Rigged game: LANL Site-wide EIS gives false choice between three scripted scenarios

• Expanded nuclear weapons programs (contradictorily called the “No Action Alternative”)
• Yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs (“Modernized Operations Alternative”)
• Yet far more expanded nuclear weapons programs (“Expanded Operations Alternative”). This is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s “Preferred Alternative” that incorporates all of the projects and programs of the previous two “alternatives” but adds still more.

All three alternatives revolve around expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, which NNSA argues is “No Action Alternative” because it was self-approved in previous lesser analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Citizens should protest this!

Why bother commenting?

✓ NEPA produces valuable public information and increases transparency and accountability.

✓ NEPA processes sometimes lead to important litigation.

✓ NEPA processes can result in tangible benefits for the public and the government.

– In response to public comment DOE included a detailed hypothetical wildfire in a 1999 final Site-Wide EIS and completed critical wildfire mitigation steps.

– The hypothetical fire helped to persuade Lab management to order mandatory evacuation during the April-May 2000 Cerro Grande Fire which burned within a half-mile of ~44,000 barrels of radioactive plutonium wastes.

– Afterwards the LANL public relations office said “When the Cerro Grande Fire swept down from the mountains this spring, these extra defensive steps, taken in response to the public comments, paid for themselves many times over. The savings were in the form of the harm to facilities that was reduced or avoided and reduced risk to the public that might have resulted.”