity costs are staggering.
“CBO devotes two big text boxes to the troubled Sentinel program — why they can’t estimate its cost, etc. The buzzards are circling. The coming year will bring more revelations about Sentinel and they won’t be good. The White House and Congress should pull the plug on Sentinel now, however difficult that would be.
“In every report since 2015, CBO has revised its estimate of future cost overruns. This year’s prediction will also be too low, especially for Sentinel and NNSA.
“The problems faced by nuclear weapons programs cannot all be fixed by pouring in more money. There are very real material and human limitations involved. There will be no return to the ‘heroic mode of production’ for nuclear weapons. Even if Congress dumped $100 or $200 billion more on nuclear weapons, the system that produces them would not ‘jump to the task’ for years, if at all. The people, the skills, the facilities, the motivation — none of these are in place for a nuclear arms race, especially if the U.S. is going to build its manufacturing back and repair its sorry civilian infrastructure. The neocons who want to ramp up nuclear production are ignorant about what that would really entail. They are going to be sorely disappointed.
“Practical problems aside, ‘peace through strength’ is a mistaken idea in this place and time, especially as regards nuclear weapons. No thoughtful strategy supports the proliferation of US nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary — present policies are driven by organized greed and fear. US nuclear weapons policies, and as we see here their costs, are out of control.”
As US military prepares for war on China, Silicon Valley tech oligarchs are profiting
Hegseth is a far-right theocratic extremist. He published a book in 2020 called “American Crusade”, in which he proudly declared that the US right is in a “holy war” against the international left, China, and Islam.
Hegseth revealed that the US military is making “real war plans” for China, over Taiwan.
The US military is preparing for war on China. It has missile systems in the Philippines aimed at major Chinese cities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the USA is turning “Japan into a war-fighting headquarters”. Silicon Valley Big Tech oligarchs are making hugely profitable investments.
By Ben Norton, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/04/28/us-military-war-china-silicon-valley/
Evidence grows showing that the US military is setting the stage for war on China.
A leaked memo obtained by the Washington Post reveals that the US Department of Defense has made preparing for war with China into its top priority, giving it precedence over all other issues.
The Pentagon is concentrating its resources in the Asia-Pacific region as it anticipates fighting China in an attempt to exert US control over Taiwan.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a fundamentalist self-declared “crusader” who called for overthrowing the Chinese government, took a trip in March to Japan and the Philippines, where he repeatedly threatened Beijing and boasted of US “war-fighting” preparations and “real war plans”.
In 2024, the US military installed its Typhon missile system in the northern Philippines. This has a range of 1,240 miles (roughly 2,000 kilometers), and can hit most major cities on the Chinese mainland.
The United States has access to at least nine military bases in the Philippines.
The Wall Street Journal reported that this “new U.S. missile system deployed in the Philippines puts key Chinese military and commercial hubs within striking distance”.
The newspaper added that it “is the first time since the Cold War that the U.S. military has deployed a land-based launching system with such a long range outside its borders”.
This blatant US provocation has caused outrage in Beijing, which sees the Pentagon’s move as a significant escalation of Washington’s new cold war on China.
Cold War Two
Cold War Two has more and more parallels to Cold War One.
Students in US schools are often taught that the Soviet Union’s deployment of nuclear weapons to Cuba in the 1962 missile crisis was an act of “aggression”. Their classes usually omit the fact the United States first put nuclear weapons in NATO member Turkey in 1959, provoking Moscow.
Today, Washington is provoking Beijing in many domains.
Donald Trump launched a unilateral, aggressive trade war on China in 2018, during his first term.
Trump’s Democratic successor, Joe Biden, not only continued this trade war but expanded it further, adding more tariffs and export restrictions in an attempt to strangle China’s high-tech sector.
Now in his second term, Trump has waged a nuclear trade war on China, threatening tariffs of 245%.
This new cold war has become a lucrative enterprise for some US oligarchs.
Silicon Valley oligarchs hope to profit from US war on China
Big Tech capitalists in Silicon Valley have poured money into new weapons systems, hoping to profit off of war on China.
The Wall Street Journal published an article in 2024 titled “Tech Bros Are Betting They Can Help Win a War With China”. It featured an interview with right-wing billionaire Palmer Luckey, a former Facebook executive who founded the arms manufacturer Anduril Industries.
Anduril has established itself as a significant Pentagon contractor, with its work developing advanced autonomous weapons.
The Wall Street Journal wrote (emphasis added):
These weapons, Luckey argues, are needed for a potential conflict with China, which the Pentagon two years ago announced is the greatest danger to U.S. security. The U.S. military, Luckey and others say, needs large numbers of cheaper and more intelligent systems that can be effective over long stretches of ocean and against a manufacturing and technological power like China.
Anduril is so focused on a conflict with Beijing, Luckey says, that many teams inside the company are building only weapons that can be completed by 2027—the year Chinese President Xi Jinping has said his country should be prepared to invade Taiwan. The fictional sword for which Anduril is named [from the Lord of the Rings] is also called the “Flame of the West.”
“We keep our eyes on the prize, which is great-power conflict in the Pacific,” Luckey said.
The newspaper highlighted how the US military-industrial complex has become increasingly privatized.
There has been a rapid influx of venture capital funds into weapons corporations in recent years. The Wall Street Journal reported (emphasis added):
Anduril is part of one of the largest shifts to take place in the defense sector since World War II: the flow of venture-capital funding into defense-technology companies.
For decades, the U.S. government funded defense companies, like Lockheed Martin, to develop new weapons, ranging from stealth aircraft to spy satellites. But as the private-sector money available for research and development has outstripped federal-government spending, particularly in areas like AI, a new cohort of defense startups is using private capital to develop technology for the Pentagon.
The amount of private capital flowing into the venture-backed defense-tech industry has ballooned, with investors spending at least 70% more on the sector each of the past three years than any prior year. From 2021 through mid-June 2024, venture capitalists invested a total of $130 billion in defense-tech startups, according to data firm PitchBook. The Pentagon spends about $90 billion on R&D annually.
A major investor in Anduril is Founders Fund, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.
Thiel is a far-right billionaire oligarch who has strongly supported Donald Trump and has funded Republican politicians. He even previously employed US Vice President JD Vance, and bankrolled his successful 2022 Senate campaign.
A former FBI informant, Thiel co-founded another major Pentagon contractor, Palantir, which the CIA helped to fund.
Thiel is also an extreme anti-China hawk. He openly defends monopolies, arguing “competition is for losers”, and wants to ban Chinese competitors to US Big Tech monopolies.
Like Thiel, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey is staunchly pro-Trump. He is from the same community of far-right Silicon Valley oligarchs.
The Financial Times reported that Thiel’s Palantir, Luckey’s Anduril, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX sought to create a “consortium” — or, rather, a cartel — to jointly bid for US government contractors.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wages “holy war” on China, from Japan and the Philippines
Trump has surrounded himself with a team of war hawks, including neoconservative Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth personally signed the Pentagon document obtained by the Washington Post that showed that the number one priority of the US military is preparing for war with China over Taiwan.
In this memo, which is officially known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance”, the Pentagon wrote, “China is the Department’s sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan — while simultaneously defending the U.S. homeland is the Department’s sole pacing scenario”.
The Washington Post revealed that several parts of this document were copied word-for-word from a vehemently anti-China report published by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Washington, DC-based think tank that is funded by large corporations and conservative billionaires.
The oligarch-backed Heritage Foundation organized the notorious Project 2025, which crafted a detailed policy program for the Trump administration to implement.
Hegseth is a far-right theocratic extremist. He published a book in 2020 called “American Crusade”, in which he proudly declared that the US right is in a “holy war” against the international left, China, and Islam.
“Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years”, Hegseth pledged in the book. He wrote, “If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”.
In March 2025, Hegseth traveled to Asia to pressure US allies to join Washington in its new cold war on China. The Wall Street Journal summarized his trip with the headline “Hegseth Tells Asian Allies: We’re With You Against China”.
When he spoke in Japan, Hegseth vowed to “strengthen our bilateral bonds and deepen our operational cooperation” against Beijing.
The US defense secretary stated that the Pentagon is turning “Japan into a war-fighting headquarters”.
Japan previously colonized China. The Japanese empire, which later allied with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, killed tens of millions of people in China and other parts of Asia in the 1930s and ’40s.
“America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the Communist Chinese”, Hegseth asserted, fearmongering about “the severe nature of the threat”.
“Those who long for peace must prepare for war”, the US defense secretary said. “We must be prepared. We look forward to working closely together as we improve our war-fighting capabilities, our lethality, and our readiness”.
Hegseth articulated “three pillars” of the Trump administration’s Pentagon strategy: “Reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and restoring deterrence”.
The US defense secretary made similarly aggressive comments in the Philippines, blasting what he called “communist China’s aggression in the region”.
Hegseth revealed that the US military is making “real war plans” for China, over Taiwan.
At a press conference in the Philippines, Hegseth spoke of Admiral Samuel Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command. He said (emphasis added):
It’s not my job to determine where the Seventh Fleet goes. I defer to Admiral Paparo and his war plans. Real war plans. Admiral Paparo understands the situation, understands the geographic significance, understands the urgency, and is prepared to work with those in the region to ensure we are leaning forward in our posture. Not waiting for events to develop, not retrograding to places further from the front, but deploying capabilities forward, posturing and creating dynamics and strategic dilemmas for the Communist Chinese, that help them reconsider whether or not violence or action is something they want to undertake.
During the first cold war, the US hosted a military base on Taiwan, where it stored nuclear weapons.
In the second Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958, top US military officials wanted to attack the Chinese mainland with nuclear bombs, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower preferred conventional weapons.
Danger of an India-Pakistan war and Canada’s Reactors
Normand Lester, Journal de Montréal, 27 avril 2025, https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2025/04/27/danger-de-guerre-indo-pakistanaise-et-nos-candu
An individual with dual Canadian and Pakistani citizenship has just been arrested in the USA for attempting to acquire technology for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and smuggle it through Canada.
The case comes to light as tension mounts between India and Pakistan following the massacre of 26 Indian tourists in the disputed region of Kashmir. New Delhi accuses Pakistan of being responsible. The latter denies being behind the attack. India has annexed Muslim-majority Kashmir, which is claimed by Pakistan. China is a major ally of Pakistan, while India has close defense ties with the United States.
Clashes between the two armies increased, raising fears of a large-scale military conflict. Peace has never really been restored since 1947, when the British Indian Empire was violently partitioned into two independent states: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. The war of religious partition is thought to have claimed between one and two million lives, and led to the massive displacement of between 12 and 20 million people.
A-bomb: thanks to Canada
India and Pakistan have already fought two major wars, in 1965 and 1971, before acquiring nuclear weapons… with the help of Canada. Any war between them could therefore turn into a nuclear exchange.
Since then, India and Pakistan have experienced a major border skirmish in 1999, which left at least 1,000 people dead.
After donating one nuclear reactor to India in 1956, Ottawa heavily subsidized the purchase of another by India in 1963. As part of this purchase, Canada trained 271 Indian scientists, engineers and technicians, who went on to develop New Delhi’s atomic bomb.
In 1971, Canada built a 137-megawatt CANDU nuclear reactor in Karachi, Pakistan. The contract also included a heavy water production facility. Three years later, in 1974, India detonated its first nuclear device, dubbed the “Smiling Buddha”, using plutonium from the reactor donated by Ottawa in 1956.
According to experts, Canadian reactors are ideal for producing weapons-grade plutonium, and Ottawa hasn’t even asked India to comply with the safeguards required by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Canada sneaks away
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger then roundly criticized Canada, telling the media that the Indian nuclear explosion had been carried out using material diverted from a Canadian reactor lacking the appropriate safeguards.
With its guilt exposed, Canada quietly withdrew from the Indian CANDU project. It also stopped supplying uranium to Karachi, and withdrew from the Pakistani project. This did not prevent it from carrying out its first nuclear test in 1998.
If India and Pakistan ever wage nuclear war on each other, Canada will have to assume – in part – the moral responsibility.
Why is No. 1 US bombing No. 137 Yemen?
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL,
Is there a bigger bully in the world than President Trump?
Trump’s current effort is bullying the hapless innocents in Yemen. Trump will never war against anyone his own size. His No. 1 $30.5 trillion economy singled out for destruction No. 137, the $17.4 billion economy of Yemen.
Trump has launched 750 airstrikes against Yemen since March 15, killing and injuring over thousand innocents. His latest strike on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel port in Hodeidah Province killed 95 and injured 192. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a nod to America’s all time premier warmonger Teddy Roosevelt, has dubbed the bombing campaign Operation Rough Rider. Ouch.
As with every US bombing campaign against innocents in weak countries, Congress simply rolls over allowing these grisly, unconstitutional wars to proceed without an iota of pushback.
Why is Trump bullying pitifully poor Yemen? Because Yemen is interfering in the ongoing Israeli/US genocide in Gaza. Yemen has largely shut down vital (tho not to US) Red Sea shipping with drone attacks to degrade Israel’s Gaza genocide campaign. Trump’s futile bombing campaign, which will never stop the Yemeni Houthis from opposing genocide, has no connection to US national security interests whatsoever.
That is unless our national security interests include enabling Israel to complete their genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza so Trump can kick off his dream real estate development, creating Trump Gaza Mediterranean to expand Greater Israel.
What’s Legally Allowed in War – Gaza a dress rehearsal for U.S. war on China.
The claim that Israel has adhered to the laws of war is extremely contentious.
1977, an international agreement explicitly prohibited the intentional targeting of civilians.
Gaza not only looks like a dress rehearsal for the kind of combat U.S. soldiers may face. It is a test of the American public’s tolerance for the levels of death and destruction that such kinds of warfare entail….………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Smash it, then claim it
Trump is trying to rebuild the Iran nuclear deal he destroyed, then declare personal triumph, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
There is deep irony in the current efforts by the Trump administration to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, given it was the previous Trump administration that broke a fully functioning agreement already in place to ensure Iran did not develop nuclear weapons.
The JCPOA — or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — also known colloquially as the Iran nuclear deal — was agreed in Vienna in June 2015 between Iran and China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. It involved significant monitoring and verification of Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities to ensure it remained within the confines of commercial grade. It also lifted UN Security Council sanctions on Iran as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to its nuclear program.
But under the first Donald Trump presidency, the White House effectively tore up the agreement, rendering it worthless when the US withdrew in May 2018. In his classically hyperbolic style, Trump labeled the JCPOA “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
In recent weeks, the new Trump administration has been feverishly negotiating, most recently in Oman, to establish an Iran nuclear deal that could turn out to be remarkably similar to the JCPOA. But this, of course, is the Trump modus operandi: Destroy something perfectly effective, then rebuild it almost in the exact image and declare it his own invention.
So far, the administration has wavered between demanding that Tehran dismantle its entire nuclear program, backtracking to allow Iran to enrich uranium to within commercial grade, then reversing again, with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff telling Iran it must “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment” before the US would sign a deal.
Whether any of this will work remains uncertain, but it certainly wasn’t helped by the recent ravings of New Jersey Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat and former Bernie Sanders supporter whose politics — and especially rhetoric — on Israel and immigration, have become indistinguishable from many of the more extreme Republicans.
Of the current Iran talks, Fetterman pronounced: “The negotiations should be comprised of 30,000-pound bombs and the IDF,” referring to the Israeli Defence Forces. …………………………………..
what would the health and environmental impacts be of a major bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Such an act could release clouds of radioactive dust into the atmosphere, contaminating land and water downwind. Contamination of surface and ground water would result in prolonged harmful consequences through ingestion by exposed populations.
Protracted exposure to enriched uranium dust by inhalation and ingestion can cause bone toxicity and reproductive toxicity and lead to renal failure. Uranium is also neurotoxic to the brain.
Tehran had been keeping its uranium enrichment well within the 3.67% limit, even after Trump withdrew the US from JCPOA. But in 2021, an act of sabotage against Natanz, Iran’s largest uranium enrichment facility, which Iran blamed on Israel, blacked out the plant and damaged centrifuges. The attack prompted Iran, unfettered by the shattered nuclear deal, to begin enriching its uranium to as high as 60% U-235 — some sources assert it has even reached 85% — either way a level that is considered weapons usable. Uranium enriched to 90% is considered weapons grade.
Iran’s nuclear facilities have been targeted on several occasions. In 2010, a powerful computer worm known as Stuxnet, designed by US and Israeli intelligence, was used to disable a key part of the Iranian nuclear program. Last year, a strike by the Israeli Air Force hit Iran’s Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center for uranium conversion and fuel production.
As negotiations began with Iran this spring, Trump also used threatening rhetoric at first, warning in late March that if the country did not dismantle its nuclear program, “there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.” He made similar threats during the last gasps of his first presidency, when he weighed an attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear center but never followed through.
If Iran does indeed agree to end all its nuclear activities, the question remains about what to do with its stockpile of already enriched uranium. One idea apparently mooted by the White House is to allow Russia to store it, with a clause that would let Russia return the stockpile to Iran should the US breach any deal made in the coming weeks.
What all of this points to, of course, is the blurry line between commercial and military nuclear programs. Iran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, can claim to be abiding by the terms laid out in Article IV which gives countries who agree not to develop nuclear weapons “the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” The trouble is, no one believes them, exposing the weakness in — and wrongheadedness of — the treaty clause that leaves the back door perpetually open to the production of nuclear weapons.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. Views are her own. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/04/27/smash-it-then-claim-it/
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