Oak Ridge Today

Events to mark Hiroshima, Nagasaki anniversaries, call for nuclear abolition

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OREPA Peace Cranes at Y-12
Sharon O’Hara-Bruce of Lake Orion, Mich., ties a peace crane to a fence set up in front of the Y-12 National Security during a previous ceremony recalling the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. (File photo)

Events planned in Oak Ridge and Knoxville on Friday and Saturday will commemorate the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, near the end of World War II, as organizers call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

“There is a new energy for abolition,” said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “Here and around the globe, actions and events will echo the demand of the international community in the Ban Treaty: nuclear weapons states give up their weapons.”

A press release from OREPA cited the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Under that treaty, the international community outlawed nuclear weapons, organizers said. The treaty was passed by 122 nations in June 2017 and entered into this past January, the press release said.

“There are only two possible endings to the story of nuclear weapons,” said Beatrice Fihn, director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 2017 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. “Either we end nuclear weapons, or they will us. There is no other possible ending.”

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Manhattan Project Park will commemorate atomic bomb effects

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The International Friendship Bell is pictured above in Alvin K. Bissell Park in Oak Ridge. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park will ring the International Friendship Bell 76 times on Friday morning, August 6, to commemorate the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima 76 years ago.

The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. It was the first atomic bomb used in war and the first of two dropped on Japan near the end of World War II. Uranium for the first bomb, which was code-named “Little Boy,” was enriched in Oak Ridge. The bomb had about 140 pounds of uranium fuel and had an explosive force equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT, according to Atomic Heritage. Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the 10-foot, 9,700-pound bomb in the four-month period following the explosion, Atomic Heritage said.

The National Park Service is calling the August 6 ceremony “Days of Peace and Remembrance.”

“During this silent event, we will be requesting visitors to come up and ring the bell,” a press release said. “Visitors will be able to write down their own hopes and messages of peace.”

The United States dropped a second atomic bomb, a plutonium-fueled weapon, on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, three days after the Hiroshima bombing. It had about 13.6 pounds of plutonium fuel and an explosive force equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT. About 80,000 Japanese died by the end of 1945 because of that bomb, which was called “Fat Man,” Atomic Heritage said.

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Protesters will say nuclear weapons illegal under UN treaty

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OREPA Spring Demonstration at Y-12
Members of Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and supporters gather across from the Y-12 National Security Complex to protest the plant’s Uranium Processing Facility in April 2013. (File photo)

Protesters plan to hang a banner at a nuclear weapons production site in Oak Ridge early Friday afternoon that will declare the weapons illegal under a United Nations treaty.

The banner, which will say “Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal,” will be hung on a fence across from the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex on Scarboro Road. The banner will be hung after parts of the international agreement—the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—are read, organizers said.

Protesters said they also plan to hang a poster of the text of the treaty and 122 yellow “X”s on the fence, one for every nation that voted in favor of the treaty at the United Nations.

“January 22, 2021, will be a historic day for nuclear weapons,” according to a press release from Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, which has organized weekly and annual events opposing nuclear weapons for many years. “On that day, at midnight, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force, establishing in international law a categorical ban on nuclear weapons, seventy-five years after their development and first use.”

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Judge voids UPF decision, requires more seismic hazard analysis

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Y-12 Uranium Processing Facility
Structural steel installation is under way on the eastern half of the Main Process Building of the Uranium Processing Facility, the Y-12 National Security Complex said Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. (Photo courtesy CNS Y-12)

Note This story was last updated at 9:38 a.m. Sept. 25.

A federal judge in Knoxville on Tuesday said a critical decision made in 2016 for enriched uranium operations at the Y-12 National Security Complex, including for the $6.5 billion Uranium Processing Facility, violated a national environmental law, and she ordered the decision vacated, or set aside.

The UPF is already under construction, and Wedenesday morning, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees work at Y-12, said construction will continue.

The 104-page opinion and order was filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday by Chief U.S. District Judge Pamela L. Reeves.

One of the plaintiffs said the decision to vacate the amended record of decision published in the Federal Register in 2016 means the NNSA no longer has the legal authority to continue construction work at UPF.

But the NNSA said it was pleased that the court’s memorandum opinion rejected almost all of the plaintiff’s claims regarding National Environmental Policy Act violations related to UPF construction.

“However, with the court agreeing that there was inadequate consideration of new information concerning seismic hazards at Y-12, NNSA will review the seismic analysis while conferring with the Department of Justice on the possibility of appeal,” the NNSA said. “In the meantime, construction of UPF will proceed.”

Besides the amended record of decision, Reeves said supplement analyses prepared in 2016 and 2018 also violated the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and she said they were to be set aside as well.

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Anti-nuclear weapons activists to commemorate Hiroshima bombing

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The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Oak Ridge Today file photo)

 

Citizens calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons will gather in Oak Ridge on Saturday, August 4, at 10:30 a.m. at Alvin K. Bissell Park to commemorate the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 and to call for the United States to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted in July 2017 by 122 nations, a press release said.

The Oak Ridge events on August 4 are sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, and they will include music and political theater as well as a report on ongoing nuclear weapons production activities at Y-12, the press release said.

“Y-12 represents the full circle in time,” said OREPA coordinator Ralph Hutchison. “The age of nuclear weapons started here, with the enrichment of the Little Boy bomb’s uranium. And it continues today, in the face of world condemnation, with the production of thermonuclear secondaries and plans for a new bomb production plant, the Uranium Processing Facility, which will continue to make nuclear bomb cores for decades to come.” [Read more…]

UPF lawsuit: NNSA considering new, supplemental environmental impact statement for Y-12

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The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

With a lawsuit pending, federal officials are considering whether a new or supplemental environmental impact statement is needed for the Y-12 National Security Complex after design plans changed for the Uranium Processing Facility, the largest federal construction project in Tennessee since World War II.

As part of the process, the National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing what is known as a supplement analysis, or SA. A draft of the new SA has been issued, and you can read it on the Y-12 website.

Comments on the draft supplement analysis can be submitted through June 20.

The final new supplement analysis and a record of decision could be issued by July 27, although the schedule is subject to change, according to a joint status report filed in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on May 11. The record of decision is expected to say whether a new or supplemental environmental impact statement is required for Y-12.

There was a site-wide environmental impact statement, or EIS, prepared for Y-12 in 2011. About five years later, in 2016, there was a supplement analysis prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act. It was connected to the decision by the NNSA and U.S. Department of Energy to not prepare a new or supplemental environmental impact statement after the NNSA decided on a new multi-building design for the UPF, rather than a single-building design, as part of an effort to keep project costs down, among other considerations. [Read more…]

UPF lawsuit moved from DC to Knoxville

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A rendering of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. (Image from May 2017 courtesy of NNSA)

A rendering of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. (Image from May 2017 courtesy of NNSA)

 

The federal lawsuit that asks for an environmental review of the new multi-building design for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex has been transferred from Washington, D.C., to Knoxville.

The transfer of the civil complaint had been requested in September by the defendants, U.S. Energy Secretary James Richard “Rick” Perry and Frank G. Klotz, former administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA is an agency within the U.S. Department of Energy that manages nuclear weapons programs and facilities, including Y-12, among other activities.

United States District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, who was assigned the case in December, granted the motion to transfer the lawsuit from the District of Columbia to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, which includes the Knoxville division, on March 23.

The 44-page federal lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on July 20, argues that a new environmental impact statement should be prepared for the new design for the UPF, the largest federal construction project in Tennessee since World War II. The plaintiffs allege that the NNSA’s decision to use several new buildings for the UPF, rather than just one, and continue to use some old buildings at Y-12 for some nuclear weapons work is risky because the old buildings could collapse during a major earthquake, possibly leading to a nuclear accident that could release radiological materials.

Federal officials denied that allegation and others in a 29-page response filed September 29. They’ve called some allegations vague, ambiguous, or speculative, and they have said that safety and technical analyses are under way at Y-12. Some buildings may require seismic upgrades, depending upon evaluation results, and an Extended Life Program is meant to ensure that two buildings—Building 9215 and Building 9204-2E—will safely support future operations, federal officials said. [Read more…]

DOE, NNSA deny alleged risk of ‘catastrophic collapse’ of old Y-12 buildings

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Y-12 Building 9212

A low-level aerial shot of Building 9212 at the Y-12 National Security Complex, one of the buildings mentioned in a federal lawsuit filed in July over the proposed Uranium Processing Facility.

 

Note: This story was updated at 8:30 a.m.

The plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in July alleged that there is a risk of a catastrophic collapse of old buildings containing nuclear weapon components at the Y-12 National Security Complex, possibly due to a large earthquake. A catastrophic collapse “would likely” result in the release of nuclear or toxic materials and place the environment and local residents in “extreme peril,” the plaintiffs said.

But federal officials denied that allegation and others in a response filed in late September.

The 44-page civil complaint, which is related to the planned Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12, was filed July 20 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The seven plaintiffs include three public interest organizations—Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, and Natural Resources Defense Council of Washington, D.C.—and four people who live in Oak Ridge and Knoxville.

The federal lawsuit asked for an environmental review of the new design for the UPF, where design plans have changed from one building to three. The lawsuit alleged that the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration have violated a federal environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, as they implement the major design change.

Specifically, the plaintiffs have requested a new supplemental environmental impact statement or a new site-wide environmental impact statement for the revised UPF design. They cited the decision to build several new buildings and the plan to continue using existing buildings that the plaintiffs say have significant structural defects. They want the U.S. District Court to vacate, or void, a supplement analysis and an amended record of decision prepared by the NNSA in 2016. [Read more…]

Peace activists will remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombings, call for ban on nuclear weapons

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OREPA-Ralph-Hutchison-Aug-6-2016-2

Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, is pictured above during a rally at Alvin K. Bissell Park on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Peace activists will have events in Oak Ridge and Knoxville starting Saturday and ending Wednesday that will recall the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II, and the activists will call for a ban on nuclear weapons.

The events have been organized by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. OREPA has events each August remembering the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II. The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb used in wartime. Code-named “Little Boy,” the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of the war.

OREPA has scheduled a Saturday event called “And We Are Saying Peace.” It will start at 12:30 p.m. with a concert and theater presentation at Alvin K. Bissell Park in Oak Ridge. Those who attend will call on the United States to join the countries that passed a legal treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons at the United Nations on July 7, a press release said.

The Saturday event will also mark the conclusion of a peace pilgrimage from Asheville, North Carolina, to Oak Ridge, led by the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji, the press release said. The walk left Asheville last Sunday and is expected to arrive at Bissell Park on Saturday. The final leg will leave Solway at 9 a.m. Saturday. [Read more…]

Federal lawsuit asks for environmental review of new UPF design

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OREPA-Ralph-Hutchison-Aug-6-2016-2

Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, is pictured above during a rally at Alvin K. Bissell Park on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

A lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that the U.S. Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration have violated a federal environmental law, and the civil complaint asks for an environmental review of the new design for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, the largest federal construction project in Tennessee since World War II.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia by several public interest organizations—Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, and Natural Resources Defense Council of Washington, D.C.— and four people: Ed Sullivan of Oak Ridge, and Ralph Hutchison, Jack Carl Hoefer, and Linda Ewald, all of Knoxville.

The defendants are Energy Secretary James Richard “Rick” Perry and NNSA Administrator Frank G. Klotz.

The complaint alleges that the NNSA is taking, but failing to consider, grave risks with safety and the potential environmental impacts of the nation’s nuclear weapons program, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

It says the NNSA has refused to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement, or SEIS, to consider important new information about the serious vulnerability of the new design for UPF, which is supposed to be completed by 2025 for no more than $6.5 billion. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge group sends delegation to Germany to address U.S. nuclear deployment

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Ralph Hutchison

Ralph Hutchison

Members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance will join peace activists from around the world in Büchel, Germany, from July 12-18 in protests at the Büchel Air Base to call for the withdrawal of the 20 U.S. B61 nuclear bombs that are currently deployed there, a press release said.

University of Tennessee student Carmella Cole, an OREPA Board member, and Ralph Hutchison, OREPA coordinator, will join nuclear abolition advocates from the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Belgium for a week of actions culminating in an international day of action on Sunday, July 16, the press release said.

“We have been invited to participate in this gathering because of the role the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex (the Y-12 National Security Complex) plays in the refurbishment of U.S. nuclear weapons,” Hutchison said in the press release. “Y-12 is currently making plans for the ‘life extension upgrade’ of the B61-Modification 12. The upgrade will result in a new, more threatening nuclear bomb, which will then be deployed in Büchel over the objections of the German Bundestag, which has voted, overwhelmingly, across all parties, for the removal of NATO nuclear weapons from German soil.” [Read more…]

OREPA to present information about U.S. weapons programs at United Nations

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Ralph Hutchison

Ralph Hutchison

The United Nations conference on a nuclear weapons ban opens in New York City on Monday, March 27. The purpose of the conference is to “negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination,” a press release said.

Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, will be presenting in a side event during the conference on Tuesday, March 28, with colleagues from other nuclear weapons sites, the press release said. The panel discussion, “US Nuclear Modernization Under President Trump: Implications for the Ban Treaty Process,” was organized by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. The focus will be on U.S. efforts to modernize the entire nuclear weapons program, the release said. [Read more…]