Tri-Valley CAREs’s Comments on Scoping of Plutonium Pit Production Plan Programmatic Environmental Review
After several years of litigation under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Tri-Valley CAREs and our co-plaintiffs (Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch, and the Gullah Geechee Sea Island Coalition) were victorious in winning a full, “programmatic” environmental impact statement (PEIS) covering the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to build new plutonium pits for a new generation of nuclear weapons designs.
The first step was the release of a Notice of Intent in the Federal Register by the NNSA. This opened the “scoping comment period,” the first opportunity for the public to comment with alternatives, questions to answer and opinions on the scope of what should be analyzed in the Draft PEIS on plutonium pits. This included a national virtual public hearing.
After conducting several public comment training sessions and engaging our membership to participate with oral and written comments, our staff and interns got busy preparing Tri-Valley CAREs’ own detailed scoping comment, which called on the NNSA to include analysis of some specific reasonable alternatives and local environmental and health impacts at Livermore Lab.
To read Tri-Valley CAREs’s comment, click here!
More Background:
In 2020 Congress approved new plutonium pit production at the rate of up to 80-120 new pits every year. The NNSA decided that the physical production of plutonium pits should occur in a refurbished building at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and in a never-used, repurposed building at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Additionally, Livermore Lab is supporting this program on many fronts, as initial pits produced at LANL are for Livermore’s new W87-1 warhead design.
Next Steps for Involvement:
The DOE will now begin preparing a lengthy Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Draft PEIS) that should integrate and respond to the public comments and include detailed analyses of the impacts on the environment and potential risks of this plan at all of the sites, including Livermore Lab.
Following the release of the Draft PEIS, there will be an in-person public hearing in Livermore, Washington DC, Santa Fe, Aitken, and Kansas City, as well as another opportunity to submit written comments on the full Draft PEIS. The department estimates the Draft PEIS will be released in February/March of 2026.
To view sample talking points and other materials compiled for the scoping comment period, click here!