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. |
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:
- Convert Livermore Lab from nuclear weapons development and testing to socially beneficial, environmentally sound research.
- End all nuclear weapons development and testing in the United States.
- Abolish nuclear weapons worldwide, and achieve an equitable, successful non-proliferation regime.
- Promote forthright communication and democratic decision-making in public policy on nuclear weapons and related environmental issues, locally, nationally and globally.
- 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
Environmental awareness
April 28, 2023
Source: People’s World
Written by: Raiza Marciscano
Editor,
Earth Day is an annual event that began in 1970 as a way to increase environmental awareness. This message has become even more relevant today.
Good Friday at Livermore Lab: A call for a nuclear weapon-free future
April 13, 2023
Source: People’s World
Written by: MARILYN BECHTEL
LIVERMORE, Calif.—On this Good Friday, as nuclear disarmament, peace, and justice advocates gathered in person and virtually at the gates of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for their annual Interfaith Service of Worship and Witness, the theme—taken from Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1967 book of the same name—was, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Thank You from Tri-Valley CAREs
April 6, 2023
Source: The Independent
Written by: Raiza Marciscano-Bettis
Tri-Valley CAREs would like to thank everyone in the community who submitted comments on the Livermore Lab Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS).
History Day Coming
January 19, 2023
Source: The Independent
Written by: Scott Yundt
Jan.22 is a historic day. That’s the day we celebrate the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’ entry into force in 2021, aka the “Ban-iversary.”
Press Releases
District Court Denies Department of Energy’s Motion to Dismiss Plutonium Pits Suit
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 13, 2023 | South Carolina Environmental Law Project, Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley CAREs, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition
In a win for public participation and environmental protection, the United States District Court of South Carolina denied the Department of Energy’s motion to dismiss a 2021 legal action filed by multiple citizen groups. The suit was prompted by the agencies’ failure to take the “hard look” required by the National Environmental Policy Act at their plans to more than quadruple the production of plutonium pits for new nuclear weapons and split their production between the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site.
In her ruling, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis thoroughly rejected the defendants’ arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing, saying it was “not a close call”.
“We were able to defeat yet another attempt to use standing as a weapon to keep members of the public out of the government’s decision-making process,” said Leslie Lenhardt, Senior Managing Attorney at the South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP).
To date, the Department of Energy (DOE) has refused to fully examine the environmental and safety impacts of their cross-country plan, which would create massive quantities of dangerous and radioactive material, put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the line, risk a new nuclear arms race, and violate the nation’s foundational environmental law.
The Savannah River Site has never produced plutonium pits, the explosive core of all U.S. nuclear weapons, and currently stores 11.5 metric tons of plutonium, which poses a daunting management and disposal challenge. Pit production will only increase its plutonium burden, along with more waste that needs to be treated, stored and disposed of.
“The ruling is a significant loss for the DOE in its efforts to dodge its legal obligations under NEPA,” said Tom Clements, Director of SRS Watch. “We will push forward in court to make sure that the DOE conducts the mandated environmental analysis of impacts of plutonium pit production at all involved DOE sites, including sites at which plutonium waste would be disposed.”
Despite outdated analyses failing to account for significant changes in circumstances, the U.S. government has ignored the repeated calls from the public, including the plaintiffs specifically, to conduct the legally required “hard look” at this major shift in policy that will only exacerbate the already documented waste of taxpayers’ money.
“It’s critical that the public understands that no future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile,” said Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “Instead, it is for speculative new designs that can’t be tested because of the international testing moratorium. Or worse yet, it could prompt the U.S. to resume testing, which would have severe proliferation consequences. This is the kind of needed public discussion that the Department of Energy seeks to shut down while spending enormous sums of taxpayers’ money on expanding nuclear weapons production.”
SCELP filed the lawsuit on behalf of Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley CAREs and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition in June of 2021 after the DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) concluded it was unnecessary to conduct a broad, nationwide review of this two-site strategy. Instead, the agency is relying on a supplemental analysis of an outdated Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) completed more than a decade ago, along with a separate review done for SRS alone.
“We are thrilled that the Court ruled in our favor and that this landmark environmental case can now proceed toward a final decision,” said Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of the Livermore- based Tri-Valley CAREs. “What’s at stake in our litigation is nothing less than the question of whether the federal government will be allowed to run roughshod over affected communities like mine all across the country. We believe the Court will ultimately agree with Plaintiff groups that the National Nuclear Security Administration must produce a nationwide Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and hold public hearings at all of the locations that will be actively involved in these dangerous plutonium bomb core activities, including Livermore, CA. The analysis of risks must precede implementation of the project in order to forestall serious environmental degradation and potential loss of life.”
###
The Order Denying NNSA’s Motion to Dismiss is available at 63ea755b70d5a82f6c0eb8e2_Order Denying MTD.pdf (webflow.com)
The South Carolina Environmental Law Project uses its legal expertise to protect land, water, and communities across South Carolina. Savannah River Site Watch is based in Columbia, SC and monitors DOE activities at SRS. Nuclear Watch New Mexico is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico and focuses on nuclear weapons activities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Tri- Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs) is located in Livermore, California and monitors the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a key nuclear-weapons- design facility. The Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition operates in accordance with the mission of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and spans from North Carolina to northern Florida and receives the downward flow of the Savannah River.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki virtual rally from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab; additional speakers filmed in CA, NY and Russia
For Immediate Release, August 3, 2022
Sat., Aug. 6, 9:00 am PDT and rebroadcast Tues., Aug. 9, 9:00 am PDT
“MAKING
THE
UNTHINKABLE
IMPOSSIBLE”
Contacts: Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore; cell, 925-255-3585, [email protected]
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation; cell 510-306-0119, [email protected]
Grace Morizawa, Asian Americans for Peace and Justice; cell, 510-289-1285, [email protected]
WHAT: “Making the Unthinkable Impossible” a rally filmed at the gates of the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and beyond. Speakers include a former Pentagon war planner, a Russian physicist-engineer joining virtually from St. Petersburg, a survivor of the Nagasaki bomb, and more (short bios follow). Program highlights include up-to-the-minute nuclear weapons reports at the gates of the Lab and key experts and advocates drawing important connections from the first atomic bomb used in war to the urgent nuclear challenges of our day.
TRI-VALLEY CAREs JOINS NATIONWIDE CALL IN SUPPORT OF TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: “THE ONLY PATH TO TRUE SAFETY AND SECURITY”
contact: Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, 925.255.3589 (c)
In the face of widespread concern about the threat of nuclear weapons, Tri-Valley CAREs’ members will join with organizations and leaders across the country to release a Statement on the Existential Threat of Nuclear Weapons and on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s West Gate on Vasco Road at 9 AM on Tuesday, June 7, 2022.
The statement (full text below) calls on the US and all nuclear-armed states to take immediate steps to engage the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It also calls on the media to include the Treaty in all coverage of nuclear weapons issues.
Today’s release in Livermore, CA is being replicated across the country in more than a hundred communities.
View OuR short documentary below celebrating Tri-Valley CAREs’ 30 years of creating peace, justice, and a healthy environment.
Got A Question or want to say hello?
Get In Touch
Tri-Valley CAREs | 4049 First Street, Suite 243 | Livermore, CA, 94551