Resumption of Nuclear-Explosive Testing: A Dangerous Path -- Editorial by Dr. John Burroughs

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, is set to expire onThursday, February 5 th , 2026. In late September, President Putin proposed to extendthe treaty for one year. President Trump has yet to formerly respond. On October 5th,he said, “[It] sounds like a good idea to me.”

In a Truth Social post that reverberated around the world, on October 29President Donald Trump wrote: “Because of other countries’ testing programs,I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weaponson an equal basis.”

In a protective move, on Friday, November 18th, the New Mexico EnvironmentDepartment required the Department of Energy (DOE) to cease all injection operationsof treated waters back into the sole source regional drinking water aquifer shared byPueblo de San Ildefonso, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and others.

For over 25 years, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) has fought toprotect surface and groundwater from radioactive, toxic and hazardous contaminationfrom Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In 2004, that campaign expanded tocontain the co-located perchlorate and chromium plume – contamination that migratedinto the top of the 1,000 foot deep aquifer below LANL, Pueblo de San Ildefonso andthe Española Basin Sole Source Drinking Water Aquifer. Despite federal assurancesand repeated promises of a solution, the plume remains unresolved.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) continues to neglect its obligations tosafely operate its nuclear weapons facilities in a manner required by laws, orders,guidance and common sense.

In 1963 John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev signed the ban on atmosphericnuclear weapons testing, which was extended to a moratorium in 1992 and secured asthe Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. The Treaty has been signed by 187states. On October 31 st , United Nations member states voted on a resolution in supportof the Treaty and the global nuclear test moratorium. The United States was the only“no” vote.

In response to the president’s call to resume testing of nuclear weapons, contactyour two United States Senators to support Senate Resolution 323 that urges theUnited States to lead a global effort to halt and reverse the nuclear arms race.

The Communities for Clean Water (CCW) coalition is calling on the Departmentof Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, Los Alamos NationalLaboratory (LANL), and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) toimmediately release all data, monitoring results, and analytical records from the recenttritium venting operation at LANL.

This month, the International Uranium Film Festival in Berlin honored uraniumweapons expert and activist Damacio A. Lopez with the festival's Honorary LifetimeAchievement Award. For over thirty years, the US Air Force veteran from Socorro, NewMexico has campaigned for an international ban on depleted uranium munitions andweapons.

In an essay for NYU’s Democracy Project, David F. Levi, a former federal judgeand director emeritus of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law, reflected on thenegotiations he facilitated in New Mexico about the renewal of the hazardous wastepermit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep geologic repository forplutonium-contaminated waste generated in the fabrication of nuclear weapons. JudgeLevi’s essay is entitled “Participatory Democracy in Action.”