Communities Against a Radioactive Environment

Tri-Valley CAREs stops nuclear weapons where they start.

We watchdog the nuclear weapons complex and its Livermore Lab, one of two locations that develops all US nuclear bombs and warheads. Nuclear weapons pose one of the great social, economic, and ecological challenges of our time. We work toward their global abolition.

Good Friday

Good Friday  Proclaiming Hope that Light Shines in the Darkness Live and Virtual Interfaith Worship & Witness focused on Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory When: Good Friday, March 29, 2024, gather 7:45 am Where: Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab...

#MakeNukesHistory

On March 10, we will learn whether Oppenheimer, the most-nominated film of the year, sets records at the Academy Awards. The film was a summer blockbuster that powerfully told the story of the race to develop the world’s first nuclear weapon during...

Tri-Valley CAREs’ March Virtual Meeting

Tri-Valley CAREs’ would like to remind you of our monthly virtual meeting that will be held at 7:30 pm on Thursday, March 21, 2024. Our monthly meetings are open to all interested members of the public. You will get up-to-the-minute reports on...

Performance Report Illuminates Livermore Pit Production Role and New Warhead Delays

The just released National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reports evaluating contractor performance reveal serious scheduling delays on Livermore Lab’s nuclear warhead programs that will likely lead to cost overruns, detail the plutonium...

Federal Agency Decision Expands Nuclear Dangers at Livermore Lab

The United States’ dangerous nuclear arms racing just took another step forward. The federal agency that owns Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory released a Record of Decision (ROD) in the Federal Register on February 20th that entrenches - and...

Will you be our Valentine?

Valentine’s Day reminds us not only of romantic love but also of our love for peace, justice and our beautiful earth. This is an abiding love we know you share. Here at Tri-Valley CAREs, we want to offer you our deepest appreciation for all you do...

Tri-Valley CAREs’ February Virtual Meeting

Tri-Valley CAREs’ would like to remind you of our monthly virtual meeting that will be held at 7:30 pm on Thursday, February 15, 2024. Our monthly meetings are open to all interested members of the public. You will get up-to-the-minute reports on...

Radioactive Iodine Exposure Under Review

One LLNL Employee Affected; DOE Says Below Levels of Concern By David Jen | The Independent LIVERMORE — The Department of Energy (DOE) has recently announced that it is investigating an incident in which an employee of Lawrence Livermore National...

Livermore Lab Investigated by the Department of Energy for a Contamination Problem, Both On and Offsite at Workers Private Homes

In a January 24th letter sent by the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments to Lawrence Livermore National Security…

Nuke treaty anniversary observed with calls for U.S. ratification

By MARILYN BECHTEL, | People's World San Francisco LIVERMORE, Calif. – As workers entered the west gate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the morning of Jan. 21, they were greeted by protesters displaying 8-foot banners declaring,...

Our story

Tri-Valley CAREs was founded in 1983 in Livermore, California by concerned neighbors living around the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations where all US nuclear weapons are designed. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on Livermore Lab and the surrounding communities.

Tri-Valley CAREs’ overarching mission is to promote peace, justice and a healthy environment by pursuing the following five interrelated goals:

  1. Convert Livermore Lab from nuclear weapons development and testing to socially beneficial, environmentally sound research.
  2. End all nuclear weapons development and testing in the United States.
  3. Abolish nuclear weapons worldwide, and achieve an equitable, successful non-proliferation regime.
  4. Promote forthright communication and democratic decision-making in public policy on nuclear weapons and related environmental issues, locally, nationally and globally.
  5. Clean up the radioactive and toxic pollution emanating from the Livermore Lab and reduce the Lab’s environmental and health hazards.

Press Room

TVC In the News

Radioactive Iodine Exposure Under Review

One LLNL Employee Affected; DOE Says Below Levels of Concern

LIVERMORE — The Department of Energy (DOE) has recently announced that it is investigating an incident in which an employee of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was accidentally exposed to radioactive iodine last spring.

As part of a team of members from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and four other national labs, the employee traveled last March on an “international site visit,” where they were “exposed to small amounts of iodine-125 (I-125),” according to an NNSA spokesperson.

Technical experts raised exposure concerns when the team returned and, upon testing, “results for some of them showed a detectable uptake of I-125,” the spokesperson said. Levels, however, were well below regulatory and administrative limits, and well below levels of any clinical concern.

The DOE also found the material in the LLNL worker’s home the following month.

Iodine-125 is used largely in nuclear medicine, which uses radioactivity to treat different types of cancers, according to McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, one of the world’s largest producers of the substance. Radioactive seeds of Iodine-125 can be implanted within tumors to kill cancer cells with minimal damage to healthy tissues.

But accidental exposure, such as through inhalation or ingestion, can present serious health risks, especially to the thyroid gland, as it tends to concentrate iodine.

While much of LLNL’s work in nuclear-stockpile stewardship is classified, the delay in the exposure announcement and the lack of details about the incident has raised concerns with a local watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs.

To read the rest of the article visit: Radioactive Iodine Exposure Under Review – Tri Valley CAREs

Click here to read TVC’s recent blog about the incident.

Nuke treaty anniversary observed with calls for U.S. ratification

January 27, 2024
Source: People’s World

San Francisco

Nuke treaty anniversary observed with calls for U.S. ratification

The 2022 demonstration at the Livermore Lab.

LIVERMORE, Calif. – As workers entered the west gate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the morning of Jan. 21, they were greeted by protesters displaying 8-foot banners declaring, “World to U.S.: Nuclear Weapons are Illegal – Join the Treaty!”

The demonstrators, from Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Livermore Conversion Project, were there to celebrate the first anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to call on the United States to sign and ratify the treaty. The pact, often called the “Ban Treaty,” entered into force on Jan. 22, 2021, after 50 nations had ratified it.

The protesters gathered at Livermore Lab because it is one of two locations that create every nuclear warhead and bomb in the U.S. stockpile.

After years of work by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the TPNW was adopted at a United Nations conference in 2017 by 122 of the UN General Assembly’s 192 members. The treaty has now been signed by 86 countries and ratified by 59, with more ratifications in process. So far, none of the world’s nine nuclear-armed nations have signed it, and three – the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France – have declared they will never ratify it.

To read more visit: Nuke treaty anniversary observed with calls for U.S. ratification – Tri Valley CAREs

Read the full story

Activists Outside of Lawrence Livermore Lab Remember those who Died in Hiroshima, Nagasaki

August 4, 2023
Source: ABC 7 EYEWITNESS News

By Lena Howland 

LIVERMORE, Calif. (KGO) — It’s been nearly 78 years since the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every year, different groups come to the Lawrence Livermore National Lab to remember those who died and push for change locally.

“We gather here because Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is one of two sites in the United States where all of our nuclear weapons are designed,” said Scott Yundt, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs.

Tri-Valley CAREs, a nonprofit that stands for Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, says its goal is to bring attention to workers at the lab that there is still opposition to nuclear weapons.

Read the full story…

Silent Vigil at Lawrence Livermore Lab Remembers Atomic Bomb Victims

August 4, 2023
Source: NBC Bay Area

Written by: Ginger Conejero

Members of Tri-Valley CAREs and other peace advocates held a silent vigil Friday morning at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to remember the victims and mark 78 years since the atomic bombings in Japan.

The group also paid tribute to one of the more notable opponents of nuclear weapons and a famous whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, who died at his Kensington home in June at age 93.

Ginger Conejero Saab has the full story HERE!

By Ginger Conejero

Read the full story…

NBC Bay Area Covers – Silent Vigil at Lawrence Livermore Lab Remembers Atomic Bomb Victims | Tri Valley CAREs

Press Releases

Med Adv: Actions Celebrate Treaty in Livermore, Across US

Tri-Valley CAREs and Groups Across U.S. Celebrate the ‘Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear

Weapons,’ on Anniversary of its Entry-Into-Force; Call on U.S. to Sign 

Events Scheduled from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Throughout the Middle

WHAT:          January 22, 2024 marks the third anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Seventy countries have ratified the Treaty so far, with additional countries undertaking that process this year. The TPNW currently has ninety-two signatory countries. The Treaty’s rising membership reflects a growing consensus among most of the world’s countries that the extreme threat nuclear weapons pose to all humanity is intolerable.

WHO:             Dozens of groups across the country will mark this third TPNW “Baniversary” with actions at nuclear weapons labs and productions sites, military bases, congressional offices, and other locations to educate decision-makers and the public about the Treaty and hold the U.S. government accountable for being on the wrong side of history with its proliferation-provocative nuclear buildup. Events are planned in CA, PA, ID, NM, TN, KC, WI, AZ, and VA to name just a few. Each group is conducting media outreach.

In Livermore, CA, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) will sponsor a banner holding event at a nuclear weapons lab presently developing a new warhead for a new ICBM (the W87-1), a new warhead for a new air-launched cruise missile (the W80-4), and a modification of it for small attack subs that do not currently carry nuclear warheads (the W80-4 ALT, SLCM-N). At Livermore Lab, more than 80% of its annual $2 billion budget is spent on nuclear weapons activities.

•THE EVENT AT THE LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY •

To read more CLICK HERE! 

Press Release: Lab Environmental Plan Increases Nuclear Danger and Airborne Releases

For immediate release, November 9, 2023
Contact: Scott Yundt, executive director, Tri-Valley CAREs, [email protected]
925.443.7148 (office), 415.990.2070 (cell)

The National Nuclear Security Administration has released the Final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operations of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (SWEIS) that purports to analyze all of the potential impact to the environment of the Lab for the next 15 years. The document was “scoped” in 2020 and released in draft form in November of 2022.

Tri-Valley CAREs participated in the public process on both the scoping and the draft. The group worked to engage members of the public to participate and submitted its own technical comments on the Draft SWEIS.

“This final document ignores scores of comments received from the public as well as those received from other entities such as the federal Environmental Protection Agency,” charged Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs’ executive director, who served as the group’s staff attorney for more than a decade prior to becoming its leader.

To read more CLICK HERE! 

Media Adv: Lab Hiroshima vigil to honor Ellsberg, Debut film

Contacts: Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925.255.3589 (cell)
Grace Morizawa, Asian-Americans for Peace & Justice, 510.289.1285

For immediate release, August 2, 2023

Bay Area Groups to Mark Hiroshima and Nagasaki at Livermore Lab
with Program Honoring Daniel Ellsberg and New Film Debut
 Opening Remarks from Patricia Ellsberg

Media are invited to a special event marking the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a coalition of Northern California peace and justice groups that comprise the Livermore Conversion Project.  The event features a vigil at the Livermore Lab West Gate and a film tribute to our dear friend, former Pentagon planner, whistleblower, and fellow nuclear weapons abolitionist, Daniel Ellsberg. Details follow…

WHAT: Vigil at Livermore Lab and accompanying film release, “Dismantle the Doomsday

Machine: Abolish Nuclear Weapons at Livermore Lab & Globally.”

WHEN: Friday, August 4, 2023. The vigil begins at 9 AM with reflections from Patricia Ellsberg, on her husband’s life, his passing, and what protesting at these very gates meant to Dan and to her over the years. At 9:30 AM the film will be released widely, with a special showing at the Livermore Lab’s main gate.

To read more CLICK HERE! 

Announcing Our New Executive Director!

From the desk of Loulena Miles, board president…

Dear Tri-Valley CAREs community,

As our organization – and its crucial nuclear policy work – enter its 40th year, I have wonderful news to share that reflects both on our decades of success and our future achievements.

I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that our long-time Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt, will be taking over as the new Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs starting in July 2023.

Over the past year a transition committee met frequently to find the right candidate to lead Tri-Valley CAREs through its first executive transition. After months of screening applicants and interviews, the Committee and Board made a unanimous decision to invite Scott Yundt to take the helm as our new Executive Director.

I want to thank the Board for their hard work and commitment to the ongoing success of Tri-Valley CAREs.

Scott Yundt is an exceptional choice for this role. He has proven to be a steadfast and effective leader at Tri-Valley CAREs for the past two decades. Scott began working at Tri-Valley CAREs as a legal intern during law school. He later became the group’s Staff Attorney and has held that position for nearly ten years.

During his tenure as Staff Attorney, Scott led our community right-to-know program and successfully sued the government a half-dozen times for violating the Freedom of Information Act. His work enabled Tri-Valley CAREs to obtain records of radioactive spills and other wrongdoing at Livermore Lab. Scott also worked on several cases the group filed under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Scott’s contributions to Tri-Valley CAREs outside the courtroom have been equally notable. For example, he played an instrumental role in preventing the Livermore Lab from detonating huge open air bomb blasts at its Site 300 high explosives testing range near Tracy. Scott has long led our group’s program to obtain justice for nuclear workers made ill by on the job exposures. He has also led select policy initiatives over the years.

In sum, Scott brings a strong foundation for our programmatic work in addition to being well acquainted with our locally impacted communities, our board, our staff, and our membership.

Finding a new Executive Director was especially daunting because our longstanding Executive Director has set the bar so high for what a relatively small organization can accomplish – not only locally but nationally as well.

Under the outstanding leadership of Marylia Kelley, our organization has grown from a handful of concerned Livermore citizens in 1983 to more than 6,000 members. Marylia’s leadership created the group’s effective grassroots strategy of speaking truth to power about the dangers and pollution that stem from the ongoing development of nuclear weapons. Her work over the past 40-years stopped dozens of dangerous nuclear weapons proposals.

I stand in particular admiration of the way she has been able to unify the voices of those who seek peace, justice and a healthy environment locally, nationally and, at times, internationally.

The next chapter of Tri-Valley CAREs will be about building on our many successes, inspiring a new generation of voices and re-imagining methods to increase our influence in a changing and increasingly unstable world. I know Scott is excited to dig into the work!

I have more good news to share in that Marylia will continue to be an integral part of Tri-Valley CAREs. She will transition in July to a new role as Senior Advisor.

There will be many opportunities in the coming months to recognize Marylia for her stellar organizational prowess, her in-depth knowledge of nuclear policies, and her decades of above and beyond commitment to Tri-Valley CAREs. Let me take this opportunity to be the first: From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Marylia.

I also want to say to our members and friends that we are looking forward to the next chapter of Tri-Valley CAREs together. Change is good. We celebrate our blessings, anticipate our continued positive impact, and thank you for your ongoing support.

-Loulena Miles
Board President

To read more CLICK HERE! 

View OuR short documentary below celebrating Tri-Valley CAREs’ 30 years of creating peace, justice, and a healthy environment.

Check out Tri-Valley CAREs’ organizational brochure:

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Tri-Valley CAREs  |  4049 First Street, Suite 243  |  Livermore, CA, 94551