The Tri-Valley CAREs board members and staff recently got together to think strategically, review our progress on last year’s priorities, and choose the group’s program priorities for the coming year.
After reviewing the past year we looked carefully at strategic opportunities and potential threats that we anticipate in the coming year, balanced against Tri-Valley CAREs’ current strengths and weaknesses. At the conclusion of the process we voted on which program areas should rise to the top for the coming 12 months.
These are the strategic program priorities that garnered the most votes:
1st Place: STOP NEW NUCLEAR BOMBS AND BOMB PLANTS (TIE)
This is about preventing the development of new and modified nuclear weapons – and the new factories that would produce them. Under this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will address Livermore Lab’s warhead development programs, with a particular focus on the novel-design W87-1 and other other new warheads. This priority involves a parallel focus on expanded plutonium bomb core production, including Livermore Lab’s role. Through this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will influence national nuclear policy and the federal budget process.
1st Place: REMEDY AND PREVENT ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE; INVOLVE FENCELINE COMMUNITIES (TIE)
This is about achieving a publicly accepted, comprehensive cleanup under the Superfund law of toxic and radioactive contamination from past activities at the Livermore Lab Main Site and Site 300. This priority also seeks to proactively prevent pollution from Livermore Lab’s current and proposed programs, including by addressing open-air bomb blasts at Site 300 and Livermore Lab Main Site’s hazardous waste permit revisions. This priority also addresses projects that may be revealed in Livermore Lab’s upcoming Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement. Through this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will increase public involvement in environmental decision-making.
3rd Place: INVESTIGATE LIVERMORE LAB FACILITIES AND PUBLICIZE FINDINGS
This is about scrutinizing key nuclear facilities at Livermore Lab. With this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will use the Freedom of Information Act and other community right-to-know laws alongside other means to monitor Livermore Lab activities. Through this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will exercise its watchdog capabilities and increase public knowledge of the connection between weapons activities and environmental contamination.
4th Place: PROMOTE GLOBAL NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, NON-PROLIFERATION AND THE RULE OF LAW.
This is about contributing to the global abolition of nuclear weapons. Under this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will focus on the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force early this year. This priority also addresses our participation as a non-governmental organization (NGO) at the UN in proceedings such as the Review Conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other similar instruments of international and humanitarian law.
5th Place: SAFEGUARD WORKER HEALTH AND SAFETY
This is about justice for Livermore Lab, and Sandia, Livermore, workers exposed to toxic and radioactive materials. Through this priority, Tri-Valley CAREs will assist nuclear workers, and families of deceased workers, obtain compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). With this priority, we will also act to preserve and enhance worker health and safety measures, including by interacting with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and other oversight institutions.
CLICK HERE to read our annual progress report, “Looking Back; Providing a Framework to Move Forward”
