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. |
Deadline Extended! Tri-Valley CAREs 2026 Youth Environmental Photo Contest
by Scott Yundt | March 10, 2026 | Blog, Environmental Justice | 0 Comments
All entries that meet the requirements are automatically entered into a pool of consideration for the prizes: The winner receives $750, the runner-up gets $250. Additionally, applicants from Tracy/West San Joaquin County are eligible for a separate $500 Community Award.
Community Meeting at Livermore Gardens – Full Cleanup. Full Transparency. Protecting Our Community’s Health.
by Mila Dovgal | March 10, 2026 | Environmental Justice | 0 Comments
Tri-Valley CAREs organized a community event on Thursday, February 26, at Livermore Gardens, an apartment community located at 5720 East Avenue in Livermore, less than a block from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Wild & Scenic Film Festival and Eco Fair Brings Community Together for Environmental Action
by Mila Dovgal | March 6, 2026 | Environmental Justice | 0 Comments
As an Honors Political Science student at Las Positas College, environmental protection is a topic that deeply interests me. This spring semester I am interning with Tri-Valley CAREs focusing on nuclear policy and environmental justice. On Friday, February 27, I joined board member Mary Perner to table at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival and Eco Fair at the Bankhead Theater in Livermore.
Tri-Valley CAREs Director and Former Director Featured on Podcast!
by Scott Yundt | March 5, 2026 | Nuclear Weapons | 0 Comments
Tri-Valley CAREs’ Executive Director Scott Yundt and our former Executive Director (current Senior Advisor) Marylia Kelley, were recently invited on the popular East Bay Yesterday podcast.
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
“I felt burning in my throat”: Preparing for nuclear war in Livermore
This episode features interviews with Marylia Kelley and Scott Yundt of Tri-Valley CARES, a watchdog group that’s been monitoring the Livermore Lab and advocating for community safety since 1983. Additionally, Sherry Pratt, a retired Lab employee and cancer survivor, joins the podcast to share her story.
Listen now to hear about the stunning history of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, the origins of the nuclear weapons complex, and why transparency around the Lab’s operations is shrinking while its budget is booming. Find the episode via Apple, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.


Our Executive Director Talks on the Peace and Justice Program on all Things Nuclear!
On February 13, Tri-Valley CAREs’ Executive Director, Scott Yundt, talked with Chris Nelson on the Peace and Justice Program on KZFR 90.1 FM on a variety of nuclear weapons topics!
Some of the topics discussed include: nuclear testing, the Sentinel ICBM program, the Doomsday Clock, New START’s expiration, and how to join the work of Tri-Valley CAREs and become involved in the movement!
Listen to the radio interview here
Save New START- Nuclear Arms Treaties Must Not Expire

Image Wikipedia.
On 5 February 2026, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) — the last remaining arms-control pact between the United States and Russia — is set to expire. Moscow offered to Washington to voluntarily extend it for a year, but Trump recently shrugged it off and told the NYT, “If it expires, it expires.” POTUS has also recently been in the headlines for saying that he doesn’t believe he is required to follow any laws except his own morality, accountable to no one.
I often think about the pre-election livestreamed conversation between Trump and Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX is now in charge of orbital dominance for the U.S. Space Force over planet Earth. When Trump expressed fear of nuclear disasters like Fukushima, Musk responded by defending nuclear energy, despite the fact that a country that has the ability to create and maintain nuclear-power facilities is technically capable of creating nuclear weapons, and despite the fact that we still do not have the technology to remediate (detoxify) nuclear waste.
Musk went even further, minimizing the danger of nuclear weapons themselves. During the conversation which took place August 11th, 2025 (just three days after the 80th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Nagasaki), at an hour and 17 minutes Musk said, “It’s like, you know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, but now they’re like full cities again. So it’s really not something that, you know, it’s not as scary as people think, basically. But let’s see.”
No. We do not ever want to see nuclear weapons used again. The basis of any valid moral system means doing everything you can to minimize the harm you cause to others, and making amends for the harm you do cause. Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy entire cities.
Those who survive the initial blast endure slow, excruciating deaths from radiation sickness, burns, cancers, and generational genetic damage— as did so many in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is nothing “not as scary as people think” about this.
Recently, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at SpaceX announced that Elon Musk’s Artificial Intelligence software GROK, from Musk’s private corporation xAI, will be integrated into Pentagon networks. Hegseth said:
“I demand and we demand that we arm our war fighters with overwhelming and lethal technology right now… This strategy will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus on investments, and demonstrate the execution approach needed, to ensure that we lead in military AI and that it grows more dominant into the future. In short, we will win this race.”
The only race being fueled in the planet’s current poly-crisis is the race to extinction, where there are only losers. The current push by the Department of War to accelerate AI-driven warfare alongside the development of new nuclear weapons eerily echoes the War Room scenes in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, where General “Buck” Turgidson treats mass murder and nuclear holocaust as a logistics problem and a branding opportunity. Reality is stranger than fiction when today’s enthusiasm for automation, speed, and “dominance” mimics satire like in Kubrick’s dark comedy. When machines shorten decision time and leaders prioritize advantage over restraint, the system begins to outrun moral judgment.
It was only a few Presidencies ago in 1985 when the U.S.A. under Reagan reached a joint agreement with Soviet leader Gorbachev at the Geneva Summit that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The dialogue implied that neither side would seek military superiority, with the intention to lower the risk of catastrophic conflict and to advance arms-control negotiations.
From survivors of nuclear tests on American soil — in New Mexico to Nevada to San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point Shipyard — to communities across the Pacific, from the Marshall Islands to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there are innocent victims who experienced the horror of nuclear weapons. Their testimonies exist. Their pain is documented. Their warnings are clear:
“On the roads I saw thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children fleeing the hell of Hiroshima. All of them, without exception, were covered with terrible wounds. Their eyebrows were completely burned off. On their faces and hands the skin was burned too and hung in strips. If many of them held their two arms stretched toward the sky, it was purely to try and calm the pain. These unfortunate creatures had their whole bodies swollen up, like drowned men who have been a long time in the water. Their eyelids were swollen so that their eyes were completely shut, while the skin all around was bright red. They were all blind…Most of them were naked to the waist…girls completely naked, women without a hair on their heads, an old woman with both arms dislocated, walking along with them hanging by her sides, the flesh, burnt as if on a grill, came away from the bones; blood was flowing abundantly and a yellow liquid like fat mingled with it…There wasn’t a single person who wasn’t wounded. A woman was lying on the ground, her head split open horizontally. The whole inside of her head was red, like a watermelon. In spite of this horrible wound the woman was still alive and crawled along the ground, leaving behind her a long red streak…”
— part of the statement of Mrs. Yoko Ota, a Japanese writer who put down this description shortly after the Bomb destroyed Hiroshima.
Survivors of nuclear weapons deserve to be listened to — not dismissed, not minimized, and not disregarded.
Nuclear weapons should never have been created, yet we live with their existence. If the New START treaty lapses, there will be no legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. A new arms race would not make anyone safer — but it would make weapons manufacturers wealthier. According to The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), “The private sector earned at least $42.5 billion from their nuclear weapons contracts in 2024 alone.”
Companies positioned to profit include defense contractors and tech-military hybrids, many of which already benefit from massive government contracts. Elon Musk’s companies, particularly SpaceX, stand to gain further through expanded “orbital infrastructure” and defense systems. Trump’s proposal for an impossible “Golden Dome” missile defense system would funnel billions more into contractors like SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — all while creating the illusion of safety rather than actual security — and leaving the working class impoverished and degraded. “Food, not bombs,” has been a persistent slogan among people who demonstrate for peace.
Letting New START expire would end more than a treaty — it would end the last remaining restraint on nuclear escalation. Secretary of War Hegseth announced that the U.S. military will “learn from failure” as a strategy — so wouldn’t it be efficient strategy to learn from the failures of dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and take the opportunity now to renew New START?
Contact your senators in writing or call your representatives at the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, and urge them to support extending the New START Treaty before it expires on 5 February 2026. Without it, there will be no legal limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, triggering a costly and dangerous arms race. We need immediate diplomacy to preserve New START, as nuclear arms control is a present and urgent challenge.
Leah Yananton is a teacher, filmmaker and writer with attention on biosphere dynamics, human connection, indigenous stewardship, nuclear disarmament, and the peace economy.
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The Doomsday Clock
The alarm is once again sounding, and it’s louder than ever. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock has reached 85 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight it’s ever been. For those who may not know, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nonprofit organization of elite scientists that publishes information on man-made threats, mainly nuclear weapons and climate change. Some of its early founders are Oppenheimer, Einstein, and Edward Teller, the “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb” and former director of Lawrence Livermore Lab.
The Doomsday Clock was designed in 1947 as a warning about how close humanity is to destroying itself. The clock reaching midnight symbolizes the end of the world, and every year the clock goes backwards or forwards, depending on the steps taken to prevent global catastrophe.
It isn’t simply a fear tactic; the Doomsday Clock is run by nuclear scientists and experts who do thorough research on whether the clock should move forward or backward. Unfortunately, the last time the clock went backwards was in 2010, and on Jan. 27, 2026, the clock went to 85 seconds before midnight, the closest to disaster humanity’s ever been since the creation of the doomsday clock.
This may seem like a far-off issue, but with a national nuclear weapons lab located right here in Livermore, this warning hits very close to home. One of the main reasons the clock has moved forward is the imminence of a nuclear arms race and war. With the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, New START, set to expire on Feb. 5, the likelihood of a nuclear arms race is higher than ever.
Livermore Lab plays a crucial role as one of the two locations in the country that develops nuclear warheads for the U.S stockpile. Efforts have been made by local watchdog groups, such as Tri-Valley CAREs, which works to increase the transparency of Livermore Lab’s weapons programs and generally to stop its development of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the lab is continuing to push forward in its development of new nuclear weapons designs for the U.S. stockpile, actively stoking the flames for another nuclear arms race.
As Livermore residents, we must do more to raise awareness about this emergency.
To learn more about the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, you can go to their website at thebulletin.org.
Now is the Time for Arms Control Agreements
The 2010 New Strategic Arms Control Treaty (New START), the last remaining arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, is set to expire Feb. 5, 2026, with little likelihood that any of its provisions will remain in force.
New START’s expiration marks the removal of quantitative caps on U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear forces for the first time in 35 years. Without the treaty, both countries can (and will) rapidly expand their arsenals, risking a new nuclear arms race with new technology, such as AI, between the largest arsenals, higher risk of nuclear conflict, and an enormous new wave of unnecessary spending on weapons.
The U.S. and Russia could agree to extend the treaty, but there has yet to be a formal agreement.
Now is the time for arms control agreements, especially with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) rapidly modernizing our nuclear stockpile. For example, right here at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), one of two locations in the U.S. that designs nuclear warheads, NNSA announced its proposal for “Enhanced Plutonium Facility Utilization”.
This proposal would significantly increase the allowable quantities of nuclear weapons-grade plutonium stored at LLNL and trucked in and out of LLNL, using roads such as the nearby I-580. With nuclear modernization driving this major increase in operations at LLNL, arms control treaties like New START are extremely crucial, putting limits on modernization.
With New START likely expiring, it is imperative that we speak up and press for arms control and future negotiations to reduce the nuclear dangers facing America and the world.
US conducts its ICBM test
Beyond Nuclear International November 9, 2025

Although not carrying a nuclear warhead, the test is still provocative, say Defuse Nuclear War and Tri-Valley CAREs
In the early morning hours of November 5th, Vandenberg Space Force Base launched a Minuteman III missile, the current intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) ground-based nuclear warhead delivery system in roughly 400 underground silos across five states that would target US adversaries in a full-scale nuclear war.
This ICBM test, which landed roughly 30 minutes later at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, is one of several that occur at Vandenburg every year — as they have for many decades. According to the Space Force Press Release, today’s test “validates” the “reliability, operational readiness, and accuracy of the ICBM system.” While these tests are launched without the nuclear warhead, the purpose is to practice nuclear war fighting and these tests are just as provocative to US adversaries as their nuclear-capable missile tests are to us.
This launch has an increased gravitas, as it comes hardly a week after the President used his social media platform to make a confusingly provocative announcement that, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.”

Exactly what was meant by the President’s vague statement has been debated in the days since. The President could not have been referencing other countries conducting explosive nuclear tests, because no nation except North Korea has conducted an explosive nuclear test this century.
The reference to “equal basis” with other “countries testing programs” has been thought to be in reference to nuclear weapon delivery system tests, which have been conducted by both Russia and China. But as today’s launch displays, these delivery system tests are nothing new, and the United States has long tested all of the delivery vehicles in its triad, including today’s ICBM test.
If the US were to resume explosive nuclear testing, Russia and others have already signaled they will follow. This reckless move would break a 30-year taboo that has kept the world safer. If the US resumes testing, it won’t just poison the air: it could destroy decades of progress toward preventing nuclear war.
Resuming explosive nuclear testing at this time would solely be a political decision, and it would be a very bad one. The human and environmental toll would be immense: radiation poisoning that seeps into lungs, water, and soil; children born with preventable cancers; ecosystems rendered unlivable. Testing again would repeat history’s worst mistakes on purpose.
US resumption of explosive nuclear testing would open the door to all of the other nuclear powered states conducting their own tests for both their existing stockpile warhead designs, and those that are in development, potentially opening the door to decades of testing and associated releases of radiation into the environment.
Influential right wing think tanks like The Heritage Foundation have come out in opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and have directly called for the U.S. to prepare to resume explosive nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). For example, in its January 2025 report, America Must Prepare to Test Nuclear Weapons, it claims that testing is necessary for the global image of America and would be a display of resolve.
Additionally, Project 2025 calls for the United States to “Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be directed to move to immediate test readiness…”
Officials from the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Labs who manage the existing nuclear weapons stockpile have expressed that there’s no military or technical justification for explosive nuclear testing at this time. The billions spent on the Labs’ supercomputer modeling, National Ignition Facility laser testing and multiple other simulation systems allow them to ensure that the stockpile will work as designed in a “use scenario.”

The US conducted 100 atmospheric and 828 underground explosive nuclear tests at NNSS between 1951 and 1992. The agency currently needs 36 months to get “ready” for a full-scale, underground, explosive nuclear test at NNSS.
In response to the President’s sudden announcement, on October 30th Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01) introduced the Renewing Efforts to Suspend Testing and Reinforce Arms Control Initiatives Now (RESTRAIN) Act to prohibit the United States from conducting explosive testing of nuclear weapons.
In her press release announcing the RESTRAIN Act, Representative Titus states, “Donald Trump has put his own ego and authoritarian ambitions above the health and safety of Nevadans. His announcement to resume nuclear testing in the United States goes against the arms control and nonproliferation treaties that the U.S. has spearheaded since the end of the Cold War, and will trigger new tests by Russia and China, reigniting an international arms race. It also puts Nevadans back in the crosshairs of toxic radiation and environmental destruction. With just 97 days until the only arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia expires, now should be the time to negotiate further arms-control agreements, not create mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert.”
The RESTRAIN Act amends U.S. Code to insert a prohibition of explosive nuclear testing while simultaneously preventing any funding from going toward the Trump Administration’s effort to conduct explosive nuclear tests.
Emma Claire Foley with the Defuse Nuclear War coalition said of today’s launch, “ICBM tests make war more likely and damage the place they supposedly protect. Scheduling this latest test on Election Day is an attempt to avoid public attention on a weapons system that experts agree makes the U.S. less safe.” She added, “ICBMs are a threat to the life and health of every single person in the United States and around the world. We ask that the upcoming ICBM test, all future scheduled tests, be canceled, and that the U.S. hold to its decades-long record of not conducting nuclear tests.”
ICBMs have been sold to the public as a guarantor of security, when in fact, they are an imminent threat. In the words of the late Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine, these weapons make “any conflict enormously more dangerous than it has to be” by increasing “the danger that any armed conflict between major nuclear states can escalate to all-out war.” ICBMs are on hair-trigger alert and, once launched, cannot be recalled, virtually guaranteeing a strike on the country that launches them. As long as ICBMs exist, we live with the constant risk that misinterpreted intelligence, human error, or a single rash decision could end civilization as we know it within an hour.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources. The U.S. has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernize” its ICBM force, which in practice means replacing the Minuteman III system that was tested today with an entirely new missile system – the Sentinel ICBM, and a new nuclear warhead design.
Thus far, the Sentinel ICBM program is now an astonishing 81% over budget and years behind schedule, not including the expense for its new W-87-1 nuclear warhead development being done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the new plutonium pits that will be built at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yet the U.S. Secretary of Defense has certified, through a “comprehensive, unbiased review” not shared with the public, that the program will proceed.
Scott Yundt, Executive Director of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs criticized the launch from Vandenburg, saying, “Test launches like today’s damage human communities and ecosystems. The Marshall Islands, already forced to bear the overwhelming environmental costs of U.S. nuclear weapons testing, are still used as a target test area.”
Yundt went on to say “When tensions among nuclear-armed states are high, each test launch carries an added risk. The U.S. military has acknowledged as much by pausing these launches at high points of tension in the war in Ukraine. The risk of nuclear escalation remains too high to introduce the possibility of misinterpretation of a test into the mix.”
“ICBM tests are damaging and provocative acts masquerading as business as usual. We condemn all wasteful, destructive tests that keep the world at the edge of nuclear destruction,” Yundt concluded.
TriValley CAREs watchdogs the nuclear weapons complex and its Lawrence Livermore Lab, one of two locations that develops all US nuclear bombs and warheads. Defuse Nuclear War is a coalition of more than 200 organizations and organizers dedicated to reducing the risk of nuclear war.
Headline photo: An unarmed U.S. Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test May 3, 2017, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Photo by US Department of Defense.
The opinions expressed in articles by outside contributors and published on the Beyond Nuclear International website, are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Beyond Nuclear. However, we try to offer a broad variety of viewpoints and perspectives as part of our mission “to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future.”
NNSA cancels public engagement efforts for increased plutonium use at LLNL
Jude Strzemp at Livermore Vine January 7, 2026
Jude Strzemp at Livermore Vine January 7, 2026
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration recently retracted its intention to publish a draft environmental report for public comment about increasing the amount of fissile material for research and development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
In addition to increasing the quantity of material, the project dubbed “Enhanced Plutonium Facility Utilization at LLNL” proposes increasing materials shipments and waste generation/shipments during operations, conducting security and infrastructure construction activities and upgrading the security categorization of the LLNL Plutonium Facility operations from security category III (plutonium metal limited to 400 grams) to security category II (plutonium metal limited to 2 kg) with added operational and security personnel, according to an NNSA presentation from a public scoping meeting about the project last January.
A draft of the SEIS was set to be published for public comment, according to a notice of intent by NNSA published Jan. 13, 2025 in the National Register.
But given recent regulatory changes, NNSA no longer plans to publish the draft environmental document for public comment or host any relevant public hearings, according to NNSA’s November notice reversing its previous intention. Additionally, the NNSA does not intend to wait 30 days after issuing a final environmental impact statement to publish its record of decision.
Sans publication of the draft SEIS and corresponding public hearings, the final statement is expected for publication during early 2026 along with the agency’s record of decision, the November notice states.
Among those expressing discontent with NNSA’s decision is Tri-Valley CAREs, a Livermore-based organization that monitors activities in the U.S. involving nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up, with particular attention to LLNL.
“This decision makes it clear that the Lab, and the National Nuclear Security Administration prefers that the Livermore community and the American public not engage in decision making about nuclear weapons development programs and the impacts on the communities that house them,” Tri-Valley CARES executive director Scott Yundt told Livermore Vine.
According to the Jan. 29, 2025 presentation, NNSA needs increased “space” for plutonium research and development due to new and evolving international security concerns.
The space is critical to the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program, a plan for sustaining and modernizing an effective nuclear weapons stockpile.
Additionally, LLNL’s plutonium facility research and development capability is underutilized, the presentation states.
However, the SEIS does not propose changes to the facility’s hazard categorization, nor its “administrative limit” as described in a 2023 LLNL site-wide report, the presentation adds.
“NNSA and LLNL are committed to safeguarding the health and welfare of their employees, neighbors and surrounding communities,” NNSA officials told Livermore Vine.
The lab also maintains practices that ensure its environmental stewardship, agency officials added.
Regulatory changes that led to the NNSA’s decision to no longer publish its draft SEIS or hold additional public hearings include an Executive Order Jan. 20, 2025 dubbed Unleashing American Energy and amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act’s implementing procedure.
According to the November notice, the regulatory update and new implementing procedures “significantly streamline NEPA processes by focusing on statutory requirements while retaining meaningful review of potential environmental impacts”.
Comments received during the public scoping period lasting from January of 2025 through March 3, 2025 have been considered and incorporated in the SEIS, NNSA officials told Livermore Vine.
The notice regarding LLNL was issued in tandem with an announcement that the NNSA will not publish a draft site-wide environmental impact statement for continued operation of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
“Without the ability to comment in writing or orally at a public hearing… there is little to no incentive for members of the public to even read the SEIS,” Yundt said of the altered public engagement.
Yundt also expressed concern about the potential dangers caused by increased transportation of plutonium to the lab, experimentation, accidents and waste removal.
“It will be used to develop a new generation of more technologically advanced nuclear weapons, contributing to an already escalating new nuclear arms race where the U.S. is a major driver and where a possible nuclear war could end human civilization as we know it,” he said.
Tri-Valley CAREs is set to hold its monthly meeting Jan. 15 regarding its response to NNSA’s announcement.
Meanwhile, NNSA initiated the second, five-year review of its environmental clean up at LLNL’s Site 300, a U.S. DOE experimental test facility for high explosives materials located in the Altamont Hills between Livermore and Tracy.
According to a Dec. 19, 2025 statement by LLNL officials, The review is set to summarize the nature and extent of contamination, the progress of cleanup and whether the remedy continues to protect human health and the environment.
The review is required by the Superfund law every five years when “contaminants at a site remain above levels that allow unrestricted access”, according to the statement.
The final review is set to be available online for a 60-day review period beginning April 13.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect details provided by NNSA officials following publication.
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Frustrated residents hold mock ‘funeral’ for Santa Susana Field Lab
The Acorn October 17, 2025 By Michelle Willer-Allred

Photos by MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers
Carrying candles and dressed in black, Simi Valley residents gathered at the Rancho Santa Susana Community Center on Oct. 7 to mourn what they called “the death of a full cleanup” at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
The vigil and mock funeral, complete with tombstones, came shortly before California regulators unveiled Boeing’s newly proposed soil cleanup plan, which community members object to because they say it leaves most toxins in place and abandons the decades-long promise of full restoration.
During the virtual public meeting Oct. 7 hosted by the Department of Toxic Substances Control, officials detailed Boeing’s Corrective Measures Study and DTSC’s Statement of Proposed Remedy for contaminated soil and soil vapor across Boeing-owned areas of the 2,850-acre site.
DTSC’s Thanne Berg, deputy director of site mitigation and restoration, said the plan, which stems from a 2022 Boeing settlement, aims to speed cleanup without reducing environmental protection, and uses tools such as excavation, treatment and preservation to limit contamination while safeguarding cultural and biological resources.
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Nuclear weapon opponents gather at Livermore Lab to declare: ‘Never Again!’
People’s World August 15, 2025 By Marilyn Bechtel

LIVERMORE, Calif.—Among advocates for abolition of nuclear weapons mobilizing worldwide on Aug. 6 to commemorate the 80th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were over 100 peace protesters who gathered outside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Westgate entrance to honor victims of the attack and to call for the weapons’ total abolition.
The theme of their gathering: 80 Years of Nuclear Devastation – Remember Our History, Reshape Our Future.
Livermore Lab, one of two locations designing every nuclear bomb and warhead in the U.S. arsenal, has played a central role in escalating the power and reach of these weapons since its founding in 1951.
Marylia Kelley, co-founder, executive director emerita and now senior advisor at Tri-Valley CAREs (Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), which monitors the Livermore nuclear weapons complex and works for the weapons’ worldwide abolition, began her remarks with a tribute to the now-dwindling role of hibakusha, survivors of the bombings who have devoted their lives to sharing their memories of the horrific attacks with the world.

Kelley highlighted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded last year to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, and recalled bombing survivors who have shared their stories at past commemorations at Livermore Lab, including Nagasaki survivor and retired Methodist Minister Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka and Hiroshima survivor Takashi Tanemori.
“In this period, we who are here, we who strive for peace and justice, must pick up the torch being passed to us by the last witnesses who experienced the atomic explosions,” Kelley said. “Today at Livermore and moving forward, we heed their plea of ‘Never again,’ and pledge to do everything in our power to make sure the world does not forget the human devastation caused by nuclear weapons and the absolute imperative of their elimination.”
With the Trump administration calling for an overall 58% boost in spending for “nuclear weapons activities,” Livermore Lab’s overall 2026 budget request is up by 16% over last year to nearly $3 billion, with nearly 90% earmarked for nuclear weapons development.
While the Lab has sought over the years to “mask its horrific weapons activities in the neutral language of science,” Kelley said, “we are here today to pull down that mask—follow the money!”
She held up a pie chart of the Lab’s 2026 budget request, citing weapons and components the Lab is developing:
- The W80-4 new warhead that will let pilots launch a sneak attack from thousands of miles away to strike a target anywhere in the world with an earth-hugging, radar-evading nuclear weapon;
- The new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCMN, to be placed on small U.S. Navy submarines that have not carried nuclear weapons for over three decades;
- The W87-1 warhead to top the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile which will be deployed in land-based silos throughout the Midwest.
- The W-93, a totally newly designed warhead to be deployed on the large nuclear-armed submarines that patrol the ocean.
- New plutonium bomb cores, or pits, to be installed on the W87-1 warhead.
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Press Releases
Livermore-Based Organization Travels to Nevada to Oppose Potential Resumption of Nuclear Testing
Livermore-Based Organization Travels to Nevada to Oppose Potential Resumption of Nuclear Testing
Nov 18, 2025 | Featured Press Release, Nuclear Weapons, Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Tuesday, November 18, 2025
For further information contact: tanvi@trivalleycares.org or ianzabarte@gmail.com
Las Vegas, Nevada – On November 21st, members of Livermore-based organization Tri-Valley CAREs will head to Peace Camp at the gates of the Nevada National Security Site to join experts and activists from around the country in a display of opposition to Trump’s recent statement suggesting the US will conduct nuclear tests.
The gathering will include the member groups of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of organizations of communities with nuclear weapons complexes that address issues about nuclear weapons production and environmental cleanup, of which Tri-Valley CAREs is a member. These experts from around the US, will join with Nevadans, including local tribal leaders, to oppose resumption of any explosive nuclear testing and will hold a site visit at Peace Camp to conduct educational sessions from 10 am to noon Pacific Time.
The site visit is in response to an October 29th Truth Social post from the President stating that, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.” The site visit is our effort to pursue peace.
The President could not have been referencing other countries conducting explosive nuclear tests, because no nation except North Korea has conducted an explosive nuclear test this century. His statement displayed the administration’s confusion on the topic, for example his instruction was directed at the “Department of War,” (aka Department of Defense) which is not responsible for conducting explosive nuclear weapons tests, a job that belongs to the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration. Additionally, the reference to other “countries testing programs” suggest that the “equal basis” appears to be in reference to conducting these delivery system tests by both Russia and China, but, as a matter of fact, we already conduct these tests.
The United States has observed the moratorium on nuclear testing for the past 33 years and is a signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), but has not ratified the treaty. However, the US was the sole “No” vote on the recent, annual UN resolution calling for the entry into force of the CTBT. During Trump’s first term, the US abstained on the vote. The U.S. government’s first ever “No” vote raises further troubling questions about U.S. intentions.
Principal Man Ian Zabarte of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, Secretary of State of the Western Shoshone National Council, and Secretary of the Nevada-based Native Community Action Council (NCAC) is a resident of Las Vegas who is concerned about the potential underground explosive nuclear testing at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). This concern centers on the impacts to the land, water and people. Underground testing contaminates underground aquifers. The NCAC, advocates for radiation awareness and risk mitigation for the Shoshone and all other Americans. Mr. Zabarte said, “we can’t hug our children with nuclear arms.”
The 1,054 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the US during the 20th Century left behind a legacy of radioactive poison and ecological destruction. Tanvi Kardile, President of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and Nuclear Policy Program Director at Tri-Valley CAREs, states that “from New Mexico to Nevada to the Marshall Islands, US nuclear tests spread radioactive fallout that killed thousands, contaminated land, oceans, and poses cascading health consequences for future generations. Resuming testing would knowingly recreate that suffering—sacrificing more lives, more communities, and more of our planet.”
ANA and NCAC stand alongside the state legislatures of Nevada who unanimously passed a joint resolution earlier this year urging the federal government to maintain the moratorium on the explosive nuclear testing, citing that over 72% of Nevada voters oppose the resumption of underground testing of explosive nuclear weapons.
U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and their western senate colleagues recently introduced legislation to ensure that no president can unilaterally resume explosive nuclear testing. The No Nuclear Testing Without Approval Act (S. 4099) would require Congressional approval to restart any explosive nuclear tests. The bill would require President Trump, or any future administration, to show Congress proof of engagement with the state in which the tests would be conducted.
“Nevadans are still dealing with the fallout of explosive nuclear testing conducted during the Cold War era and the radiation unleashed in our state. Donald Trump’s directive to resume nuclear testing is reckless, unnecessary, and dangerous,” said Senator Rosen. “Senator Cortez Masto and I are introducing this legislation to require congressional approval for any and all future explosive nuclear weapons testing. A decision of this magnitude should not be made lightly or on a whim by an erratic President.”
The ANA members, alongside the Shoshone, will be gathering at the US 95 Mercury Exit outside the gate of the NNSS to hold a Peace Camp and educational session with experts from 10 am to noon on Friday, Nov 21, 2025. They will be in Las Vegas holding a vigil at the Federal Building at 4:30 pm on Saturday November 22, 2025. Members of ANA will be available for comment about the entire nuclear weapons complex poisoning communities across America.
Contacts:
Ian Zabarte, Secretary of the Native Community Action Council: (702) 203-8816 or ianzabarte@gmail.com
Tanvi Kardile, President of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, and Nuclear Policy Program Director at Tri-Valley CAREs: (925) 549-0910 or tanvi@trivalleycares.org
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U.S. Tests ICBM Nuclear Warhead Delivery System from CA After Trump Amps Up Nuclear Testing Rhetoric
U.S. Tests ICBM Nuclear Warhead Delivery System from CA After Trump Amps Up Nuclear Testing Rhetoric
Nov 5, 2025 | Featured Press Release, Nuclear Weapons, Press Releases
by Emma Claire Foley and Scott Yundt | Nov 4, 2025 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Tuesday, November 5, 2024
For further information, contact: info@defusenuclearwar.org or scott@trivalleycares.org
In the early morning hours of November 5th, Vandenberg Space Force Base launched a Minuteman III missile, the current intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) ground-based nuclear warhead delivery system in roughly 400 underground silos across five states that would target US adversaries in a full-scale nuclear war.
This ICBM test, which landed roughly 30 minutes later at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, is one of several that occur at Vandenburg every year – as they have for many decades. According to the Space Force Press Release, today’s test “validates” the “reliability, operational readiness, and accuracy of the ICBM system.” While these tests are launched without the nuclear warhead, the purpose is to practice nuclear war fighting and these tests are just as provocative to US adversaries as their nuclear-capable missile tests are to us.
This launch has an increased gravitas, as it comes hardly a week after the President used his social media platform to make a confusingly provocative announcement that, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.”
Exactly what was meant by the President’s vague statement has been debated in the days since. The President could not have been referencing other countries conducting explosive nuclear tests, because no nation except North Korea has conducted an explosive nuclear test this century.
The reference to “equal basis” with other “countries testing programs” has been thought to be in reference to nuclear weapon delivery system tests, which have been conducted by both Russia and China. But as today’s launch displays, these delivery system tests are nothing new, and the United States has long tested all of the delivery vehicles in its triad, including today’s ICBM test.
If the US were to resume explosive nuclear testing, Russia and others have already signaled they will follow. This reckless move would break a 30-year taboo that has kept the world safer. If the US resumes testing, it won’t just poison the air: it could destroy decades of progress toward preventing nuclear war.
Resuming explosive nuclear testing at this time would solely be a political decision, and it would be a very bad one. The human and environmental toll would be immense: radiation poisoning that seeps into lungs, water, and soil; children born with preventable cancers; ecosystems rendered unlivable. Testing again would repeat history’s worst mistakes on purpose.
US resumption of explosive nuclear testing would open the door to all of the other nuclear powered states conducting their own tests for both their existing stockpile warhead designs, and those that are in development, potentially opening the door to decades of testing and associated releases of radiation into the environment.
Influential right wing think tanks like The Heritage Foundation have come out in opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and have directly called for the U.S. to prepare to resume explosive nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). For example, in its January 2025 report, America Must Prepare to Test Nuclear Weapons, it claims that testing is necessary for the global image of America and would be a display of resolve.
Additionally, Project 2025 calls for the United States to “Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be directed to move to immediate test readiness…”
Officials from the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Labs who manage the existing nuclear weapons stockpile have expressed that there’s no military or technical justification for explosive nuclear testing at this time. The billions spent on the Labs’ supercomputer modeling, National Ignition Facility laser testing and multiple other simulation systems allow them to ensure that the stockpile will work as designed in a “use scenario.”
The US conducted 100 atmospheric and 828 underground explosive nuclear tests at NNSS between 1951 and 1992. The agency currently needs 36 months to get “ready” for a full-scale, underground, explosive nuclear test at NNSS.
In response to the President’s sudden announcement, on October 30th Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01) introduced the Renewing Efforts to Suspend Testing and Reinforce Arms Control Initiatives Now (RESTRAIN) Act to prohibit the United States from conducting explosive testing of nuclear weapons.
In her press release announcing the RESTRAIN Act, Representative Titus states, “Donald Trump has put his own ego and authoritarian ambitions above the health and safety of Nevadans. His announcement to resume nuclear testing in the United States goes against the arms control and nonproliferation treaties that the U.S. has spearheaded since the end of the Cold War, and will trigger new tests by Russia and China, reigniting an international arms race. It also puts Nevadans back in the crosshairs of toxic radiation and environmental destruction. With just 97 days until the only arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia expires, now should be the time to negotiate further arms-control agreements, not create mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert.”
The RESTRAIN Act amends U.S. Code to insert a prohibition of explosive nuclear testing while simultaneously preventing any funding from going toward the Trump Administration’s effort to conduct explosive nuclear tests.
Emma Claire Foley with the Defuse Nuclear War coalition said of today’s launch, “ICBM tests make war more likely and damage the place they supposedly protect. Scheduling this latest test on Election Day is an attempt to avoid public attention on a weapons system that experts agree makes the U.S. less safe.” She added, “ICBMs are a threat to the life and health of every single person in the United States and around the world. We ask that the upcoming ICBM test, all future scheduled tests, be canceled, and that the U.S. hold to its decades-long record of not conducting nuclear tests.”
ICBMs have been sold to the public as a guarantor of security, when in fact, they are an imminent threat. In the words of the late Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine, these weapons make “any conflict enormously more dangerous than it has to be” by increasing “the danger that any armed conflict between major nuclear states can escalate to all-out war.” ICBMs are on hair-trigger alert and, once launched, cannot be recalled, virtually guaranteeing a strike on the country that launches them. As long as ICBMs exist, we live with the constant risk that misinterpreted intelligence, human error, or a single rash decision could end civilization as we know it within an hour.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources. The U.S. has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernize” its ICBM force, which in practice means replacing the Minuteman III system that was tested today with an entirely new missile system – the Sentinel ICBM, and a new nuclear warhead design.
Thus far, the Sentinel ICBM program is now an astonishing 81% over budget and years behind schedule, not including the expense for its new W-87-1 nuclear warhead development being done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the new plutonium pits that will be built at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yet the U.S. Secretary of Defense has certified, through a “comprehensive, unbiased review” not shared with the public, that the program will proceed.
Scott Yundt, Executive Director of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs criticized today’s launch from Vandenburg, saying, “Test launches like today’s damage human communities and ecosystems. The Marshall Islands, already forced to bear the overwhelming environmental costs of U.S. nuclear weapons testing, are still used as a target test area.”
Yundt went on to say “When tensions among nuclear-armed states are high, each test launch carries an added risk. The U.S. military has acknowledged as much by pausing these launches at high points of tension in the war in Ukraine. The risk of nuclear escalation remains too high to introduce the possibility of misinterpretation of a test into the mix.”
“ICBM tests are damaging and provocative acts masquerading as business as usual. We condemn all wasteful, destructive tests that keep the world at the edge of nuclear destruction,” Yundt concluded.
Sources:
Emma Claire Foley can be contacted at emmaclaire@rootsaction.org
Scott Yundt can be contacted at scott@trivalleycares.org or at 415-990-2070.
Additional Resources
- Activists attended the launch on November 5, 2024 and captured it on film.
- Click here for more of our writing about the potential impacts of resuming explosive nuclear testing. Click here for more about the New START treaty expiration on February 5, 2026.
[1] See Arms Control Association’s 2019 White Paper, “U.S. Claims of Illegal Russian Nuclear Testing: Myths, Realities, and Next Steps, for more details and analysis.
[2] See this State Dept. Fact Sheet on the Scope of the CTBT: https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/212166.htm and this State Dept. Fact Sheet on P-5 Statements on Scope: https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/173945.htm )
Note for journalists:
A limited number of advance interviews are available with speakers and/or event organizers. Email scott@trivalleycares.org or any of the contacts listed at the top of the advisory.
Event flyer, simulcast link, and more information can be found at www.trivalleycares.org
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“Remember our History, Reshape our Future” – Nonviolent Rally & Action at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab
On the 80th Anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, We Will Join the Last Witnesses to Carry Forward Their Urgent Plea for a Nuclear Weapons Free World… “Never Again”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 1, 2025
Media Contacts:
Marylia Kelley and Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA; cell, 925-255-3589, marylia@trivalleycares.org, scott@trivalleycares.org
Grace Morizawa, Asian Americans for Peace and Justice, East Bay; cell, 510-289-1285, gmorizawa@yahoo.com
Dr. Bob Gould, SF Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility; 415-408-8806, rmgould1@yahoo.com
WHAT: “80 Years of Nuclear Devastation: Remember Our History, Reshape Our Future” features a rally, symbolic die-in, and Japanese Bon Dance, with an opportunity for those who choose to peaceably risk arrest at the end of the program. The event will be held in front of the West Gate at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab. The 80th anniversary rally highlights include a nuclear engineer (PhD., UC Berkeley) on the U.S. decision to use atomic weapons, a Methodist minister’s reflections on the Japanese experience, and a nuclear analyst’s connections between the first atomic bomb used in war and the urgent nuclear challenges of today (bios follow).
WHEN: Hiroshima Day, Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 9am (90-minute program)
WHERE: At the West Gate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located on Vasco Road and West Gate Drive in Livermore, CA.
To read more CLICK HERE!
Lawsuit Compels Nationwide Public Review of Plutonium Bomb Core Production
Ben Cunningham, Esquire, SCELP, 843-527-0078, ben@scelp.org
Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, 843-838-1171, GullGeeCo@aol.com
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch, 803-834-3084, tomclements329@cs.com
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, scott@trivalleycares.org
AIKEN, S.C. — Today the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy, published a formal Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to complete a nationwide “programmatic environmental impact statement” on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores. Pits are the essential radioactive triggers of modern nuclear weapons. The NNSA is aggressively seeking their expanded production for new-design nuclear weapons for the new nuclear arms race.
The South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) successfully represented the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment in a legal challenge to NNSA’s attempt to improperly jump start dual site pit production. On September 30, 2024, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the NNSA had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with its plan to produce at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
To read more CLICK HERE!
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Historic Settlement Reached in NEPA Lawsuit Over Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production
Jan 22, 2025 | Environmental Justice, New Bomb Plants, Nuclear Weapons, Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 17, 2025
Media Contacts:
Ben Cunningham, Esquire, SCELP, 843-527-0078, ben@scelp.org
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch, 803-834-3084, tomclements329@cs.com
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, scott@trivalleycares.org
Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, 843-838-1171, GullGeeCo@aol.com
AIKEN, S.C. — Nonprofit public interest groups have reached an historic settlement agreement with the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This is the successful result of a lawsuit against NNSA over its failure to complete a programmatic environmental impact statement on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This agreement and a joint motion to dismiss have been submitted to Judge Mary Lewis Geiger of the Federal District of South Carolina. Should the Court enter the dismissal and retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement, the agreement will go into effect.
This lawsuit was first filed in June 2021 by co-plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch of Columbia, SC; Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, NM; Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), based in Livermore, CA; and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition of coastal Georgia. NNSA promptly moved to have the case dismissed which in February 2023 Judge Lewis rejected, calling her decision “not a close call.”
In September 2024, Judge Lewis ruled that DOE and NNSA had violated NEPA by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with their plan to produce plutonium pits, a critical component of nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and, for the first time ever, at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The Court found that the plan’s purpose had fundamentally changed from NNSA’s earlier analyses which had not considered simultaneous pit production at two sites. Judge Lewis directed the Defendants and Plaintiffs to prepare a joint proposal for an appropriate remedy which fostered additional negotiations.
To read more CLICK HERE!
All Press Releases CLICK HERE!
Government Quietly Announces Dangerous New Plan for More Plutonium at Livermore Lab to Increase its Nuclear Weapons Activities
Jan 14, 2025
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced its proposal yesterday for “Enhanced Plutonium Facility Utilization” at its Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The proposed plan would significantly increase the allowable quantities of nuclear weapons-grade plutonium stored at the Livermore Lab. It would likewise raise the allowable quantities to be trucked in and out of the Lab, using roads and freeways such as the nearby I-580. Further, according to the Federal Register Notice, this sudden change would enable the Lab to conduct riskier operations with plutonium above what is currently authorized. The new plan could also allow increases of other nuclear materials in addition to plutonium.
The announcement comes just 12 months after the Lab finalized a Record of Decision, concluding a lengthy public process on its Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for “Continued Operations.” This document was intended to disclose and analyze the environmental impacts of the Lab’s ongoing activities over at least the next decade. That document described some increase in plutonium related activities and a small increase in plutonium limits, but purported to keep limits far below the “bomb-usable quantities” that would be allowed under the newly proposed “enhancement.”
Tri- Valley CAREs and others repeatedly asked in public comment sessions during the year-long SWEIS process if it was contemplated that the Security Category limits at Livermore Lab would change over the next decade to allow for increased quantities of plutonium and a return to the riskier kinds of nuclear weapons activities that used to occur there during the height of the Cold War. The answer given to Tri-Valley CAREs and the public was a flat ‘no’.
The SWEIS analysis and its public process should have included this plan, instead of it being relegated to a new stand-alone environmental document. This is exhausting for members of the public who are concerned about the Lab’s activities, forcing them to again engage and grapple with the cumulative environmental impacts of the Lab’s actions so soon.
To read more CLICK HERE!
All Press Releases CLICK HERE!
U.S. ICBM Test Launch Set for Election Day from California, Activists Denounce It As ‘Wasteful’ and ‘Dangerous’
by and Scott Yundt | Nov 4, 2024 | Environmental Justice, Nuclear Weapons, Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Monday, November 4, 2024
For further information, contact: info@defusenuclearwar.org
At 11:45 pm on Election Day, Nov. 5, activists from around the state will gather near Vandenberg Space Force Base to witness and protest the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). During such tests, which occur several times a year, the weapons are launched from the Vandenberg base near Lompoc, Calif., and aimed at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Activists with the Defuse Nuclear War coalition issued the following statement on Saturday:
We condemn these launches in the strongest possible terms as a wasteful, dangerous step backward for peace. Scheduling this latest test on Election Day is a clear attempt to avoid public scrutiny of these tests, even as the continued existence of ICBMs is a profound threat to the life and security of every single person in the United States and around the world. We ask that the upcoming ICBM test, and all future scheduled tests, be canceled.
ICBMs have been sold to the public as a guarantor of security. In reality, they are an imminent threat to public security. In the words of the late Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine, these weapons make “any conflict enormously more dangerous than it has to be” by increasing “the danger that any armed conflict between major nuclear states can escalate to all-out war.” ICBMs are on hair-trigger alert and, once launched, cannot be recalled, virtually guaranteeing a strike on the country that launches them. As long as ICBMs exist, we live with the constant risk that misinterpreted intelligence, human error, or a single rash decision could end civilization as we know it within an hour.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources. The U.S. has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernize” its ICBM force, which in practice means replacing the entire system. The ICBM program is now an astonishing 81% over budget and years behind schedule, not including the expense for its new W-87-1 nuclear warhead development being done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the new plutonium pits that will built at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yet the U.S. Secretary of Defense has certified, through a “comprehensive, unbiased review” not shared with the public, that the program will proceed.
To read more CLICK HERE!
All Press Releases CLICK HERE!
View OuR short documentary below celebrating Tri-Valley CAREs’ 30 years of creating peace, justice, and a healthy environment.


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