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Home My WebLink AboutPublic Comment from PSR - 071326 P(AIDO-c_ C c,v v1 rr,ei}-- Q-_,Q) CC. 7(i3 )20 PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY b5 YEARS Join leaders and friends of Physicians for Social Responsibility at a special event to celebrate 65 years of advocacy for health and peace Monday, July 13, 2026 5:00pm to 7:00pm RoseWind Common House 3131 Haines St Port Townsend, Washington 98368 Speakers Brian Campbell, Ph.D. Executive Director, PSR National Magritte Gordaneer Director, Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program, PSR National light hors d'oeuvres and beverages provided To RSVP, contact PSR Director of Philanthropy Maggie Ardiente at development@psr.ord or 202-550-1824 by July 12. This event is free and open to the public;however, we encourage you to donate to Physicians for Social Responsibility at the event to support our critical mission to protect public health, advance climate solutions, and advocate for a nuclear weapons-free world. Note: RoseWind Common House asks that all guests remove their shoes upon entering. Please bring a pair of socks or plan to go barefoot. A Plea for Engagement at the Edge of the Nuclear Abyss June 22, 2026— Updated July 6, 2026 Douglas Milholland 343 35th Street, Port Townsend, WA 98368 1-360-385-6525 I douglasmilholland@gmail.com Please read this letter, focused on the enormously profitable weaponry and the unthinkably catastrophic nuclear endgame our country is heavily outspending other nations on. Our President and Congress, addicted to campaign funding from the military-industrial, think tank, media, and AIPAC complex, have abandoned their constitutional duty to debate the endless wars and properly question trillions in military spending. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Doomsday Clock The clock is now 85 seconds to midnight. "The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board, which includes eight Nobel laureates. The Clock is an indicator of the world's vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies. It is now 85 seconds to midnight. A year ago, we warned that the world was perilously close to global disaster and that any delay in reversing course increased the probability of catastrophe. Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have instead become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic. Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a great power competition undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence, and other aapocalyptic dangers." Consider This a Prayer Do what you can with the tools you use. Be brave. Hold your heart high. Shatter the dams and holding patterns that block the river of your truest voice. What the world needs now is for people to come alive, go out and do what we must do to change course. Seize the day! Let's connect with our better angels and figure out a way to move towards mutually sustainable thriving. For all that lives and breathes, for the ancestors, for those yet to come: do your part in being the change that must occur if we are to continue living on this garden planet. Bangor Trident Nuclear Missile Submarine Base The Navy's environmental assessment of siting next generation of first-strike nuclear missile submarines at Bangor is unacceptable— and the Navy has now declared the public comment period will not be extended. It ended June 25, 2026 The Navy did not grant the additional 30 to 60 days that Glen Milner and others requested, and has not upgraded to the full Environmental Impact Statement that the law requires. What was inadequate is now final, unless challenged. The sub base and other regional military bases have made Northwest Washington perhaps the most strategic nuclear war"first strike" target on Earth. Planners had a responsibility— and still The SWFPAC and the eight Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines(SSBNs)homeported at the adjacent Bangor Submarine Base are located only 20 miles (32 kilometers)from downtown Seattle. The SWFPAC and submarines are thought to store more than 1,300 nuclear warheads with a combined explosive power equivalent more than 14,000 Hiroshima bombs. ' "` seiltcI IA ,41 a, r. aa,,,,.. t An estimated 2 to 10 nuclear warheads target the Trident base— both air burst and ground burst—given that it is a nuclear war command and control center with deep storage concrete bunkers housing over 1,000 nuclear weapons. What an Attack on Our Region Would Look Like: An Open-Source Assessment The following is drawn from publicly available research including the Federation of American Scientists, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, NUKEMAP (nuclearsecrecy.com), and the U.S. Department of Defense's own declassified reference, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (Glasstone & Dolan). This is not speculation. It is what serious analysts, using open sources, understand about how this region would be targeted. Nuclear war planners divide their weapons between two delivery strategies: air burst and ground burst. The distinction matters to everyone living here. An air burst— detonated at optimal altitude— maximizes the blast wave across the widest possible area and minimizes local fallout by keeping the fireball from touching the ground. It is the weapon of choice for destroying cities, airfields, and surface infrastructure. A ground burst— detonated at or near the surface— produces a smaller blast radius but penetrates deeply hardened targets: buried bunkers, reinforced weapons storage, underground command facilities. It also produces vastly more radioactive fallout, lofting pulverized earth into the mushroom cloud and raining it downwind for hundreds of miles. Our region would see both. Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor • After the Persian Gulf War, NAVMAG was selected as one of two West Coast ports to be upgraded for the efficient trans-shipment of containerized ammunition in the event of mobilization. That designation only reinforced its wartime importance—and its value as a target.Themilitarystandard • In short, Indian Island punches far above its modest size. Losing it in a conflict would be a crippling blow to U.S. Pacific naval operations, which is exactly why it would be on any serious adversary's target list." Residents of Marrowstone Island, Port Hadlock, and Port Townsend — some within 5 miles of the base —would be in the immediate fallout corridor. Jim Creek Naval Radio Station Fewer people know about this installation than any other in the region, yet it may be among the most critical targets of all. Jim Creek's primary mission is to provide Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio transmitting capabilities for the Pacific submarine fleet. Its 1.2-million-watt transmitting system is one of the most powerful in the world, capable of communicating simultaneously with all Navy assets anywhere on Earth — including submarines operating beneath the surface. VLF signals are one of the only frequencies that can penetrate seawater, meaning Jim Creek is how Bangor's submarines receive their launch orders while submerged. Without it the submarine fleet is unable to receive commands. This makes Jim Creek an extraordinarily high- value first-strike target. Its antenna spans cross mountain ridges miles apart and cannot be quickly replaced. Russian military doctrine—as reflected in open-source strategic analyses —calls for matching warhead yield and type to target hardness. A soft but irreplaceable target like Jim Creek's vast above-ground antenna spans, crossing mountain ridges miles apart, would likely be assigned a precisely placed air burst sufficient to collapse the infrastructure—not a massive ground- penetrating weapon. The logic is surgical: destroy the communication link, silence the submarine fleet, blind the response. Jim Creek has been publicly identified by Russian strategic analysts as a target of equivalent priority to the Pentagon and Camp David, precisely because it is the nerve cord connecting Bangor's submarines to their launch orders. The weapon of choice against Jim Creek would likely be an air burst designed to collapse the massive antenna spans across the mountain valley near Oso, Washington, in Snohomish County, approximately 60 miles from Port Townsend. For further reading: Cascade PBS on Jim Creek NAS Whidbey Island I Ault Field Ault Field, home to all of the Navy's tactical electronic warfare squadrons—the EA-18G Growlers—would almost certainly be targeted in the opening wave of any major nuclear exchange. An adversary's first priority is to blind U.S. forces, and Whidbey is the only place in the U.S. Navy that houses this electronic warfare capability. An air burst over Ault Field would produce severe destruction extending several miles across north Whidbey Island and into Deception Pass. Oak Harbor, approximately 4 miles from Ault Field, would be within the zone of total destruction. Port Townsend sits approximately 20 miles south of Ault Field. At that distance from an 800- kiloton air burst, residents would experience significant blast overpressure — enough to shatter It is home to several types of aircraft, including the EA-18G Growler, MH-60S Seahawk, P-8 Poseidon, EP-3E ARIES, and C-40 Clipper. The EA-18G Growler gives the U.S. military a critical electronic warfare capability—jamming enemy radar and communications — that is unique to Whidbey Island. In a major conflict, an adversary's first strategic priority would be to blind U.S. forces by eliminating this electronic warfare capacity. Whidbey is the sole home of that capability in the U.S. Navy, making it uniquely high-value—and uniquely vulnerable. Navy Weapons Transfer Depot: NAVMAG Indian Island I was told by the Commander of the Trident nuclear submarine base that the Navy weapons transfer depot on Indian Island (NAVMAG I.I.)was probably a nuclear target in a nuclear war. The commander's assessment is well-grounded. Naval Magazine Indian Island is genuinely one of the most strategically critical military installations on the U.S. West Coast. Indian Island serves as the sole deep-water ammunition port on the West Coast, equipped with piers capable of accommodating the largest Navy and commercial vessels for ordnance loading and unloading. Its 1,600-foot pier can handle the largest Navy and commercial vessels afloat. The 2,700-acre island is also home to more than 100 magazines that store conventional munitions ranging from small arms ammunition to aircraft ordnance to ship-launched missiles. A recent commanding officer oversaw the transfer of 50,000 tons of ordnance across its pier during his tenure alone. Its strategic mission includes providing logistics support for munitions to the Pacific Fleet and joint services, the aircraft carriers homeported at Bremerton. The Indian Island ammunition depot and the Trident submarine base at Bangor effectively form a weapons logistics complex together. In any serious conflict or nuclear exchange, an adversary's strategic goal would be to cripple the U.S. Navy's ability to arm and deploy its Pacific Fleet. Destroying Indian Island would deny weapons resupply to the entire Pacific Fleet, directly impact submarine operations at Bangor, disrupt power projection across the entire Pacific theater, and eliminate the only deep-water ammunition port on the West Coast. There is simply no comparable replacement facility on the entire West Coast. In short, Indian Island punches far above its modest size. Losing it in a conflict would be a crippling blow to U.S. Pacific naval operations, which is exactly why it would be on any serious adversary's target list. The Broader Pacific Northwest Target Cluster Nuclear targeting analysts (including declassified Cold War studies) have consistently identified the Puget Sound region as one of the densest military target clusters in the continental United States: Naval Base Kitsap (Bangor)— home to Trident ballistic missile submarines, a primary strategic nuclear asset; Joint Base Lewis-McChord; Naval Station Everett; NAS Whidbey Island /Ault Field; Jim Creek Naval Radio Station —sole VLF communications link to Pacific submarine fleet; and Naval Magazine Indian Island. The concentration of these installations within roughly 60 to 90 miles of each other means that even a limited nuclear exchange targeting the Pacific Northwest would likely involve multiple warheads in the region. • Are there fallout shelters? Have our children had preparedness education in school? Have local doctors been briefed on what they will be facing? Have practical family nuclear disaster guides been distributed? Many critical issues are missing from the Environmental Assessment the Navy prepared. This traces something real through multiple credible channels— a health professional with direct knowledge, confirmation from a congressional office, and a county emergency manager who acknowledged the exercise while explaining why its findings are kept from the public. Ms. Keplinger's comment—"It's probably best left classified —why scare people?" — is itself a remarkable and troubling statement from a public official whose entire job is to prepare people for emergencies. Ms. Keplinger has since indicated she has compiled a professional body of work on the regional nuclear threat picture and has felt the need to release it— but has not yet done so. The argument that knowledge produces paralysis rather than action is not well supported by history. The freeze movement of the early 1980s, which produced the largest political demonstration in American history—one million people in Central Park in 1982 —was fueled in significant part by public education about what nuclear weapons actually do. Physicians for Social Responsibility published casualty studies. Jonathan Schell wrote The Fate of the Earth. Helen Caldicott brought medical specificity to the horror. And that mass awareness created the political pressure that led to the INF Treaty in 1987. The expiration of New START in February 2026 without a replacement agreement is genuinely significant. It means that for the first time since 1972, there is no arms control treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. That is not a minor policy footnote. It is a structural change in global risk. Glen Milner and the Freedom of Information Act I am familiar with the Freedom of Information Act. I know someone who is skilled in using it. He took a concern about the broad-scale use of so-called depleted uranium munitions, which were in transit at the Naval Magazine Indian Island weapons transfer depot, and asked that the Freedom of Information Act reveal what kind of danger we faced living near the base. That lawsuit went to the Supreme Court. Glen Milner is a genuinely important figure, and his case is landmark —far more significant than most people realize. Glen Scott Milner is a lifelong resident of the Puget Sound region who for decades has researched and written about explosive hazards related to Navy activities in Puget Sound, publishing in outlets including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the British American Security Information Council, the Seattle Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In late 2003 and early 2004, Milner submitted FOIA requests to the Department of the Navy for Explosive Safety Quantity Distance data—the estimated range of damage from a potential explosion at Indian Island, which sits within three miles of several towns, a state park, and surrounding waterways. The Navy refused. The case went through the courts and the Ninth Circuit upheld the Navy's refusal. Then it went to the Supreme Court. In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the public's right to government records, ruling that the FOIA exemption pertaining to `personnel rules and agency practices' doesn't give the Navy the right to deny Milner access to the information. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the Letter from Glen Milner 16159 Clear Creek Road NW, Poulsbo, WA 98370 www.gzcenter.orq j info@gzcenter.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Glen Milner (206) 365-7865 I Mike McCormick (206) 525-9998 The U.S. Navy has announced a 30-day public review period for its approximately $60 billion nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed Columbia-class submarine program at Naval Base Kitsap- Bangor. The submarines will be stationed at Bangor for about 50 years. The Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) are the planned replacement for the Ohio-class SSBN submarines that first arrived at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in 1982. The twelve proposed Columbia-class submarines are expected to cost $126.4 billion according to the Navy's FY 2025 budget submission. Half of the twelve new submarines are expected to be deployed at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, approximately 20 miles from Seattle. See the Navy's May 27, 2026 announcement at nepa.navy.mil/columbia-west-coast. Please also send your comment to info@gzcenter.org. Please request: • That the public be provided with a formal public hearing and presentation at a minimum of one location in Kitsap County and one in the Seattle area. • That the 30-day period be extended. Dumping a 188-page Draft Environmental Assessment on the internet while simultaneously starting a 30-day review and comment period is not inviting "the public to review and comment." Citizens should have more time to review a 50-year program costing over $60 billion. • Address the public risk. With decreased missile payloads on the Columbia-class SSBNs, the Navy could finally solve public explosive risk issues. Each Columbia-class SSBN has an expected lifespan of 42 years, and the first submarine is expected to arrive at Bangor in 2032. The Columbia-class SSBN carries 16 Trident submarine- launched ballistic missiles compared to the current Ohio-class SSBN deployed with 20 SLBMs. The estimated total cost for the lifespan of the Columbia-class program is approximately $348 billion. Likely at least half the cost of the total program would be spent on Bangor-based submarines. The public's comment period for this $60 billion, 50-year program at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor was only 30 days. The Navy did not grant an extension. The comment period closed June 25, 2026. Did the Navy make a serious mistake regarding public safety that can never be fixed? During past Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements, the Navy either misstated explosive risks associated with SSBN submarines at Bangor, or—as in this EA— ignored the issue altogether. For years, large segments of the civilian population around the base have been within explosives risk areas that are in violation of the Navy's own regulations. In fact, in the past, the Navy has moved its own inhabited buildings outside these zones without informing the public of the danger. In Fiscal Year 2025, the U.S. spent more than $110 billion on nuclear weapons programs— $324 per person in the United States. According to the Congressional Budget Office's ten-year projection, the total cost of U.S. nuclear operations, sustainment, and modernization for 2025- 2034 is projected at an average of$95 billion per year, with costs peaking around 2031. The full projected cost over the decade is expected to reach $946 billion — a 25% increase over the previous estimate. The U.S. spends more on nuclear weapons than all other nuclear-armed nations combined. According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons' annual nuclear spending report, in 2023 U.S. nuclear spending was $51.5 billion, compared to China at $11.9 billion, Russia at $8.3 billion, and the UK at $8.1 billion. By 2025, ICAN's tracking found U.S. nuclear spending had risen to $69.2 billion, part of a record $119 billion spent globally by the nine nuclear-armed states that year. The U.S. is spending roughly $200,000 per minute on nuclear weapons-related programs — and that number is projected to grow significantly over the next decade. The True Costs of War costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/findings The post-9/11 wars were funded largely through debt rather than through increased taxes or the sale of war bonds. The use of debt obscures the true costs of war by pushing financial obligations to future generations. Public finance expert Linda Bilmes, who has studied post-9/11 war costs for 20 years, says their staggering $5 trillion price tag was enabled by what she calls the "ghost budget" —an unprecedented combination of borrowing, accounting tricks, and outsourcing that kept war costs out of the public debate and resulted in trillions being spent with minimal oversight. An estimated 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001 and 2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians. An estimated 3.6 to 3.8 million people died indirectly as a result of wars' destruction of economies, healthcare systems, infrastructure, and the environment— bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5 to 4.7 million and counting. Nuclear Proliferation: A Growing Danger President Trump has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iran and is considering distributing nuclear weapons to more countries, in acknowledgment of their concern that the United States is backing away from being ready to defend them with U.S. nuclear missiles. Canadians are openly discussing the merits and risks of pursuing a nuclear weapon. Europeans are similarly considering a nuclear deterrent for the bloc. In South Korea, public support for a nuclear weapon is at its highest level on record, and even in Japan — once unthinkable— some politicians are talking about the subject. "What has changed demonstrably for many U.S. allies is a newfound skepticism over the credibility of the so-called U.S. nuclear umbrella, which for decades has offered allies an easy way of declining to pursue nuclear weapons. Concerned about the Trump administration's foreign policy, some nations are considering developing their own." — a former assistant director of the CIA for weapons and counterproliferation Page 13 of 17 of humans, birds, whales. Estrogen imitators stealing from the living our ability to nurture our own young. Nuclear fire, buried in deep strata, pried loose, focused for war, harnessed for power, Causes a great deal of cancer, threatens life on Earth. We're spending trillions prepping for winning the atomic endgame?Any surviving will die of loneliness and disgust. The cancer stage of capitalism is ripping up the fabric of existence, Take, take, taking— packaging all that lives into products to be sold, Shredding the exquisite harmony of a trillion generations, The interdependent web of which we are but a part. Death, the great recycler, tending all that ever lived, providing sturdy recombinants, With which we muscle and skin our bones, flows in our veins, digests our food. Awake!Look with love at brothers and sisters of many species eager to join forth Goodness with us. Our place in the dance is honorable: caretakers of the garden, food for future life forms. Beloveds:it's holy work to guard the spring of living water. Pray we can work it out. May our passage, the great awakening, be celebrated by our descendants for generations beyond number. Blue Crane The tides are almost slack as my sailboat slats past the red buoy off Point Hudson in the light winds. It's sunny and as I sail by, marbled murrelets floating on the saltwater tip their tails up and pop below the surface. Coming about, I set my course with the Navy's blue crane as a landmark. A 40-foot research vessel motors by, loaded with people, its stern set up to hoist heavy objects out of the water. My thoughts reflect on our powerful ability to link our minds together, focusing to explore this reality we share. After rocking through their wake, my gaze returns to my landmark, the blue crane, the Navy dock, the slate-grey warship, the tools of death, designed to terrorize others, weapons our cunning technical minds have brilliantly refined, which hypnotically overwhelm our innocence, our softness, our compassionate, sensitive, intuitive selves. Across the ocean my thoughts wander amongst the victims of our whiz-bang techno crap— fuel-air bombs, land mines, depleted uranium-contaminated babies, the cancer wards, homeless refugees, destroyed schools, hospitals, cultural centers, drinking water and sewer treatment facilities destroyed. My gaze shifts to the other boats that share the day. One skipper, at the helm of a 40-foot motorsailor, changed his mind about going into Point Hudson, for he throws it into reverse, starts backing about, floundering. I feel amused, remembering my own moments of indecision. Oh for more indecision, for more backing about, a change of course in our national journey! Avast, you lubbers! Our course is suicidal, arrogant, controlled by violent, greedy, Machiavellian, imperious dominators. COME ABOUT, DAMN YE! We need to head to a decent future. Imaginal Cells Doug Milholland—June 4, 2014 I saw the bird of peace sitting on the tree of life, Preening on a dead branch. Page 15 of 17 Regional military activities have made Northwest Washington an area rich with nuclear war targets. Navy planners have a civic, moral, and legal responsibility to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement to address the risk we face living here— if others were to do unto us before we do it to them. For all that lives and breathes, for the ancestors, for those yet to come: we all need to do our part in being the change that must occur if we are to continue living on this garden planet. Let's change course, and see what love in action would do. Let's go that way. Choose life. Resources for Further Research • Princeton's "Plan A" nuclear exchange simulation: outrider.orq • NUKEMAP — model blast and fallout radii for specific locations: nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap • The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: thebulletin.org • Costs of War Project (Watson Brown): costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/findings • American Progress— Pentagon budget analysis: americanprogress.orq • Jim Creek Naval Radio Station — Cascade PBS: cascadepbs.orq • S. Brian Willson, "Depleted Uranium" (2003): brianwillson.com/depleted-uranium • Douglas Milholland, "Depleted Uranium Weapons Use in Syria, Transfer in Port Townsend, WA," Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project (2016): vfpgoldenruleproiect.orq • International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons— annual global nuclear spending reports: icanw.orq • Congressional Budget Office — Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces: cbo.qovTurco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack & Sagan, "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions," Science (1983); and continuing research by Alan Robock, Rutgers University • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPH-br eJQ#::text=Skip,City,-%3F What if we nuke a city? May we see the dawn of peace in the lifetime of those living now. Page 17 of 17