Reading Room

Thursday, March 20, 2008  
Plan to change nuclear labs draws skepticism

By: David Perlman
Published In: SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/20/BAD1VMRF5.DTL&hw=perlman&sn=001&sc=1000

Marylia Kelley, the organization's executive director, brought technical diagrams of weapons-related buildings at the Livermore lab that would be altered under the plan, and argued that the Nuclear Security agency is concealing its intention to retain there dangerous inventories of tritium - the crucial radioactive fuel for hydrogen bombs. She said the agency should move immediately to get rid of all its tritium, plutonium and uranium rather than wait. Those elements, she maintained, have already polluted the environment perilously throughout the town of Livermore.



Long-range plans to transform the nation's complex of nuclear weapons laboratories and bomb-building plants drew a crowd of anti-nuclear activists and a few supporters to a public hearing Wednesday in Livermore - the same town where scientists and engineers for decades designed some of the world's most powerful bombs and warheads.



There were strong doubts from a couple of recently retired weapons designers who had long worked at Livermore. One of them, a nuclear engineer with more than 37 years at the lab who now consults with the agency as a contractor, argued that the entire plan - which he maintained would cost $10 billion to $20 billion - means only another attempted reorganization. It would mean little until the agency adopts an entirely new national nuclear weapons policy, he said.



The opposition came from Quaker groups, Veterans for Peace, Peace Action West, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and Tri-Valley CARES, the anti-nuclear group that monitors every technical development that goes on at the Livermore lab.




This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Back to TVC in the news...