Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 202 Harvard SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 505-268-9557

The Nukes Next Door

The Nukes Next Door Pages 88 and 89 Management (EM) program is responsible for: 1.7 trillion gallons of contaminated ground water; 40 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and debris; 18 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium; 2,000 tons of intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel; 160,000 cubic meters (of radioactive and hazardous waste) currently in storage and over 100 million gallons of liquid, high-level radioactive waste; 4,000 facilities that are no longer needed; and, Providing long-term care and monitoring…at an estimated 109 sites following cleanup. (U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management: Paths to Closure, March 2000) This list does not include–among other omissions–145 million cubic meters of uranium mill tailings (what is left behind after uranium is mined), and 120,000 cubic meters of depleted uranium. It also does not include 15,987 contaminated Department of Defense sites, their stewardship program for 9,300 threatened or endangered species, and 40,000 underground waste tanks (Citizen Law Enforcement: Project for Participatory Democracy, May 1996). Your participation and involvement is needed to ensure that these problems are addressed and that the legacy we leave our children is different from the potentially harmful one we are leaving them now. The three articles presented here provide you, the reader, with some additional questions. Sue Dayton's article leaves us with the questions of “What is actually buried at the Mixed Waste Landfill?” Will we ever know?, and if we do not know can we be comfortable that it remains underground? Paul Robinson's article begs the question, “How much air emission does Sandia National Labs produce, and is someone monitoring this?” Damacio Lopez's article ends with a lingering question, “How much Depleted Uranium (D.U.) is still buried at Kirtland ?”, “How much aerosolized D.U. is in the air we breathe everyday in the Albuquerque area? and can we truly clean-up these sites?” Help find the answers! Let's work together to cut down Sandia Laboratories contamination of our communities. Please call us at 505-266-2663 or fill out the accompanying form and return it to us.  Name: ________________________________________  Address: ______________________________________        City: ___________________ State: ___ Zip: _______  Telephone #: ___________________________________  E-mail address: _________________________________  Return to:                  Albuquerque Center for Peace & Justice                  SLAP Project                  202 Harvard SE                  Albuquerque, NM 87106 . Pages 86 and 87

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