Nuclear weapons production in the age of Obama > Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

Nuclear weapons production in the age of Obama

published Tuesday, May 11, 2010

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Nuclear weapons production in the age of Obama
Nickolas Roth | Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
2010 NonProliferation Treaty Review Conference

At the panel discussion titled “Nuclear Weapons Production in the Age of Obama: Community Experts Reporting on Continuing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production,” members of directly affected communities discussed environmental, health, legal, and international security impacts of warhead production in the United States. Three of the speakers came from communities in the United States that are home to nuclear weapons production facilities.

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California, moved to Livermore more than two decades ago originally not knowing there was a nuclear weapons lab in her town. Over the years, she has helped to shed light on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) track record of contaminating the surrounding community. The lab has been responsible for releases of radioactive materials likes uranium and tritium, as well as a large number of industrial contaminants. The park where her son grew up playing was contaminated with plutonium. “Since the 1960s,” she said, “the Livermore Lab has released approximately one million curies of radiation in the environment, roughly equivalent to the amount of radiation deposited by the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.“

Marylia described the U.S. nuclear weapons labs as the driver behind the Obama administration’s plan to increase funding for nuclear weapons and build new bomb factories. She described the labs as being the “taproot of funding” for nuclear weapons. The lab Director at LLNL stays up at night trying to give his staff something to do. As a result, the labs survival is linked to continuing nuclear weapons work. She said the nuclear weapons labs mistook “personal security with national security.”

Jay Coghlan is the Executive Director of Nuclear Watch, New Mexico, which watchdogs Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Jay discussed the details of the Obama administration’s new nuclear weapons “modernization” plan. He voiced concerns that significant changes to warheads under the new Stockpile Management program could jeopardize confidence in the nuclear stockpile to the point where a return to nuclear testing could be possible. Some of the warhead modifications, he said, would actually add new military capabilities. Jay also discussed the three new bomb plants being proposed in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Kansas City, Missouri. These new facilities would give the United States the capacity to build 80 new warheads per year.

Ann Suellentrop, representing Physicians for Social Responsibility & Kansas City Peace Works in Kansas City, Missouri, is a nurse who recently learned last that all of the non-nuclear components for U.S. nuclear weapons are made at a factory in Kansas City (called the Kansas City Plant or KCP). Since then, she has led an effort to expose the environmental contamination and health impacts of the KCP. One KCP worker, who is gravely ill today, stepped in radioactive material, but was never told. The daycare center in the factory is contaminated with carcinogenic material. The entire area underneath the factory is contaminated with Polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, a known carcinogen. She said that current employees want to speak out, but are threatened or intimidated into not talking. Ann’s work has helped to give sick workers a voice and pressure the U.S. government into committing to clean up the old KCP.

John Burroughs, Executive Director of Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, described how efforts to modernize nuclear weapons facilities and delivery vehicles would impact U.S. commitments under the nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. He brought up two specific points about Article VI of the treaty. The first was that Article VI required a cessation of the nuclear arms race. This cessation applied to both qualitative and quantitative improvements in nuclear stockpiles. U.S. plans for new production facilities, modernized warheads, and new delivery vehicles would allow for significant qualitative improvements in U.S. nuclear weapon systems.

John said that these new investments are also contrary to U.S. commitments under Article VI to “pursue negotiations in good faith.” Good faith is a fundamental principle of international law. “Essentially, this means that, if you say you will do something, you do it.” Finally, John said that, by increasing its capacity to build new nuclear weapons, the United States was circumventing its commitment to irreversible reductions.

All of these speakers were affiliated with the U.S. NGO, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of three-dozen grassroots and national groups representing the concerns of communities near U.S. nuclear weapons sites that are directly affected by 65 years of nuclear weapons production and waste contamination.