Lawsuits: Widespread radioactive contamination in north county, The lawsuits seek relocation and financial awards for thousands of people. ksdk.comGrant Bissell, ebruary 22, 2018 ST. LOUIS COUNTY – A pair of lawsuits announced Wednesday claim radioactive contamination could be widespread in north St. Louis County.
The suits seek, among other things, buyouts or relocation and financial awards for thousands of people who live or own businesses near the West Lake Landfill and Coldwater Creek.
One suit was filed in relation to the landfill. The other in relation to the creek.
St. Louis lawyers Ryan Keane of Keane Law and Anthony Gray of Johnson Gray Law lead a team of attorneys filing suit against many companies and agencies that at one time dealt with radioactive waste leftover from the creation of the first atom bomb.
That waste was moved in the 1940’s from a processing facility in downtown St. Louis to a storage site near present-day St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
It was then relocated to a site in Hazelwood where it was stored in the open and contaminated Coldwater Creek. In the 1970’s the waste was illegally dumped at West Lake Landfill.
“It’s already a disaster and it could get much, much worse,” said Keane during a news conference Wednesday.
According to the lawsuits, crews with Massachusetts-based Boston Chemical Data Corporation tested dozens of properties in north county and found high levels of radioactive contamination that can scientifically be tied to the waste in the landfill and the creek.
“The uranium that was extracted and brought into this country has a unique fingerprint because it originated outside the United States,” said Keane.
The firms released maps Wednesday identifying areas of possible contamination.
Carla Miller of Maryland Heights lives within the boundaries identified by the lawsuits. She’s been in her home since 2004 and said she’s always felt safe there. But, with the possibility of radioactive contamination, she’s no longer sure.
“I’m really very concerned especially with people with children who are still growing and developing. That scares me,” said Miller. Missouri Representative Mark Matthiesen (R – District 70) issued a statement Wednesday that read:
There were some serious claims of airborne contamination made in this press conference by attorneys representing families surrounding the Bridgeton/ West Lake Landfill. While I wait to see what scientific information the attorneys are willing to share to support this claim, I continue to push my own legislation, HB 1804 to fund testing by the DNR for radioactivity that may be killing Missouri residents.
Missouri Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D – District 14) released her own statement:
“I am overjoyed at the announcement of two additional lawsuits regarding legacy nuclear waste left from the Manhattan Project. In the last two years, I’ve held one hundred town hall meetings on the subject matter and interviewed nearly one thousand residents. While worked to pass legislation for a home buyout for vulnerable citizens, it failed due to powerful corporate interests seeking to ease financial liability.The HBO documentary (Atomic Homefront) has opened up a new door for St. Louis residents. The EPA preliminary decision has also opened doors for our region. However, I must warn the public, the circumference of contamination is much larger than what the attorneys are outlining in their lawsuit.
In my heart, I want compensation for my constituents to ease their pain. I want a federal “Downwinder” status which will track the health status of residents in the region. There are multiple policy changes we need to adopt immediately.
Santee Cooper will pay $19 million a year to preserve site of failed S.C. nuclear project, Post and Courier, By Thad Moore tmoore@postandcourier.com, Santee Cooper will preserve the site of South Carolina’s abandoned nuclear project at least temporarily, taking control of the unfinished power plant months after its partner decided to walk away for good.
That’s according to a letter sent Wednesday from Santee Cooper’s board chairman to Gov. Henry McMaster, who had called for the partially built reactors to be maintained.The letter indicates that it will cost Santee Cooper $16 million a year to maintain the reactors and the enormous stockpile of equipment purchased for the project. It’ll cost another $3 million to buy insurance and lease warehouses to store parts………..
Santee Cooper has been under pressure from state lawmakers to keep up the site ever since the project’s majority owner, South Carolina Electric & Gas, decided it was abandoning the site permanently. SCE&G says it can claim a tax write-off worth billionsby letting the reactors rust away.
Now 10 Workers Contaminated With Radioactive Waste At Hanford, OPB, by Anna KingFollow Northwest News Network Feb. 22, 2018
As many as 11 workers may have ingested or inhaled radioactive contamination at the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition site at Hanford in southeast Washington state. Ten workers are confirmed to have tested positive and one needs more testing to confirm the results.
That’s up from the previous count of six.
The amounts of that contamination are small when compared with an average person’s yearly background exposure. The majority have between 1 and 10 millirems. The average person gets 350 millirems per year from natural and man-made substances.
The US Air Force is reportedly planning to develop an advanced satellite that will continue to provide communications for the top brass US Government officials in times of nuclear or space wars. To ensure effective communication, the US Air Force relies on what they call Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites that sit in geostationary orbit.
US Air Force preparing for the worst day in human history
The Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite is specially designed to keep the military and US administration in a proper working order during times of emergencies. It should be also noted that these satellites cannot be hacked or jammed.
“We need systems that work on the worst day in the history of the world,” said Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Popular Mechanics reports.
There are four AEHF satellites already in the geostationary orbit. The US Government is now planning to launch two more, one in 2019 and another in 2020. The proposed US Air Force 2019 budget has allocated $29.8 million for this upcoming project. Air Force staffers have reportedly said that more money has been set aside in 2019 for the development of software used for running the satellites.
The US Air Force considers these AHEF satellites as a part of its new focus on advancing the country’s nuclear abilities.
“We must concurrently modernize the entire nuclear triad and the command and control systems that enable its effectiveness,” said Heather Wilson, the Air Force secretary.
The US Government is also planning to pour in a whopping sum for the development of jam-resistant GPS satellites.
How AEHF satellites work?
If a nuclear war breaks out, the atmosphere will be completely filled with charged particles that emit energy across the electromagnetic spectrum. In these times, ordinary signals will find it difficult to cut through this clutter, and as a result, all the communication means will be cut off.
During these moments, the only way of communication will be using AEHF satellites. Unlike traditional communication satellites, AEHF satellites send multiple beams to the ground, and it will increase the chances of getting through the clutters. Just like a car moving between lanes to avoid stagnant traffic, signals from AEHF satellites will reach the ground.
Hanford cars deemed clean, test positive for radiation, A Hanford employee was told their family car filter was clean, but an independent scientist determined it tested positive for radiation. King5.com Susannah Frame, February 21, 2018
A veteran worker of the Hanford nuclear site has learned that a car filter removed and tested by a scientist in Boston came up contaminated with the radioactive isotope of americium 241. The worker’s car had been deemed “clean” in surveys conducted in December and February by the Hanford government contractor, CH2M Hill.
“I’m just stunned. I’m angry, but that goes without saying. Now I wonder, ‘How far has it gone? Did I take it home? How long has this been going on?’” said the worker who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation.
Five filters total were collected by the Seattle-based watchdog group, Hanford Challenge, and sent to Kaltofen. The two that came up with radioactive isotopes had previously been declared free of contamination, said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge.
“Americium is a rare radioactive element, and does not belong in anybody’s engine compartment,” said Carpenter. “The fact that vehicles were checked and released to these workers, only to find that they were still contaminated, raises disturbing questions about the credibility of Hanford’s program.”
“The kind of materials we’re talking about at Hanford are suspected to cause cancer or known to cause cancer. A person’s personal car shouldn’t contain radio-isotopes for weapons manufacturing. That’s pretty simple,” said Kaltofen.
Americium is a radioactive material used in the production of plutonium for nuclear bombs at Hanford from World War II through the Cold War. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), americium-241 emits alpha particles “poses a significant risk if enough is swallowed or inhaled. Once in the body…it generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissues to radiation. This may eventually increase a person’s chance of developing cancer.”
“I’ve driven to Oregon and others have taken their cars out of state. We have no idea how far we’ve spread (radioactive matter),” said the worker with americium on the car filter.
The US Dept. of Energy, which owns Hanford, and its contractor CH2M Hill, have been plagued with a spread of radioactive particles from a demolition project that was supposed to be completed by September 2017. Instead, the project to take down the historic and lethally contaminated Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) is on hold as Hanford officials try to find ways to continue the work in a safe manner………..
Since June, the Dept. of Energy reports that 41 PFP workers have tested positive for internal contamination. Forty-three more test results are yet to be returned. In the December loss of control of radiation, 27 government-owned vehicles were found to have contamination on them in addition to the seven private cars.
Trump floats pay bonus for teachers who carry guns in class, NBC News 22 Feb 18 byALI VITALI WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump expanded on his idea to train and arm some teachers with guns Thursday, suggesting that firearm-adept school staff be given “a little bit of a bonus” for carrying weapons, and promising federal funds for their training.
At a White House discussion of school safety solutions with state and local officials, Trump said “highly adept people…who understand weaponry” could carry guns in schools, estimating that between 10 and 40 percent of teachers could be qualified for such a task. Those who are would undergo “rigorous training,” he said, later adding that he’d consider offering federal money for that effort. Officials “can’t just give a teacher a gun,” he said.
Radioactive material came to St. Louis in the 1940s with World War II, when a uranium processing plant was constructed downtown. Years later, in the 1970s, radioactive waste from that site was transported to the West Lake Landfill in the St. Louis County suburb of Bridgeton. That material is still impacting St. Louis today, but residents in the surrounding area may be getting a ray of hope in the form of a legal case.
Recently, the HBO documentary “Atomic Homefront” brought national attention to the long struggle of North St. Louis residents to gain accountability for the effects of radioactive waste dumped at West Lake Landfill and Coldwater Creek. Now, several law firms are joining together to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of those impacted.
“This is an unacceptable violation of personal rights, property rights, and at its core, the civil rights of all people adversely impacted by this highly contaminated radioactive source,” civil rights attorney Anthony Gray said.
Gray, of Johnson Gray LLC, and class action attorney Ryan Keane of Keane Law LLC hosted a press conference in St. Ann on Feb. 20 to introduce the suit. Their firms, along with several other national firms, are filing two lawsuits against companies they consider to hold responsibility for polluting residential areas.
One of the suits was filed on behalf of residents living around the West Lake Landfill; the other was filed on behalf of those living in the floodplain of Coldwater Creek. Homes and other properties around both sites have tested positive for high levels of radiation.
The Environmental Protection Agency under Scott Pruitt agreed on Feb. 1 to remove the majority of the radioactive material from the West Lake Landfill over a period of five years, but the lawyers in this case said that is not enough.
“Too little has been done over the last several years, and over the last several decades,” Keane said.
“Atomic Homefront,” which focuses on the efforts of citizen activist group Just Moms STL, documents high incidences of rare cancers in the areas around West Lake Landfill and Coldwater Creek and highlights families who want to move away from the area but, due to the plummeting property values of their homes, cannot afford to.
According to Keane, tests done in preparation for the lawsuits showed high levels of radiation within several homes and businesses. He also said an expert will testify that radioactive materials were built into construction sites in Bridgeton, laid underneath the foundations of homes.
Keane said the effects of the radioactivity could become even more widespread if an underground fire that has been burning at the landfill since at least 2010 reaches the radioactive waste. The chemical reactions caused by this, he said, could lead to contaminated rain which would fall on every part of St. Louis.
After the Russian Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, radioactive rains spread the impact across the continent and reached as far away as Wales.
“People should be very upset about this,” Keane said. “They should be fired up about this.”
Defendants in the cases include Republic Services, Cutter Corp and other corporations that have handled waste disposal. The attorneys will seek damages for affected residents that could include compensation, home buyouts and relocation, as well as a cleanup of the sites.
Keane said homeowners in the area will receive a flyer explaining the cases and containing a 1-800 number they can call to learn more.
Congress skeptical of Saudi nuclear energy demands, AL-Monitor Bryant Harris February 21, 2018
After years of informal negotiations, the United States is facing mounting pressure to reach a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia or risk getting shut out of the Gulf kingdom’s lucrative energy market.
But Riyadh’s refusal to give up on certain capabilities that could be used in a nuclear weapons program has caused concern among lawmakers that the Donald Trump administration may be too keen to strike a deal.
Under Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Congress must review any agreement to supply a foreign state with US nuclear technology. While the Trump administration has yet to publicly rule out any concessions, Saudi insistence on retaining the right to enrich uranium and to reprocess plutonium faces significant roadblocks on Capitol Hill.
“I think we have made clear — not that it was necessary — that a 123 agreement that in any way contemplated an enrichment program is going to face a lot of opposition in Congress,” a congressional source familiar with the debate told Al-Monitor. “So I just don’t think that the executive branch is going to go there.”……….
Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Saudi Arabia and discussed Riyadh’s solicitation for bids to build its first two nuclear reactors late last year. Soon after, Bloomberg reported that the administration was actively considering a 123 agreement that would grant the Saudis wide latitude to pursue uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing.
Nonproliferation champions in Congress have been pushing back since. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Saudi ambassador last month that he would force a floor vote and debate on any proposed 123 agreement with Riyadh.
“It seems crazy to loosen important nonproliferation standards just to try to secure an uncertain commercial deal,” Markey told the Journal………
“Members of the Saudi royal family have suggested that they may have an interest in nuclear weapons at some point in the future,” Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, told Al-Monitor. “There is considerable concern in Congress about any nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia that does not somehow make it harder for the Saudis to acquire enrichment and reprocessing technology in the future.”
……….. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/02/congress-skeptical-saudi-nuclear-energy-demands.html#ixzz57rsqvui8
Why Trump Might Bend Nuclear Security Rules To Help Saudi Arabia Build Reactors In The Desert, NDTV, 20 Feb 18, The issue is a test of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and his self-professed bargaining prowess.
For Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the reactors are a matter of international prestige and power, a step toward matching the nuclear program of Shia rival Iran while quenching some of the kingdom’s domestic thirst for energy.
For the Trump administration, the contest poses a thorny choice between promoting U.S. companies and fighting nuclear proliferation. If the administration wants to boost the chances of a U.S. consortium led by Westinghouse, it might need to bend rules designed to limit nuclear proliferation in an unstable part of the world. That could heighten security risks and encourage other Middle Eastern countries to follow suit.
“If the Saudis were to get an agreement without restrictions, it would set a dangerous precedent in the region and [be] a significant break with American nuclear policy for the last 50 years,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a consultant on nuclear weapons who was a director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council under President Barack Obama.
The issue is a test of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and his self-professed bargaining prowess. Trump, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have made pilgrimages to Riyadh to cozy up to the young crown prince and win big contracts for U.S. firms. Yet little has come to fruition.
Now, as Mohammed prepares to visit the United States in March, the Saudi deadline looms for Westinghouse, which is winding its way through bankruptcy and is eager to find customers for its much-praised AP1000 design. Without a diplomatic deal, Westinghouse and a South Korean group, which uses U.S. parts and technology and would be bound by the same rules, could be sidelined in favor of Russian or Chinese state companies.
The key rules governing nuclear sales to Saudi Arabia are spelled out in a document known as a 123 agreement, named after a section in the 1954 Atomic Energy Act.
The United States has 123 agreements with 23 countries, Taiwan and Euratom, a group of 27 nations. The 123 agreement for Saudi Arabia imposes limits on uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent fuel, both of which could be used to produce material for nuclear bombs.
Saudi Arabia has argued that it should be free to mine and enrich its own uranium deposits, as long as it abides by the international Non-Proliferation Treaty,which bars the diversion of materials to a weapons program. The China National Nuclear Corp. has signed preliminary agreements with the Saudis to explore nine potential uranium mining areas. Former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal told Reuters in December that Saudi Arabia would “have the same right as the other members of the NPT, including Iran.”
Mohammed, who harbors ambitions for an invigorated, more diverse Saudi economy, invited foreign firms to submit proposals last fall. In mid-November, executives from the world’s five leading nuclear reactor design and construction firms – including the Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse – made presentations to Saudi officials.
Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s energy and natural resources minister, told Reuters on Dec. 20 that he aims to sign contracts by year’s end.
The push to provide nuclear power to Saudi Arabia has divided U.S. policymakers.
Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the nonprofit Nonproliferation Policy Education Center who served in President George H.W. Bush’s Pentagon, asked, “How do we feel about the stability of the kingdom? The reactors are bolted to the ground for a minimum of 40 years and a maximum of 80 years. That’s enough for the whole world to change.”
But others say that if the United States doesn’t build the reactors, then Russia’s Rosatom or the China Nuclear Engineering and Construction Group will, providing fewer safeguards against proliferation and eroding U.S. diplomatic strength in the region.
“I would prefer to have America’s nuclear industry in Saudi Arabia than to have Russian or China’s, so I think it’s useful that we’re reengaging with the Saudis. We should try to get the best restraints on enrichment and reprocessing, including a ban for some significant length of time, say 20 or 25 years,” said Robert Einhorn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former State Department adviser for nonproliferation and arms control. “We should show some flexibility.”
The need to build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, which has the world’s largest petroleum reserves, isn’t obvious. The kingdom says it wants to curtail the burning of oil to generate electricity at home. Doing so would free up more oil for exports, the kingdom’s main source of revenue.
Saudi electricity consumption doubled between 2005 and 2015. During the peak summer months, when temperatures soar past 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the kingdom burns about 700,000 barrels of oil a day for air conditioning. Add industrial and transportation use, and Saudi Arabia’s domestic crude consumption has neared 3 million barrels a day, more than a quarter of its total output.
Solar is another option. The Saudis could also tap its plentiful supplies of natural gas, much of which is flared and wasted.
Prestige is another lure for Saudi Arabia. Its smaller oil-rich neighbor, the United Arab Emirates bought four South Korean-model nuclear reactors now under construction.
“If ever there was a place that could take care of own energy needs without nuclear, it’s the UAE,” said F. Gregory Gause, a professor of international affairs at Texas A&M University. “I think it becomes a prestige thing, like international airports.”
But the UAE also signed a 123 agreement in January 2009 that is called the gold standard. It agreed not to enrich or reprocess – although a passage says it could reconsider if others in the region start doing so. It plans to buy uranium from the United States and ship spent fuel to Britain or France for reprocessing.
For Saudi Arabia, the UAE’s gold standard set a high bar. “During the Obama administration, we were at an impasse,” said Gary Samore, a former White House arms control coordinator now at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “We wanted them to make a commitment similar to what Abu Dhabi did. We never overcame that issue in our negotiations.”
………… In the end, the fate of the U.S. proposal will circle back to the political and diplomatic efforts to forge a 123 agreement.
Saudi Arabia “would like us to cave to some degree on some elements of the 123 agreement,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But, he added, “the fewer Mideast nuclear weapons states, the better. And the fewer nondemocratic nuclear states, the better. And the fewer states where I can’t predict 10 years down the road what their attitudes will be toward the United States, the fewer of those countries that have nuclear weapons the better.”https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/why-trump-might-bend-nuclear-security-rules-to-help-saudi-arabia-build-reactors-in-the-desert-1815048
US preparing ‘bloody nose’ cyber attacks on North Korea, Telegraph, UK, Julian Ryall, Tokyo Danielle DemetriouThe United States is drawing up plans for cyber attacks on North Korea in an effort to bring the regime of Kim Jong-Un to heel, according to intelligence sources, as Pyongyang says it is ready for “both dialogue and war” as the Winter Olympics draws to a close.
A cyber assault could cripple Pyongyang’s online communications and ability to control its military, causing huge disruption but avoiding the loss of life. It may also assuage concerns that a conventional attack against missile sites or nuclear facilities by the US could trigger a massive counter-strike by Kim Jong-Un.
In the last six months, the US has been covertly laying the groundwork for cyber attacks that would be routed through South Korea and Japan, where the US has extensive military facilities. The preparations include
installing fibre cables into the region and setting up remote bases and listening posts from where hackers will attempt to gain access to North Korea’s version of the Internet, which is walled off from the rest of the world.
Another official told the magazine that a large part of the US spying and cyber warfare capability is being refocused on North Korea, including analysis of signals intelligence, overhead imagery and geospatial intelligence
………. North Korea has reportedly set up a 6,000-strong hacking unit and is strongly suspected of being behind a number of cyberattacks on South Korean banks, media companies and infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, in recent years
As well as gathering intelligence on military, scientific and political developments in the North, US cyber warfare experts are likely to be tasked with accessing the regime’s command-and-control structure in order to interfere with Pyongyang’s ability to communicate with its military and launch counterattacks.
US and South Korea to announce plans for military manoeuvres with more than 320,000 troops, Express UK. 20 Feb 18
SOUTH KOREA and the United States will announce plans before April for a postponed joint military drill, South Korea’s defence minister said today. Seoul and Washington had agreed to postpone the regular joint military exercise until after the Winter Olympics being hosted in South Korea, which end on March 18.
After the decision to delay the joint exercise, North Korea agreed to hold the first official talks with South Korea in more than two years and send athletes to the Winter Games, easing a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Asked when the two countries will hold the postponed drill, Song Young-moo told parliament he and his US counterpart, Jim Mattis, would make an announcement between March 18 and the start of April.
“The exercise was postponed according to the spirit of the Olympics,” Song said.
COLUMBIA — As Westinghouse Electric’s bankruptcy dashed South Carolina’s nuclear ambitions, one group of people reaped the rewards: lawyers.
One attorney charged $280 to respond to a grand jury subpoena.
Another invoiced $407 to research the statute of limitations for criminal charges in South Carolina.
Others got paid more than $5,810 to review the “potential criminal liability” stemming from The Post and Courier’s story Stamped for Failure, which revealed how Westinghouse disregarded state engineering laws in their attempt to build a new generation of nuclear reactors.
These are just some of the legal expenses found in the bankruptcy records for Westinghouse, the company that designed and attempted to build the two unfinished nuclear reactors at V.C. Summer station.
The court records show Westinghouse paid more than $1 million last year for more than a dozen highly paid defense attorneys to monitor the legal disputes and political backlash that erupted in South Carolina after the nuclear project was dropped last summer.
The company’s legal bills open a small window into the ongoing cost of what is widely considered the biggest economic failure in South Carolina history. The invoices also highlight Westinghouse’s concerns over the possible criminal implications stemming from its decade of work on the nuclear reactors near Jenkinsville.
Westinghouse declined to answer questions about the ongoing legal expenses.
“It may just be they are trying to cover themselves,” said state Sen. Shane Massey, an Edgefield Republican who led a special committee that investigated V.C. Summer. “Or, as things progressed, they might have realized they are in trouble.”
While 14 years seems like a long time to clean up the 44-acre nuclear waste dump in Parks Township, progress seems imminent.
But only after another delay.
The resolution of a bid challenge for the $350 million contract to excavate and remove radioactive contamination from 10 shallow trenches added 1 1⁄2years to the cleanup process, which now could run through 2032.
President Trump’s 2019 budget allotment of $8 million to the Army Corps of Engineers will continue the planning, testing and other preparations for the cleanup.
Excavation stopped at the site in 2011 because a Corps contractor allegedly mishandled and found more complex nuclear material than expected.
The sentence revealed that the Trump administration had ordered the Department of Energy to be ready to conduct a nuclear test at the Nevada National Security Site in as little as six months. Time reporter W.J. Hennigan went on to write that the White House was considering conducting a nuclear test as a show of force.
“The point, this and other sources say, would be to show Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and other adversaries what they are up against,” Hennigan reported.
For a megaton of reasons, this test absolutely must not happen.
First and foremost, there’s simply no need to stage this kind of demented theater, because the nation’s adversaries are well aware “what they’re up against.” It’s annihilation. There are nearly 7,000 warheads in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, deliverable across the globe at a moment’s notice by missile, aircraft and submarine. The biggest nuke is the B83 bomb, which at 1.2 megatons is 80 times more powerful than the World War II bomb that wiped out Hiroshima and killed at least 90,000 people.
Triggering a U.S. nuclear strike would be suicide. That’s not in question.
So it’s no more necessary to prove that point with a nuclear test in the Nevada desert than it is to stage a military parade, yet another stupid idea that has spun out of the White House during President Donald Trump’s 13 months in office.
It demonstrates an astonishing lack of understanding about the nation’s military and the world’s perception of the U.S. More than anything, it proves that Trump’s feelings of inadequacy and inferiority know no bounds.
To be clear, Trump hasn’t ordered a nuclear test. But the fact that the administration has even considered it is chilling. A U.S. test would almost certainly provoke other nations into following suit and building up their own arsenals.
And for what? It’s not as if there’s any question that nuclear weapons work. The U.S. conducted more than 1,000 tests, many at the test site 90 miles north of Las Vegas, during an arms race that culminated when the former Soviet Union unleashed a 50-megaton monster of a bomb in 1961.
For Nevadans to allow a new test would be to disrespect generations of heroic state residents who fought to stop the testing. That fight led to George H.W. Bush imposing a self-imposed moratorium in 1992, and there hasn’t been a U.S. test since then.
The door should remain closed.
The good news is that Gov. Brian Sandoval says he has received “100 percent confirmation” that the Trump administration isn’t planning to test a nuclear device in the Nevada desert.
But just in case Trump or anybody on his team is wondering whether Nevadans want him to set off one of his oversized firecrackers in our state, the answer is a loud hell no.
It’s bad enough that Trump’s new budget contains funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a project that would lead to high-level nuclear waste being transported through the heart of Las Vegas.
That project should be buried and forgotten, and so should any notion of testing a nuclear devicein the Nevada desert.
Trump should stop treating our state like enemy territory.
nuclear-news 