Fire on the Mountain
New Mexico
Fire on the Mountain’s campaign goal: move the radioactive waste at LANL to safer storage at WIPP before the next wildfire threatens it and us. Persuade the governor to use New Mexico’s legal tools to force DOE to move it as promised.
*This image is an artist's conception of a wildfire near the actual waste storage tents at LANL.
The
WIPP Community Forum
in
Carlsbad, NM
Wednesday, April 30, 2025 | 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
The U.S. Department of Energy's Carlsbad Field Office and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors are hosting an in-person and virtual community forum to provide an update on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), with a following question and answer period.
WIPP Community Forum
Our NGOs negotiated the Community Forums expressly for you. This is your forum to speak truth to power, to ask questions, and to get clarity. This particular forum is limited to waste going to WIPP, so please stay on that topic.
Feel free to use your own comments or any of these suggested ones. If you use these, please listen to what others are saying and choose a comment that hasn't already been used. You can make the same point as someone else but put it in your own words.
Please read the comment several times on your own before the forum so it doesn't sound like you are reading an unfamiliar comment.
LANL has 2,500 drums of old plutonium waste sitting in canvas tents in a wildfire zone in the forest at LANL. This is extremely dangerous for residents of northern NM because wildfires are frequent. Only one fire has to reach the drums to spread particulate plutonium. When inhaled, particulate plutonium lodges in lungs and remains there. It almost always causes cancer.
Move these drums to WIPP before the next wildfire.
1.
Move the legacy waste now in tents at LANL to WIPP. If these drums, in canvas tents at Area G, are exposed to fire it will spread tiny particles of plutonium over the area. Sandia Labs has done a study that says this type of contamination can't be cleaned up. We don't want LANL and northern New Mexico to become a permanent radioactive wasteland.
2.
Old legacy waste in canvas tents at LANL must be moved to safer storage in WIPP within a reasonable amount of time. Reasonable isn't decades, as DOE predicts. It is now.
3.
During the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000, fire burned through the two canyons on either side of the mesa holding the legacy waste, resulting in extremely hot temperatures on the mesa. A LANL official said that, if a fire like Cerro Grande occurred again, the drums would be covered in fire blankets but couldn't be moved. They would just have to hope that the drums wouldn't get hot enough to burn and explode. This is not just irresponsible management by DOE, it is no management at all.
4.
DOE WIPP Community Forum Flyer
The DOE works for the people of the US. Its first priority is to keep us safe, not vulnerable.
Each of the 2500 drums in tents at LANL contains four times more than a lethal dose of plutonium. A lethal dose is one that kills 50% of the population within 30 days. By not moving this waste, DOE officials are condemning Los Alamos residents, LANL workers and perhaps many more New Mexicans to a death sentence. DOE's first responsibility is to keep Americans safe. It is not doing that.
5.
WIPP Community Forum Virtual Registration
Here is the virtual registration link for the April 30 WIPP Community Forum.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/2Y5WYP9ETI-V3YJkB4Reuw#/registration