Reading Room


Getting Inside the Fence at Livermore Lab Main Site and Site 300

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Posted by Marylia Kelley and Raiza Marciscano-Bettis

Livermore Lab is organizing community tours inside the classified fences of the Livermore Lab Main Site and its Site 300 high explosives testing range near Tracy. These tours will include major areas of contamination being cleaned up under the Superfund Law. The Lab is offering the tours on a “first come-first served” basis.

If you would like to join a tour, please contact Billie Christian in the Laboratory’s Public Affairs Office at [email protected] by close of business on FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2019.

Note: The deadline for returning the security form is actually not until close of business MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2019. If you see this notice before then, contact Billie Christian at [email protected] to see if you can be included in the tour of your choice.

Tour Dates and Times.

1. Livermore Lab Site 300 (Tracy)
The tour is: Thursday, April 25 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Site 300 was established to conduct open-air bomb tests with toxic and radioactive materials. Current operations allow for contained tests and open-air detonations; high explosives R&D, machining and manufacturing; and waste burning and storage. Site 300 was placed on the EPA’s Superfund list of most contaminated locations in the country in 1990. The tour will include views of unlined toxic and radioactive waste pits and at least one open-air “firing table” as well as some of the groundwater remediation equipment in use.

2. Livermore Lab Main Site (Livermore)
The tour is: Tuesday, April 30 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The Main Site contains most of the Lab’s principal nuclear weapons development facilities, including the plutonium facility and vaults, hardened engineering test building, tritium facility, radiography facility, high explosives application facility, National Ignition Facility, and others. The Main Site was placed on the EPA Superfund list in 1987. The tour will visit groundwater treatment facilities, including several areas where new technologies for remediating soils and water are being tested.

From the Livermore Lab general public notification

The tours are free and open to U.S. citizens 18 years of age and older. Site access badges will be required. On-site transportation will be provided. Participation will be on a first-come, first-served basis. You will receive information about site access badging requirements as well as additional details in preparation for the tour. --"Christian, Billie V." <[email protected]>

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