Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
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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
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.
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
Peace activists rally at Livermore Laboratory for nuclear disarmament, ahead of 78th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima
August 3, 2023
Source: The Independent
Written by: Marylia Kelley
Interviews with Scott Yundt and Marylia Kelley
Click the link below to go to the Audio Player
Livermore Lab
June 15, 2023
Source: The Independent
Written by: Raiza Marciscano
Livermore Lab is one of two locations that designs every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. Much of the weapons work takes place at the Livermore Lab Main Site, located along Vasco Road and East Avenue. More than 90,000 people live in Livermore and nearly 8 million live in the 50-mile radius around the Lab and could be affected by an accident onsite.
Press Releases
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!
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.”
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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.
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
