Tri-Valley CAREs Press Releases:   Most Recent  •  2021 - 2016  •  2015 - 2012  •  2011 and earlier

For media inquiries contact: Marylia Kelley, (925) 443-7148, [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 26, 2021


Media Contacts:

Leslie Lenhardt, South Carolina Environmental Law Project, (843) 527-0078, [email protected]

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, (925) 255-3589, [email protected]

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in S. Carolina, (803) 834-3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, (505) 989-7342, c. (505) 470-3154, [email protected]

Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition [email protected]



Groups Fire Back at Feds’ Move to Dismiss Plutonium Pit Lawsuit

Federal agencies continue to reject a full review of the public safety and environmental risks of producing nuclear bomb cores across multiple cross-country sites

AIKEN, S.C. — Public interest groups shot back at the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s attempt to suppress a lawsuit seeking a comprehensive environmental review of the agencies’ plans to produce large quantities of nuclear bomb cores, or plutonium pits, at DOE sites in New Mexico and South Carolina.

Attorneys for Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch, Tom Clements, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition filed a response (download PDF) to the motion to dismiss the case before the U.S. District Court on Monday.

The Federal Defendants sought dismissal on an alleged lack of constitutional standing and an assertion the Congressional mandate to increase production to at least 80 pits per year by 2030 means the agencies have no discretion as to how to implement the mandate.

However, according to Monday’s filing, DOE and NNSA’s pit production plan—which would involve extensive processing, handling and transportation of extremely hazardous and radioactive materials—presents a real and imminent harm to the plaintiffs and to frontline communities surrounding the production sites. Further, Congress’s 80-pit mandate does not obviate the need and demand for a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, or PEIS, required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

“The Federal Defendants have mischaracterized the legal standing requirements for bringing a claim under NEPA, ignored clear harms to the Plaintiffs’ interests that the government has already conceded will occur, and have challenged a claim that Plaintiffs did not bring; namely, that the court has jurisdiction to rule on the validity of a Congressional mandate. Their arguments are without merit,” said Leslie Lenhardt of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, a nonprofit law firm representing the multi-state coalition.

Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch in Columbia, SC, said the arguments filed for DOE by Department of Justice lawyers widely miss the mark and the court should allow the case to proceed.

“We are fighting a central and erroneous claim repeated many times by DOJ in the filing—that we are challenging a congressional mandate concerning the number of pits to be produced. It almost appears that DOJ lawyers lacked sound arguments to challenge our lawsuit and simply made up the assertion that we were challenging the number of pits to be produced, which is obviously not the case,” Clements said.

The groups sued DOE and NNSA in late June over the agencies’ failure to take the necessary “hard look” at their plans to more than quadruple the production of plutonium pits and split their production between the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Instead of undertaking a new review, NNSA is relying on a supplemental analysis of an outdated PEIS completed more than a decade ago, along with a separate standalone review done solely for the Savannah River Site.

“What happens at the Savannah River Site will not remain there. In fact, the environmental pollution will find its way into the watershed that travels to the coast. This is the same coastal area that we are working to protect via 30 x 30 and resiliency planning in South Carolina. So, it is antithetical to that effort and counterproductive to seek to restore and protect one area of South Carolina while allowing an environmentally harmful project such as this to go forth in another area,” Queen Quet, founder of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, said.

Quet continued, “The lack of PEIS that allows all people an opportunity to comment on the actual impacts to our cultural communities shows that there has been no informed consent granted by those whose land, waterways, health and overall quality of life will be negatively impacted by these plutonium pits being created. What is use of making land more resilient if you harm the health of the people? We need to invest in the sustainability of cultural heritage communities such as the Gullah/Geechee Nation by sustaining the environmental health of the Carolinas. We are already battling for that. We do not need this battle to compound the war of environmental injustice!”

Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented, “The government has yet to explain to American taxpayers why it will spend more than $50 billion to build new plutonium pit bomb cores for new-design nuclear weapons when we already have thousands of existing pits proven to be reliable for a century or more. This has nothing to do with maintaining the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile and everything to do with building up a new nuclear arms race that will threaten the entire world.”

Moreover, the plan involves unexamined hazardous activities at additional sites alongside serious transportation and waste issues. Unanalyzed impacts of pit production and associated waste disposal would also involve numerous other sites across the country, including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Kansas City Plant.

The new plutonium pits are first intended for the W87-1, a controversial new nuclear warhead under development at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California and slated to go on a missile named the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.

Marylia Kelley, executive director of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs stated, “My organization has obtained government documents disclosing that expanded pit production will introduce new plutonium dangers in my community – and the NNSA’s failure to produce a program wide review leaves those risks unexamined and unmitigated. We have proof that plutonium will be sent through multiple states to Livermore for ‘materials testing’ in support of pit production. Initial funding for new plutonium glove boxes at LLNL is in the FY22 budget request. Moreover, the government has left unexamined the relationship between the W87-1 under development at LLNL and the elective decision to change the pit design in this warhead.”

Kelley concluded, “I’m here to say my community matters. We have a right to know what risks we are being asked to bear. That right is central to NEPA, and the government has no leave to ignore it. I am confident that the Court will reject the government’s specious claims.”

# # #

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.



Media Advisory; For Immediate Release: August 3, 2021

Hybrid Live/Virtual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Rally and March
at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab

Fri., Aug. 6, 9:00 am PDT (live/pre-recorded); Mon., Aug. 9, 9:00 am PDT (rebroadcast)

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: “Nuclear Weapons & Climate Change: Shine a Light, Stop the Hate, Lower the Heat,” annual rally and protest at the gates of Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory. This year, the first portion of the rally will be held in person and live-streamed. The remainder of the program will be pre-recorded and broadcast online. Program highlights include up-to-the-minute reports at the gates of the Lab, music, a virtual march, and more!

WHEN: Hiroshima Day, Friday August 6, the live portion of the program, which will be live-streamed, will start at 9:00 am and conclude with a symbolic “Peace Wave” at approximately 9:35 am. The pre-recorded portion of the program, including footage of the 2019 march to the gates of the Lab and die-in, will immediately follow, ending at 10: 45 am. Nagasaki Day, Monday August 9, the entire program will be rebroadcast online, from 9:00 am – 10:45 am.

WHERE: The live, in person portion of the August 6 rally will take place at the West Gate of the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory on South Vasco Road and Westgate Avenue in Livermore. The August 6 program will be broadcast at https://youtu.be/w254eN84S_s The entire program will be rebroadcast on August 9 at https://youtu.be/OB57nQAcSWQ

WHO: Our live, in person Livermore rally speakers include Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, a Nagasaki A-bomb survivor, Marylia Kelley, with Tri-Valley CAREs, and international law expert John Burroughs. Our pre-recorded keynote speaker is famed Pentagon planner and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Other speakers are Tsukuru Fors, Marcina Langrine and Benetick Kabua Maddison, young Marshallese activists, and Nell Myhand, with the California Poor People’s Campaign. (Photos and short bios for all speakers and musicians follow the text of this release.)

WHY: Nuclear weapons were worse than worthless in preventing and containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, according to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, in 2020, the nine nuclear-armed states spent $72.6 billion on nuclear weapons, with the U.S. leading the pack at $37.4 billion, or $70,881 per minute!

We celebrated entry-into-force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on January 22, 2021. The TPNW prohibits the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons for those countries that have signed and ratified it, but the nuclear-armed states boycotted the negotiations and continue to reject the new treaty.

Just six days later, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced it is keeping the hands of its Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest we’ve ever been to global annihilation, stating: “By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war—an ever-present danger over the last 75 years—increased in 2020.”

The Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab is central to the escalating the nuclear dangers we face. The Livermore Lab is one of two labs that has designed and continues to design and develop all U.S. nuclear warheads. More than eighty-five percent of the Lab’s funding from the Dept. of Energy in the coming year is slated for nuclear weapons activities.

What we need instead is unprecedented worldwide cooperation to eradicate the Coronavirus and prepare for future pandemics, and to address a cascade of converging crises including climate change, poverty, racism, and rising authoritarian nationalisms.

Rally speakers will illuminate these connections to help the public understand why action is needed now to change the course of national policy – and history, and to demand anew the global abolition of nuclear weapons and the redirection of resources to meet human needs and protect the environment.

MORE: On July 27, 2021, the Berkeley City Council unanimously adopted a resolution Calling on the U.S. to Negotiate the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. In the resolution, “[T]he City of Berkeley calls on the President and Congress to redirect funds currently allocated to nuclear weapons and unwarranted military spending to address decades of inaction on infrastructure, poverty, the growing climate crisis, and rising inequality.” The City of Berkeley also “calls on the United States government to reverse its opposition to the 2021 TPNW and to welcome the Treaty as a positive step towards negotiation of a comprehensive agreement on the achievement and permanent maintenance of a world free of nuclear weapons, in conformity with requirements of international law preceding the TPNW by decades.” (City Council: 07-27-2021 - Regular Meeting Agenda - City of Berkeley, CA, consent calendar, item 26.)

Bios and Photos for Livermore Rally speakers and musicians follow.

-- Interviews can be arranged via the contacts at the top of this media advisory --



For immediate release, July 12, 2021
For more information, contact Marylia Kelley, ANA Board President, [email protected], 925.255.3589


National Network of Groups at Contaminated Nuclear Weapons Sites Calls
for New Leadership to Head Environmental Management at
U.S. Department of Energy

Today, more than thirty nuclear watchdog organizations sent an urgent letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Janet Granholm and the White House, noting that she and the Biden administration face a critical decision that will have far-reaching environmental justice implications: the nomination of the Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM).

The letter cites the “inadequate cleanup, missed milestones, and broken cleanup promises” that have characterized EM in recent years and catalyzed today’s call for “big and bold action… from new EM leadership.”

The letter is from the national Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a unique, thirty-four year old network whose member groups represent tens of thousands of community residents living at and near the fence lines of highly-contaminated DOE sites across the country.

The ANA letter states: “…DOE sites have more than $500 billion in environmental liability (about seven times more than the Department of Defense).

And it points out: “That liability is increasing, an indication of the inadequacy of past cleanup practices. Failure to achieve genuine cleanup will cause incalculable health impacts to workers and the public - and significant long-term damage to environmental justice communities.”

Marylia Kelley, ANA Board President, summed up the network’s demands: “Business as usual at EM will not get the job done!” Kelley continued, “As one measure of the priority the Biden administration puts on public health and environmental justice, the nominee for EM-1 should be someone with a proven commitment to Environmental Justice in cleanup of DOE sites.”

# # #

A copy of the ANA letter follows…


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 29, 2021


Media Contacts:

Leslie Lenhardt, South Carolina Environmental Law Project, (843) 527-0078, [email protected]

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, (925) 255-3589, [email protected]

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in S. Carolina, (803) 834-3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, (505) 989-7342, c. (505) 470-3154, [email protected]

John Pope, ReThink Media, (717) 386-9270, [email protected]



Lawsuit Filed Against Biden Administration Over Nuclear Bomb Core Production Plans

Federal agencies’ refusal to review cross-country expansion of plutonium pit production violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act, groups say.

AIKEN, S.C. – Today, a coalition of community and public interest groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This legal action is prompted by the agencies’ failure to take the “hard look” required by the National Environmental Policy Act at their plans to more than triple the production of plutonium pits and split their production between the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

A plutonium pit is the heart and trigger of a nuclear bomb. Production involves the extensive processing and handling of extremely hazardous and radioactive materials. In 2018, the federal government called for producing at least 80 pits per year by 2030, including 30 or more at Los Alamos and 50 or more at the Savannah River Site. The new plutonium pits are intended for the W87-1, a controversial new warhead under development at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Its novel design will necessitate new pits and require all of the cores manufactured at both production sites through 2038 or later, according to government documents.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment have reached out to DOE and NNSA on more than six occasions since 2019 over the legal requirement for a broad, nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement, or PEIS, for producing the plutonium pits at Los Alamos and the Savannah River Site. However, in its March 22, 2021 correspondence (download PDF) with the groups, NNSA said it has no plans to revisit its review of pit production, relying instead on a supplemental analysis of an outdated PEIS completed more than a decade ago, along with a separate standalone review done solely for the Savannah River Site.

The agencies’ piecemeal, post-hoc evaluation of this programmatic shift is arbitrary and capricious and violates the Administrative Procedures Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the challenge filed today in the District of South Carolina, Aiken Division by the South Carolina Environmental Law Project on behalf of the groups. PDF of the Complaint at https://bit.ly/3y93yUW

The lawsuit seeks to force the Defendants to involve the public in the review and decision-making process and to evaluate the environmental impacts of the significantly altered pit production plan, including the environmental justice implications for the many underserved communities that are located near these facilities. NNSA has conducted NEPA reviews only for specific portions of this larger connected plan of plutonium pit production and have not evaluated on a programmatic level critical issues such as the impacts on all DOE sites involved in pit production; the storage capacity for disposal of wastes generated by the pit production process and the array of new information that casts significant doubt over the feasibility of this plan.

Production of pits at the Savannah River Site would require the complete overhaul of a failed project known as the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, of which over $7 billion was wasted. The February 2020 cost estimate of $4.6 billion for the Savannah River Site alone has now skyrocketed to $11.1 billion, as confirmed in the NNSA’s budget request of May 28, 2021. In recent Congressional testimony, NNSA leaders have already said that the 2030 goal for production of 50 pits per year at SRS may need to be pushed back to 2035.

“Recent events demonstrate that the agencies have significantly underestimated the timeline and expense associated with this proposed action, making the timing of this lawsuit even more appropriate,” said Leslie Lenhardt, staff attorney for the South Carolina Environmental Law Project. “The evidence is overwhelming that any of the NEPA analyses that have been done are outdated and have not taken into consideration any of the significantly different circumstances that have arisen since 2008. It is imperative that NNSA correct glaring environmental-review deficiencies and conduct a thorough programmatic EIS on the impacts of pit production across the DOE complex.”

Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented, “NNSA has tried four times to expand plutonium pit bomb core production, but failed each time due to overwhelming citizen opposition. NNSA is now cutting the public out by refusing to complete nation-wide review of expanded pit production for controversial new-design nuclear weapons. We file this lawsuit to enforce the legal right of citizens to speak out on the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that will be squandered in the new nuclear arms race.”

Tom Clements, director of SRS watch, in Columbia, S.C., said, “DOE’s rushed planning to unnecessarily expand nuclear bomb production has already resulted in a massive cost increase and significant delays in the SRS plutonium bomb plant. While more delays and cost increases appear likely, it is essential that DOE slow down and comply with requisite environmental laws before jumping into ill-conceived plans to expand plutonium pit production which would be a key part of a dangerous new nuclear arms race.”

Marylia Kelley, of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, Calif, charged “NNSA’s refusal to undertake a programmatic review of its pit production plan is intended to allow the agency to dodge analysis of reasonable alternatives. For example, LLNL’s W87-1 design is driving both the schedule and ‘need’ for expanded pit production. The warhead’s novel design features are elective; a refurbishment option could meet stockpile requirements without necessitating expanded pit production. NNSA is robbing the public of its right to comment on alternatives, yet those of us in frontline communities will bear the brunt of this refusal. It is workers and the public who will suffer the risks of accidents, spills, leaks, radioactive exposures, and the production and transportation of plutonium wastes.”

# # #

The South Carolina Environmental Law Project uses its legal expertise to protect land, water, and communities across South Carolina.

Savannah River Site Watch (https://srswatch.org/) is based in Columbia, SC and monitors DOE activities at SRS. Nuclear Watch New Mexico (https://nukewatch.org/) 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 (Tri-Valley CAREs, http://www.trivalleycares.org//) is located in Livermore, California and monitors the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a key nuclear-weapons-design facility.

News conference archived on the Facebook page of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project: https://www.facebook.com/scelp.org.



MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 24, 2021


South Carolina Environmental Law Project, Nuclear Watchdogs from
Across the U.S. to Hold Virtual Press Conference

WHAT: Public interest groups will hold a Zoom press conference for a major announcement of a forthcoming legal action as the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration forge ahead with plans to drastically expand production of plutonium pits, the cores of nuclear weapons, at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. The legal action follows previous unanswered requests from the groups to DOE and NNSA as seen in correspondence in February and April.

We ask reporters to join the Zoom press conference with their video on so the panelists see you as you ask questions. The press conference will be simultaneously livestreamed for the general public on the South Carolina Environmental Law Project’s Facebook page. Reporters who ask questions will appear on the screen to the speakers and to the public.

WHO:

  • Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch
  • Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico
  • Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs)
  • Leslie Lenhardt, staff attorney at South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP)
  • Queen Quet, the Chieftess and head of state for the Gullah/Geechee Nation and the founder of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition
  • Dr. Frank von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor of public and international affairs emeritus at Princeton University

WHEN: Tuesday, June 29, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET

HOW:

The Zoom press conference is for credentialed media only and registration is required via this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqf-iprz8iH9w2v_PB89u5b2-h6zxFeSWo

A confirmation email will be sent to registrants with a link to join the meeting.

To receive additional material under embargo, members of the media can contact John Pope ([email protected], 717-386-9270) or Lorraine Chow ([email protected], 843-527-0078). Journalists must clearly state in the email that they will honor the embargo and not publish the material until after the press conference concludes.

MORE INFORMATION: https://www.scelp.org/cases/plutonium-pits

# # #

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.



The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
A national network of organizations working to address nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup

MEDIA ADVISORY:
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S FY 2022 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CLEANUP BUDGET REQUEST

May 26, 2021
For use with DOE’s scheduled budget release on Friday May 28, 2021
Marylia Kelley, ANA Board President, Tri-Valley CAREs, cell (925) 255-3589, [email protected]
Key contacts from ANA groups are listed below

The White House is releasing its detailed Fiscal Year 2022 budget on Friday, May 28. A so-called “skinny budget” was released on April 9 that increased Department of Energy (DOE) funding to $46.1 billion, which reportedly includes major new investments in clean energy and climate change abatement. That said, historically roughly 60% of DOE’s funding has been earmarked for nuclear weapons production and cleanup of Cold War wastes and contamination. The pending budget release will finally provide details on those programs.

Because the budget release is so late Congress has already announced that it can’t consider the annual Defense Authorization Act until September. Related appropriations bills will no doubt be delayed too. This means that the government will probably have to run on a Continuing Resolution(s) for much of FY 2022 (which begins October 1, 2021).

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability strongly opposed the massive 25% FY 2021 increase that the Trump Administration gave to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) nuclear weapons programs and proposed cuts to Department of Energy cleanup.

In addition, DOE’s nuclear weapons and environmental management programs have been on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars for 28 consecutive years. Related, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just released a report that projects a 28% increase in costs for so-called “modernization” of U.S. nuclear forces that between the Defense Department and DOE is expected to cost around $1.7 trillion over 30 years.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a 34-year-old network of groups from communities downwind and downstream of U.S. nuclear weapons sites, will be analyzing the following critical issues. For details, contact the ANA leaders listed at the end of this Advisory.


General Budget Issues

  • Will DOE and NNSA submit to Congress legally required reports on unspent balances from previous years? As Congress moves through the legislative process, will authorizers and appropriators subtract “Prior Year Balances” from amounts requested by DOE and NNSA in the FY 2022 budget?

  • As evidenced by the recent CBO report, escalating “modernization” costs will be a chronic concern. To help meet that concern, will NNSA include in its FY 2022 budget request legally required four year cost projections for its major programs?

Nuclear Warheads

  • The W87-1 will be the first new warhead with wholly new components. The Trump Administration projected $691 million for the W87-1 in FY 2022. Will the first Biden budget request constrain this warhead program? [Note: the W87-1 is slated to top the Air Force’s new “Ground Based Strategic Deterrent” missile and is the also the driver for NNSA’s planned expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, in all expected to cost more than $140 billion.]

  • The W93 is a proposed new submarine-launched warhead whose main advocate is the United Kingdom, which substantially relies on U.S. warhead designs and plans to increase its own nuclear weapons stockpile. The Trump Administration projected $80 million in FY 2022 to jumpstart this warhead’s development. Will the Biden budget fully fund this new program? Does the U.S. Navy really want this new-design warhead when its own existing warheads have already been tested and are being upgraded?

  • Trump’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review proposed to bring back nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs), which were retired by President George H.W. Bush after the end of the Cold War. Will the FY 2022 Biden budget fund NNSA to conduct warhead design activities for this Cold War relic? Or will it cancel the program? Does the U.S. Navy really want the expense of having to certify attack submarine crews for nuclear-armed SLCMs?

  • The B83, the last U.S. megaton-class nuclear bomb, had been slated for retirement prior to Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review reversing its course. Will the Biden FY 2022 budget request include funding to keep it in the stockpile – or fund its promised retirement?

Nuclear Weapons Production

  • The Commander of Strategic Command recently testified to Congress that expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores is the #1 “modernization” issue. The Trump Administration increased “Plutonium Modernization” by 70% to $3.4 billion in FY 2022. Will the Biden Administration keep that level of funding for FY 2022?

  • What portion of that funding will be for upgrades to the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s aging plutonium facility so the Lab can produce more than 30 pits per year? How much will be for fast tracking the new Plutonium Bomb Plant at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina to make 50 or more plutonium pits per year?

  • NNSA’s current cost estimate to “repurpose” the failed MOX plant at SRS (which has already cost taxpayers $7 billion) to pit production is $4.6 billion. NNSA’s “Critical Decision-1” to proceed with the bomb plant is expected soon after Biden’s FY 2022 budget release, with likely escalating costs of $10 billion or more. Will that throw a major monkey wrench into NNSA’s plans of simultaneous pit production at both LANL and SRS? What impact will that have on Congressional authorization and appropriations?

  • Is the rationale for expanded plutonium pit production changing from being a “hedge” against technical and geopolitical surprise to replacing all pits in all ~4,000 active and reserve nuclear weapons over the next 50 years? Why is expanded plutonium pit production needed to begin with when the U.S. already has more than 15,000 pits in storage and independent experts have found that pits last at least a century?

  • NNSA has claimed that the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Plant near Oak Ridge, TN is on time and will meet its declared budget cap of $6.5 billion. However, that is after NNSA moved the goal posts and eliminated non-production missions such as dismantlements and downblending of highly enriched uranium (which would save large security and nuclear safety costs). Because of the UPF’s downscoping, NNSA has decided to continue operating two old contaminated facilities that can never meet modern safety and seismic standards. When is NNSA going to own up to exceeding the UPF budget cap that it promised time and again to Congress?

  • Will NNSA’s budget seek adequate funds to decontaminate and decommission excess “High Risk Facilities” at Oak Ridge, Livermore and other nuclear weapons sites, or will officials continue to ignore the “ever increasing risk” (the DOE Inspector General’s description) to workers and the public until it’s too late?

Cleanup

  • Will the budget request comply with the law (National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2020, Sec. 4409) and include for Fiscal Years 2022-2026 annual estimates of the costs of meeting legal cleanup milestones at each DOE site? DOE has never provided such cost estimates, which would demonstrate that the budget request is many tens of millions of dollars short of what is required by legal agreements with host states.

  • Will DOE include the lifecycle cost estimate to clean up its nuclear sites? Chronic underfunding of DOE environmental programs leads to ever-increasing lifecycle cleanup costs — from $341.6 billion in FY 2016 to $388.2 billion in FY 2018 to $413.9 billion in FY 2019, to providing no lifecycle costs in FY 2020 and FY 2021.

  • Does the budget again include funding for "Consolidated Interim Storage" for commercial irradiated fuel (AKA lethal high-level radioactive wastes)? Previous budgets have included that money even though DOE funding of private storage sites is prohibited by federal law and Congress refuses to appropriate the funds.

  • How much funding is provided for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? [Note: $115 million appropriated in FY 2021.] Such funds are a bailout to the failing nuclear energy industry since SMRs are not technically or financially viable.

  • What funding will Congress request for the proposed new 2,100 foot deep utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) even though the shaft project does not yet have permit approval from the State of New Mexico? In FY 2021 Congress requested $50 million, which brought total funding of the proposed shaft to $164 million. This represents 83% of the total estimated cost of the shaft of $197 million for a project, which, if finally approved by the State, will no doubt bust its budget.

  • How much will Congress request for the American Centrifuge Plant in Portsmouth, Ohio? In 2019, the American Centrifuge Operating, LLC entered into a contract with the DOE to build centrifuges to demonstrate production of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU). Production is about to be licensed by the NRC and would begin an unneeded new nuclear program at a site with a history of safety issues. The technology and use of HALEU also opens the capacity for production of highly enriched uranium, which would be a dangerous proliferation risk.

  • Will the budget request include funding to begin work on new storage and staging tanks for high-level tank waste at the Hanford Reservation in Washington state? DOE wants to reclassify high-level waste. To close the tank farms where this waste is stored, DOE wants to reclassify any waste remaining in the Hanford tanks after treatment and leave the waste in the bottom of the tanks rather than removing and treating it. New tanks are needed to replace leaking tanks while DOE makes final decisions on cleanup.

# # #


The annual DOE and NNSA Congressional Budget Requests are typically available on the scheduled release date by 1:00 pm EST at
https://www.energy.gov/cfo/listings/budget-justification-supporting-documents

For information about specific DOE and NNSA nuclear weapons sites and programs, contact:

Los Alamos Lab Pit Production and Life Extension Programs-
Jay Coghlan: 505.989.7342 [email protected]

Livermore Lab and Life Extension Programs-
Marylia Kelley: 925.255.3589 [email protected]

Uranium Processing Facility and Dismantlements -
Ralph Hutchison: 865.776.5050 [email protected]

Pit Production and MOX Plant at the Savannah River Site -
Tom Clements: 803.240.7268 [email protected]

Environmental Management, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Yucca Mountain –
Don Hancock: 505.262.1862 [email protected]

The American Centrifuge Plant in Portsmouth, Ohio
Vina Colley, 740.357.8916 [email protected]



News release from South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP), lawyers on the plutonium pit issue for Tri-Valley CAREs, Savannah River Site Watch, and Nuclear Watch New Mexico
- see other groups below that supported the letter:

For immediate release, April 21, 2021


Groups Notify Biden Admin of Impending Lawsuit Over Nuclear Bomb Core Plans

Multi-state coalition says DOE’s plans to massively expand plutonium pit production violate a major environmental law and constitutes an environmental injustice.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — A coalition of public interest organizations notified (PDF below) the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) urging a comprehensive review of plans to vastly ramp up production of nuclear bomb cores at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

In Tuesday's letter to department officials, the groups say this lack of review violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and would saddle already-burdened communities nearby the two DOE sites with significant quantities of toxic and radioactive waste, contravening President Biden’s executive order of making environmental justice a part of the mission of every agency.

“The federal government appears ready to embark on this significant change in U.S. nuclear policy without studying the cross-country risks and environmental justice impacts, which indicates that the health and safety of workers and downwind and downriver communities are not worth the consideration or protection they deserve,” said Leslie Lenhardt, a staff attorney for the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, a law firm representing the coalition.

The organizations listed in the letter include Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, The Imani Group, Honor Our Pueblo Existence, Tewa Women United, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment.

The latter three groups intend to file an action pursuant to NEPA within 60 days if DOE and NNSA fail to reconsider its decision. The nuclear watchdogs have reached out on more than five occasions since 2019 to DOE and NNSA over the necessity of a broad, nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement, or PEIS, of producing the nuclear weapon triggers, also known as plutonium pits, at the two sites. In its March 22, 2021 correspondence (PDF) with the groups, NNSA said it has no plans to revisit its review of pit production, relying instead on a supplemental analysis of an outdated PEIS completed more than a decade ago, along with a separate review done for the Savannah River Site alone.

The coalition has numerous concerns, including the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the line, uncertain future radioactive waste disposal that could strand yet more plutonium in South Carolina, and the risk of lethal accidents, fires, radioactive and hazardous waste releases that could harm the predominantly low-income and African American communities near the Savannah River Site and the Pueblo communities and other minority populations living around the Los Alamos National Lab.

Beata Tsosie, Environmental Health and Justice Program coordinator for Tewa Women United, commented, “It is clear that communities impacted by nuclear colonialism need healing, strength and restorative justice. We know that the environmental violence our land-based and Native Peoples, ecologies and waters continue to endure from nuclear contamination will not end until the harm stops. It is imperative that the Biden Administration conduct a nationwide public review of its plans for expanded plutonium pit production that give affected communities a real voice in fighting for true environmental justice. It is our right that a commitment is made to get this done.”

Marian Naranjo, founder of Honor Our Pueblo Existence, said: “The Los Alamos National Lab is located on a geographically unsafe area for the work that transpires there, a place that is and has been considered as Sacred to Pueblo People since time immemorial.”

Tri-Valley CAREs’ director Marylia Kelley highlighted the national implications of NNSA’s decision to expand pit production. “The driver for the program is a novel warhead, called the W87-1, under development at California’s Livermore Lab that requires wholly new components including pits. The W87-1 and a new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent missile to carry the warhead are both under scrutiny in Congress and within the Administration, which is just beginning its nuclear posture review. NNSA should conduct the necessary programmatic review to help inform these important decisions rather than try to outrun them.”

“To compound the lack of a thorough system-wide analysis of disposal of waste streams from pit production, the politically motivated Environmental Impact Statement on SRS pit production unacceptably waves off Environmental Justice issues without even so much as a cursory analysis,” noted Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch. “There is urgent need for preparation of a PEIS that does not marginalize environmental justice issues as a tactic used to justify a second factory to produce plutonium components for provocative and costly new nuclear weapons.”

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico commented, “Instead of maintaining the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile, NNSA may actually undermine it because all future pit production is for speculative new-design nuclear weapons. This is a colossal and unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money on top of already wasted taxpayers’ money.”

# # #

The South Carolina Environmental Law Project protects the natural environment of South Carolina by providing legal services and advice to environmental organizations and concerned citizens and by improving the state’s system of environmental regulation. Contact: Leslie Lenhardt, (843) 527-0078, [email protected]

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety is a 33-year-old non-governmental organization, based in Santa Fe, NM. CCNS works to inform and educate the public, elected officials and the media about DOE activities in New Mexico—at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant—impacting public health, water, air and lands. Contact: Joni Arends, (505) 986-1973, [email protected]

Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions envisions a world without militarism or systemic violence, with just, healthy, secure, and sustainable communities, and in which Georgia is a leader in regional, national, and global movements. They are an independent, community-driven, grassroots, woman-led organization that works on environmental justice issues as they relate to impacts of nuclear projects at the Savannah River Site, including plutonium pit production. Contact: Janie Scott, (404) 524-5999, [email protected]

The Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition operates in accordance with the mission of the Gullah/Geechee Nation to preserve, protect, and promote their history, culture, language, and homeland and to institute and demand official recognition of the governance (minority rights) necessary to accomplish our mission to take care of our community through collective efforts, which will provide a healthy environment, care for the well-being of each person and economic empowerment. The Gullah/Geechee Nation spans from North Carolina to northern Florida and receives the downward flow of the Savannah River, which brings its benefits and also could bring disastrous impacts to a community that relies so closely on the water. Contact: Queen Quet, [email protected]

The Imani Group is a Graniteville, South Carolina non-profit founded by Rev. Brendolyn Jenkins Boseman in 2004, to address criminal and environmental justice, as well as youth development. As the founder she has served on the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site’s Citizen Advisory Board and works to address environmental issues at the Savannah River Site and other sites affecting underserved communities. Contact: Rev. Brendolyn Jenkins Boseman, [email protected]

Honor Our Pueblo Existence is a nonprofit organization based in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, immediately downwind from LANL. We embrace the Pueblo teachings of love, respect and care, working together to improve the life ways of our people in order to provide an enhanced and sustainable environment for generations to come. Contact: Marian Naranjo, (505) 929-2151, [email protected]

Nuclear Watch New Mexico’s mission is to: promote safety and environmental protection at regional nuclear facilities; mission diversification away from nuclear weapons programs; greater accountability and cleanup in the nation-wide nuclear weapons complex; and consistent U.S. leadership toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Expanded plutonium pit production will have adverse environmental justice impacts given that the population within the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory’s 50-mile radius Region of Influence is largely People of Color. Contact: Jay Coghlan, (505) 989-7342, c. (505) 470-3154, [email protected]

Savannah River Site Watch monitors a host of projects at SRS from the public interest perspective, with a focus on cleanup of existing waste and plutonium management and pit production. We are attentive to health and safety impacts, especially to workers and populations near to the Savannah River Site and are very concerned that NNSA has summarily waved off reviewing the probable environmental justice impacts from plutonium pit fabrication to minority populations living at the fence line. Contact: Tom Clements, (803) 834-3084, [email protected]

Located in the ancestral Tewa homelands of Northern New Mexico, Tewa Women United is a multicultural and multiracial organization founded and led by Native women. Our Environmental Health and Justice Program integrates body, mind, and spiritual awareness into environmental justice advocacy, policy change, and community education while uplifting Indigenous and land-based families and oppressed Peoples to build grassroots leaders and community capacity. Contact: Beata Tsosie-Peña, 505-747-3259, [email protected]

Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment is a non-profit founded in 1983 by frontline residents around the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to conduct research, analysis, education and advocacy regarding the environmental justice, health and proliferation impacts of LLNL in California and the U.S. nuclear weapons complex of which it is an integral part. Contact: Marylia Kelley, (925) 255-3589, [email protected]



South Carolina Environmental Law Project
• Tri-Valley CAREs • Nuclear Watch New Mexico • Savannah River Site Watch

For immediate release, February 11, 2021


Biden Administration Asked to Review Plutonium Pit
Expansion Plans

Media Contacts:

Leslie Lenhardt, South Carolina Environmental Law Project, (843) 527-0078, [email protected]

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, (925) 255-3589, [email protected]

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in S. Carolina, (803) 834-3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, (505) 989-7342, c. (505) 470-3154, [email protected]

Public interest organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) requesting that it address calls for a rigorous environmental review of plans to expand production of nuclear bomb cores at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina.

The non-profit groups—Nuclear Watch New Mexico, SRS Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment—have previously submitted a number of formal comments and information related to the environmental and public health risks associated with a significant expansion of plutonium “pit” production at the two DOE sites.

The three organizations’ documents, which include several legal filings since 2019, were consolidated and re-submitted on Wednesday so the DOE under the new Biden administration has “immediate access to these documents,” the letter states.

Click to view documents

A key concern among the three public interest groups is the necessity of preparing a legally mandated Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) analyzing the potential impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at all relevant DOE sites. The groups want to ensure that the administrative record is intact and that reconsideration of the PEIS be undertaken before legal action is pursued.

“We are hopeful that a review of programs with significant environmental impacts under NEPA will return to normalcy with the new presidential administration,” said Leslie Lenhardt, staff attorney for the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, a non-profit environmental law firm representing the organizations. “DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration have a new opportunity to revisit their prior refusal to conduct a PEIS for this critical issue.”

In 2018, in an effort to expand and refurbish the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, the Trump administration proposed producing at least 80 pits a year—30 at the existing Los Alamos site and 50 at the Savannah River Site.

At Los Alamos, pit production has been plagued by a long history of safety issues, yet DOE is proposing to increase production by 50 percent at that location. At the Savannah River Site, which has never produced pits, the DOE is seeking to convert the never-finished Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility into a pit factory. The failed MOX facility wasted billions of taxpayer dollars and was not designed for producing nuclear war heads.

Pit production entails processing hazardous and radioactive materials and would significantly increase the amount of nuclear and toxic wastes generated at the Savannah River Site and Los Alamos. In addition to the possibility that plutonium could be stranded at the sites, drastically increasing the nation’s plutonium pit processing capability means more waste needs to be treated, stored or disposed of—a risk for surrounding communities who may be impacted by the release of these materials.

The groups say the DOE is required to analyze the collective environmental impacts at the multiple production sites as well as impacts on the waste isolation pilot plant in New Mexico, where the agency plans to dispose of plutonium pit wastes without adequate review. The groups strongly affirm that the public has the right to participate in the PEIS decision-making process pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act.

“While we fully anticipate the Biden administration will affirm the need to prepare the PEIS on expansion of plutonium pit production, we remain ready to bring a lawsuit under NEPA,” said Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch.

Marylia Kelley, executive director of the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs noted that the “driver for expanded pit production is a novel warhead design underway at Livermore lab in California. Under NEPA, the agency must consider the DOE-complex wide impacts of this proposal in a thoroughgoing programmatic review.”

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico added, “It’s important to note that no future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is for speculative new nuclear weapons designs that can’t be tested because of the international testing moratorium, or perhaps worse yet may prompt the U.S. back into testing, after which surely other nations would follow.”

# # #



For immediate release: January 20, 2021

For use re: Entry Into Force 1-22-21 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,
Celebration at Livermore Lab West Gate 8am, 8-foot banners, distancing observed

For more information: Marylia Kelley, executive director, [email protected], 925.255.3589,

Scott Yundt, staff attorney, [email protected], 415.990.2070

Contacts for events at nuclear weapons sites in other states listed below

LIVERMORE LAB EVENT MARKS “BEGINNING OF THE END OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS”
Nuclear Watchdogs to Celebrate Ban Treaty’s Entry Into Force;
Highlight Next Steps for U.S.

January 22, 2021, will be a historic day for nuclear weapons. On that day, at midnight, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will enter into force, establishing in international law a categorical ban on nuclear weapons, seventy-five years after their development and first use.

The TPNW expressly prohibits the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition, possession, deployment, and use or threatened use of nuclear weapons, as well as providing assistance for or encouraging such acts. The Treaty also contains positive obligations to assist victims and achieve cleanup of the past damage stemming from nuclear weapons activities.

The momentous occasion of Entry Into Force will be marked by actions, events, and celebrations around the globe and across the United States.

In Livermore, California, Tri-Valley CAREs will mark this historic date by gathering safely from 8 am to 9:15 am at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (West Gate entrance just off Vasco Road) with multiple 8-foot banners declaring NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE ILLEGAL. Nuclear watchdogs will line the entrance and roadway most used by employees entering the facility to proclaim the news.

Tri-Valley CAREs welcomes this long-awaited date, which its members have worked toward for decades - including the group’s executive director, Marylia Kelley, who participated directly in the negotiations in New York leading to UN adoption of the TPNW in 2017.

“The U.S. has not yet signed or ratified the TPNW, limiting its legal obligations, but that does not mean that we will not feel its moral force,” noted Kelley, who has lived in Livermore since 1976 and led Tri-Valley CAREs since 1983. “With the TPNW entering into force and becoming part of international law, all nuclear weapons – including the 3,900 in the U.S. stockpile – have been declared illegal.”

Further, the TPNW stands on the shoulders of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as cited in the TPNW’s preamble. “Under the NPT, the U.S. has incurred disarmament obligations it has yet to meet. The TPNW Entry Into Force strengthens existing international law obligating our government even as it ‘plows new ground’ for abolition,” Kelley explained.

“The Entry into Force of the Treaty is a turning point,” said Scott Yundt, the staff attorney at Tri-Valley CAREs. “On the one hand, it is the end of a long process to outlaw nuclear weapons. On the other hand, it is just the beginning of a new movement to confront nuclear weapons states and demand they lift the dark shadow of nuclear annihilation that has loomed over the world for the last seventy-five years.”

At nuclear weapons locations in other states including NM, TN, MO, ID, SC/GA, WI, CO, OH, MD/WDC and TX, similar banners will be held at - and hung on - fences at nuclear plant entrances and related institutions. Additionally, letters will be delivered to members of Congress. University campuses that are engaged in support activities for weapons production will be asked to reconsider their activities, including at UC Berkeley, where our colleagues with the Ecumenical Peace Institute will hold banners. Churches will ring their bells.

# # #

For information about TPNW Entry into Force events at nuclear weapons sites and related institutions:

For more information, see the Tri-Valley CAREs website a www.trivalleycares.org
For additional background, visit also the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) events page at www.icanw.org/events Tri-Valley CAREs is an ICAN member group. The Campaign won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work leading to negotiation of the TPNW and its adoption at the UN earlier that year.




Savannah River Site Watch ⯁ Nuclear Watch New Mexico ⯁ Tri-Valley CAREs

For Immediate Release - November 5, 2020

Energy Department Issues Controversial Decision to Pursue a
Plutonium Bomb Plant at Savannah River Site;

Groups Cite Inadequate Environmental Review and Lack of Justification for Production of 50 or More
“Pits” per Year to Modernize Nuclear Weapons Stockpile; Say Program is Open to Legal Challenge

Contacts:

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA, 925.255.3589‬, [email protected]

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, South Carolina, 803.834.3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154, [email protected] 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a formal decision that it will pursue a massive Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) at the DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, in order to produce plutonium “pits,” or cores, for nuclear warheads. The provocative decision, which adds fuel to concerns about a new nuclear arms race with Russia and China, drew immediate opposition from public interest groups near DOE sites in South Carolina, New Mexico and California.

The issuance by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the “Record of Decision” (ROD) on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on pit production at SRS, issued in late September, officially affirms the “preferred alternative” that DOE intends to produce a minimum of 50 plutonium “pits” per year by 2030 at SRS. Also on November 5, NNSA issued an “Amended Record of Decision” (AROD) to its 2008 nation-wide Complex Transformation Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that incorporated its SRS pit-production decision. The production of pits at SRS, a totally new and challenging mission for the site, would be in order to produce pits for new-design nuclear warheads and to maintain a massive nuclear weapons stockpile of around 4000 active and reserve warheads as an integral part of the dangerous U.S. policy to prepare for full-scale nuclear war.

Plutonium pits are the fissile cores or “triggers” of modern thermonuclear weapons. The NNSA and Department of Defense jointly announced in 2018 that production would quadruple from its currently authorized limit of 20 pits annually to at least at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and at least 50 additional pits per year at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for a total of 80 or more. At LANL, pit production has been plagued with chronic nuclear safety problems spanning a decade. At SRS, NNSA plans to “repurpose” the partially constructed Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS, at a cost of about $5 billion by 2030. Around $8 billion was wasted on the mismanaged MOX project before it failed and was terminated by NNSA in 2018, a sobering example to the public of the risks of a new, complicated plutonium pit-production mission.

In the SRS pit-plant decision, the ROD, released on the morning of November 5, states: “NNSA has decided to implement the Proposed Action to repurpose the MFFF to produce a minimum of 50 war reserve pits per year at SRS and to develop the ability to implement a short-term surge capacity to enable NNSA to meet the requirements of producing pits at a rate of not less than 80 war reserve pits per year beginning during 2030 for the nuclear weapons stockpile. Pit production at SRS would be limited to the analyzed limit in the SRS Pit Production EIS to meet national security requirements.”

Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Few, NM), Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (Livermore, CA) and Savannah River Site Watch (Columbia, SC), all members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, vigorously oppose plans to greatly expand pit production at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and to SRS. The groups have communicated on many occasions to NNSA over the last two years that an overarching Programmatic EIS (PEIS), which would look at pit production issues across the DOE complex, is necessary before expansion of new pit production moves forward. The groups have clearly stated to NNSA that failure to prepare the legally mandated PEIS could result in a lawsuit under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico director, commented, “NNSA has chosen to rely upon an outdated 2008 programmatic environmental impact statement to justify expanded plutonium pit production nation-wide. To use NEPA jargon, there are clearly “new information and changed circumstances” which require the agency to take another “hard look” at that national program. The fact alone that NNSA never before considered simultaneous plutonium pit production at two different sites is proof positive of its legal requirement to do so. We strongly advise NNSA to follow that legal requirement.”

Marylia Kelley, executive director at the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs noted, “The ‘driver’ for dramatically expanding pit production is a novel warhead currently under development at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in my community. The W87-1 will be the first U.S. nuclear weapon produced since the end of the Cold War using entirely new or remanufactured components, including new-design pits. Instead of dangerously rushing an untenable production schedule at SRS for a proliferation-provocative new weapon, the next administration should instead engage in a full discussion of the financial, policy and environmental risks of the entire program. Superior alternatives exist to designing new warheads and ramping up pit production to serve them. These alternatives should be pursued in a new Nuclear Posture Review.” The last Nuclear Posture review was released in 2018.

Tom Clements, director SRS Watch in Columbia, SC, said “Pit production at SRS would cause an additional 7.5 metric tons of plutonium to be trucked into the state, which would pose the risk of being stranded here when the ill-conceived pit project falters. While DOE claims that a large amount of plutonium waste coming from pit production would go to the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, there is no demonstration that there would be capacity for that waste, posing a grave risk that South Carolina could be left holding the plutonium bag. It’s clear that the Plutonium Bomb Plant at SRS is being driven by contractors and boosters who stand to profit by making South Carolina ground zero for an unacceptable new nuclear arms race that endangers national security and that places our state at environmental risk.”

SRS already stores 11.5 metric tons of plutonium, stranded at the site when the mismanaged MOX project was terminated. Plans to process and remove this material, as required by law, remain vague. “At a minimum, no more plutonium should come into South Carolina for pits or the plutonium disposition program until all plutonium now stored in the old K-Reactor has been removed,” according to Clements.

In 2021, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and arms control groups will work in Congress to remove authorization and eliminate funding for the Plutonium Bomb Plant at SRS.

### Key documents and links follow ###

Record of Decision (ROD) on the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Plutonium Pit Production at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina (DOE/EIS-0541), published in the Federal Register on November 5, 2020: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-11-05/pdf/2020-24517.pdf

Amended Record of Decision (AROD) for the Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, Federal Register, November 5, 2020:https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-11-05/pdf/2020-24516.pdf

Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Plutonium Pit Production at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina (DOE/EIS-0541), September 25, 2020: https://www.energy.gov/nepa/downloads/doeeis-0541-final-environmental-impact-statement

Federal Register notice on issuance of final EIS, September 30, 2020: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-09-30/pdf/2020-21606.pdf

Submission by lawyers for SRS Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley CAREs and NRDC for the SRS pit plant EIS record before the ROD was issued, October 23, 2020: https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Letter-to-NNSA-Regarding-the-Continuing-Need-for-a-Programmatic-EIS-for-Plutonium-Pit-Expansion-Oct-23-2020.pdf

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) “top ten” list of priorities for new administration and new Congress, including on new pit production, November 2, 2020: https://ananuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ANA-Priorities-for-Nuclear-Weapons-Communities.pdf




CELEBRATING THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THIS HISTORIC DAY 

*** immediate release *** October 24, 2020

Marylia Kelley, 925.255.3589, [email protected]

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) today celebrates the 50th ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Under the terms of the treaty, it will enter into force, and become part of international law in 90 days, following today’s deposit of its instrument of ratification at the United Nations by the nation of Honduras.

The TPNW puts legal force behind the aspiration of the nations of the world to be free from the threat of destruction by nuclear weapons. Adopted at the United Nations in 2017 by an overwhelming majority of the world’s countries, formally signed by 84 to date, and now officially ratified, the TPNW bans the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition, possession or stockpiling, transfer, control or receipt, use of threat of use, stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons by any state party to the Treaty.

No state currently in possession of nuclear weapons has signed the TPNW. Nevertheless, the entry into force of this Treaty is an historic milestone on the journey to a world free of nuclear weapons. Nations that possess or stage nuclear weapons, including the United States, will now find themselves standing outside the bounds of international law. Today, the international “norm” changes and nuclear weapons are illegal.

As precursor, in 1970, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) obligated the United States and other states parties to the NPT to pursue in good faith negotiations leading to complete disarmament at an early date. In 1996, the World Court underscored that legal obligation in a unanimous ruling that the NPT required the nuclear weapons states to not only pursue but to achieve disarmament. Today, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adds moral and legal weight to the disarmament aspirations embraced—and the obligations incurred—in the Nonproliferation Treaty.

ANA, a network of thirty-one organizations whose members live downwind and downstream from the U.S. Department of Energy weapons complex sites, calls on the U.S. government to hear the compelling call of the TPNW, and to take immediate steps toward compliance with the Treaty.

ANA President Marylia Kelley noted, “The U.S. should sign and ratify the TPNW. In the mean time, the United States should take immediate steps toward the overarching goal of the TPNW, a world free of the existential threat of nuclear annihilation.” ANA recommendations include constraining the development of new nuclear bombs and warheads and focusing instead on environmental justice and cleanup for communities suffering from the radioactive and toxic pollution that accompanies nuclear development.




Media Alert
Annual Livermore Lab Protest Goes Virtual
“From Hiroshima to a Healthy Tomorrow: Embracing Our Common Humanity”
on the 75th Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  

For immediate release: Monday, August 3, 2020

Contacts:
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore; cell, 925.255.3589, [email protected]

Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation; cell 510-306-0119, [email protected]

Grace Morizawa, [email protected]


WHAT: From Hiroshima to a Healthy Tomorrow: Embracing Our Common Humanity—Annual protest and rally held at the gates of Livermore Laboratory, this year broadcast virtually. There will be taped presentations, up-to-the-minute reports at the gates of the Livermore nuclear weapons lab, music, and more!

WHEN: Hiroshima Day, Thursday, August 6 from 8 am to 9:30 am Pacific Time.

WHERE: The Livermore rally program will kick off two days of nationally broadcast, virtual programming on this historic 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing. To view the Livermore rally on the national broadcast directly, media and the public alike can access it using this link on August 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_8qpE8RPJo

NOTE: The Livermore rally is part of an unprecedented national broadcast. Running on August 6 and 9, national coverage is organized by more than 160 organizations working together through the Hiroshima Nagasaki 75 collaboration. The organizers of the Livermore rally are part of this coalition. Find out more at: www.HiroshimaNagasaki75.org

WHO: Our Livermore rally speakers include noted historian and author Gar Alperovitz, Pentagon planner and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and Nagasaki A-bomb survivor Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka and Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs (Photos and short bios for all speakers and musicians follow the text of this release.)

WHY: On the Historic 75th Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are joining the survivors to abolish nuclear weapons.

We live in a time of growing nuclear peril. This year the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ iconic Doomsday Clock, designed in 1947 to show the risk of existential nuclear danger, was moved to 100 seconds to midnight. This is the closest to annihilation that it has ever been set.

Moreover, less than a month ago, on the anniversary of the Trinity Nuclear Test, President Trump declared, “In order to continue protecting America’s vital security interests, I have directed my Administration to revitalize and modernize America’s nuclear security complex... We are investing in the capability to produce plutonium pits to support our stockpile needs and to improve the infrastructure of the weapons ecosystem.”

This is the latest proclamation of Trump administration policies that are pouring gasoline on the flames of a new global arms race. Funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs in the President’s fiscal 2021 budget is 20% higher than last year and more than 50% higher than the annual funding level when Trump took office. Other nuclear-armed states are following suit. Recently, too, major media outlets have reported that the White House is considering a return to nuclear testing, which ceased in 1992.

Livermore Lab is central to the escalating the nuclear dangers we face. Eighty-eight percent of the funds for Livermore Lab in the coming year are slated for nuclear weapons activities. Less than two percent of the budget is allocated for civilian science.

Rally speakers will illuminate these connections to help the public understand why action is needed now to change the course of national policy. Rally participants will pledge their actions on this historic anniversary to the Hibakusha (survivors) and say with them “never again.”

In the midst of the pandemic and the struggle for racial equity, we must not overlook this historic 75th anniversary. Our rally speakers will cut through the historical and current propaganda that surrounds the bomb, state its dangers, discuss the prospects for a more just and peaceful future, and make a stand for global nuclear disarmament.

The Berkeley City Council joins us. On July 28, 2020, the City Council unanimously adopted a resolution On the 75th Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; A Call to Prevent Nuclear War. The resolution resolves that “the City of Berkeley calls on the President and Congress to step back from the brink and to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first; ending the sole, unchecked authority of any president to launch a nuclear attack; taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; cancelling the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons; and actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.”

Bios and Photos for Livermore Rally speakers and music follow.

They are also available on the national website at https://www.hiroshimanagasaki75.org/aug-06


For immediate release, June 25, 2020

Contacts: Marylia Kelley, 925.255.3589 cell‬, [email protected]

John Burroughs, 917.594.8220 cell, [email protected]

NATIONAL NETWORK OF WATCHDOG GROUPS
OPPOSES FUNDING FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS TEST PREP: CALLS PROPOSAL “DANGEROUSLY DESTABILIZING” AND “ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE.”  

Today, three-dozen nuclear watchdog organizations sent an urgent message to Congress declaring resumption of nuclear weapons testing by the United States “absolutely unacceptable” and “dangerously destabilizing.”

The letter, from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability to the Chairs, Ranking Members and Member offices of committees dealing with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget, noted the June 23rd release of the full text of the Senate National Defense Authorization Act and its SEC. 3167, deeming that “not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available to carry out projects related to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test if necessary.”

The letter states: “ANA unequivocally declares that resumption of nuclear testing at any yield is absolutely unacceptable. Even a hint of resumed nuclear testing by the U.S. could be dangerously destabilizing. If it were to occur, it would lead to testing by other states, likely including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. It would accelerate the growing nuclear arms race, damage prospects for future nuclear arms control negotiations at the very moment when global arms control is gasping for air, and undermine, even fatally, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is already under great stress.”

John Burroughs, executive director of Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, added: “Nuclear testing would be a very hard blow to international restraints - both formal and informal - on arms racing, proliferation and the threatened use or even the use of nuclear weapons.”

Marylia Kelley, ANA President and executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs told Congress: “We speak with one voice in urging you in the strongest possible terms to block funding or other initiatives that lead toward a possible return to nuclear weapons testing by the United States. In particular, the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization and Appropriations Acts should neither authorize nor appropriate funds that speed preparations to potentially resume such testing.”

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability represents three-dozen local and national organizations addressing policy, safety and cleanup issues across the nuclear weapons complex. Member groups live and work around sites in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

The ANA letter concludes: “Nuclear testing is a charred and bitter bridge to the past, not the forward path we desire toward a more stable and healthy future.”

The ANA letter is available here.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability • 903 W. Alameda #325, Santa Fe, NM 87501



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 24, 2020

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA, 925.255.3589‬, [email protected]

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, South Carolina, 803.834.3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154, [email protected] 

WATCHDOG GROUPS FILE LEGAL PETITION WITH ENERGY DEPT: Allege Agency is Slow Walking “Record of Decision” Re: Plutonium Bomb Core
Production to Prevent Judicial Review; Stage Set for Litigation on Expanded Production 

Today, legal counsel for the public interest groups Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, Savannah River Site Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council took a significant step toward a potential legal challenge to the U.S. Department of Energy’s plans for expanded production of plutonium cores, or “pits,” for new-design nuclear weapons.

The groups demanded, in a petition filed with the Dept. of Energy (DOE) Secretary and the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), that the agencies promptly issue a formal Record of Decision (ROD) on plans for expanding production of plutonium pits at the Los Alamos National Lab and the Savannah River Site.

Specifically, the petition addresses the agencies’ refusal to conduct programmatic environmental review of the plutonium pit program - all the while continuing to implement it in the absence of a published ROD, which is the usual trigger for litigation. The letter states:

    “DOE and NNSA appear to be deliberately slow-walking the issuance of a formal Record of Decision on expanded plutonium pit production in an apparent effort to prevent the federal courts from reviewing the agencies’ failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.”

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is commonly referred to as "our basic national charter for protection of the environment." The law requires that the federal government must consider public comments and credible alternatives before implementing major proposed actions and take a "hard look" at potential environmental consequences.

In May 2018 the NNSA announced its plans to expand the production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores to at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. In October 2018 the watchdog groups wrote to NNSA asserting that NEPA requires the agency to complete a nation-wide programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for expanded plutonium pit production followed by site-specific environmental impact statements at both sites. NNSA ignored their letter.

On May 17, 2019 Nick Lawton of Eubanks and Associates LLC and Geoff Fettus of NRDC, representing the four groups, wrote NNSA reiterating their demands. On May 31, 2019, NNSA indirectly responded by formally announcing its intent to prepare a site-specific EIS for pit production at SRS. However, the agency conceded to only preparing a “Supplement Analysis” (SA) considering whether or not to prepare a new PEIS.

In today’s letter the four public interest organizations note:

    “NNSA issued its Final Programmatic Supplement Analysis in early December 2019. The Final Programmatic SA reflects the refusal of DOE and NNSA to prepare any new or supplemental PEIS in association with the agencies’ decision to produce plutonium pits at both LANL and SRS. In particular, the Final SA “determined that no further NEPA documentation is required at a programmatic level, and NNSA may amend the existing 2008 Complex Transformation Supplemental PEIS Record of Decision (ROD).” However, although DOE and NNSA issued their Final SA in early December 2019—roughly six months ago—the agencies have not issued any Amended ROD.”

The four groups contend that NNSA’s reliance on the 2008 Complex Transformation Supplemental PEIS is not legally sufficient because it did not consider simultaneous plutonium pit production at two sites, nor did it consider credible alternatives to new production such as the extensive reuse of existing pits. Further, independent experts have concluded that plutonium pits last at least a century, and at least 15,000 existing pits are already stored at the NNSA’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX, making expanded production unnecessary.

NNSA’s planned future plutonium pit production is NOT to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing, already extensively tested stockpile. Instead, future production will be for modified pits for speculative new-design nuclear weapons (specifically the W87-1 ICBM warhead and W93 sub-launched warhead). This could lower stockpile confidence since the modified pits cannot be full-scaled tested because of the current testing moratorium, or alternatively could prompt the U.S. to resume nuclear weapons testing, which the Trump Administration is reportedly already considering.

The groups’ letter continues:

    “In the absence of any Amended ROD at the programmatic level, DOE and NNSA’s continued implementation of the action proposed in the Final Programmatic SA is not lawful… DOE and NNSA’s current tactic of slow-walking an Amended ROD altering the 2008 Complex Transformation SPEIS ROD appears to be nothing more than an attempt to prevent the federal courts from conducting any effective review of the agencies’ decisions… The agencies’ approach of slow-walking an Amended Programmatic ROD is a flagrant effort to deprive the federal courts of the power to issue a timely ruling that may have any practical impact on the agencies’ chosen course of action. This tactic profoundly undermines NEPA and the role of the federal courts in ensuring that federal agencies comply with the nation’s bedrock environmental laws.”

Their letter concludes:

    “For all the reasons described above and in our earlier letters, DOE and NNSA are currently in violation of NEPA. To correct their violations of NEPA, the agencies must prepare a new or supplemental PEIS in association with their decision to expand plutonium pit production by producing pits at multiple sites. At a minimum, the agencies must immediately issue an Amended ROD reflecting the decision that the agencies have already made in the Final Programmatic SA, and to ensure that the agencies properly sequence their decision-making as NEPA requires… If the agencies refuse to issue an Amended ROD immediately, we hereby request that the agencies provide a “statement of the grounds” on which they refuse to do so… We request a response to this letter in no more than 30 days.”

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs, noted, “Today’s action marks a necessary and significant step in our efforts to force an out-of-control Energy Department to comply with our Nation’s most fundamental environmental law. We are sending a clear message: No agency, much less one that controls nuclear weapons, has the right to run roughshod over the law.”

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico concluded, “We stand at the intersection of policy and environmental enforcement. Internationally the Trump Administration is breaking arms control treaties and starting a new nuclear arms race while at home it is gutting environmental regulations. Through our actions to enforce the National Environmental Policy Act we hope to help guarantee that American taxpayers have their legally required opportunity to raise their voices against unnecessary, expensive and provocative plutonium pit bomb core production.”

# # #

The four groups’ letter to DOE and NNSA is available at http://trivalleycares.org/new/Petition-for-Programmatic-ROD.pdf

For additional background on NNSA’s refusal to complete a new programmatic environmental impact statement on plutonium pit production see http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/PR-NNSA-Pits-FINAL-SA-1-9-20.pdf

This press release is available online at http://trivalleycares.org/new/Pu-Legal-Petition-Press-Release-FNL.pdf




immediate release: 21 April 2020

contact: Marylia Kelley, 925.255.3589 : [email protected]

additional site contacts below

   

NUCLEAR WATCHDOGS CALL ON DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

TO EXTEND PUBLIC COMMENT PERIODS, DELAY PUBLIC HEARINGS

UNTIL NATIONAL EMERGENCY IS OVER

The thirty-six member organizations of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability spoke with one voice today in a letter sent to Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and National Nuclear Security Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty calling for DOE and NNSA to suspend all active comment periods and reschedule public hearings and meetings until the COVID-19 national emergency is over.

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs and president of the Board of ANA, writes in the letter: “In consideration of the extraordinary challenges facing all of us in this time, we are asking you to hit the pause button and to provide an indefinite extension of the comment periods for any and all National Environmental Policy Act processes currently underway in the Department of Energy or the National Nuclear Security Administration.”

“It is unreasonable to ask us to forfeit our chance to participate meaningfully in a NEPA process because of the COVID-19 threat and the civil constraints it has imposed upon us,” the ANA letter says. “A declaration of national emergency may be words on a page in a bureaucracy, but where we live, the emergency is real, and it is a complete and fearful disruption of our lives.”

The ANA letter cites an April 1 letter from the chairs of fourteen committees of the House of Representatives that was followed by a letter signed by 24 Senators asking for the same consideration. The Senate letter says:

    “the American public is not only legally entitled to a meaningful opportunity to participate in these important proceedings; their participation is crucial to ensuring that agencies’ work is carried out effectively. The public is an invaluable source of expertise for agency decision-makers, and their ability to weigh in on agency decisions advances the good government goals of accountability. Yet, such meaningful participation is an impossibility for tens of millions of Americans during this pandemic emergency period. We cannot reasonably expect the public to redirect attention from protecting themselves and families to comment on federal agency rules and proceedings that while important, are not related to the crisis at hand or its response.”

The NNSA has received requests for extension of at least three currently active public comment periods; it has responded to two of the requests, granting an additional fifteen days. A public meeting scheduled for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to receive comments on a plan to produce plutonium pits for nuclear weapons has been changed to a “virtual meeting.”

“It is inconceivable that the DOE or NNSA can believe continuing with time-limited comment periods or virtual public meetings conform to the spirit of public participation envisioned in NEPA or its implementing regulations,” says the ANA letter. “It is unconscionable for DOE or NNSA to proceed as though ‘business as usual’ is appropriate when the President of the United States has declared a national emergency.”

The letter requests a response within seven days.

-30-

The letter from ANA can be found here.

The letter from 14 House Chairs can be found here.

The letter from 24 Senators can be found here.

Additional contacts:

Ralph Hutchison, 865 776 5050, [email protected]

Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance

Request for extension of comment period for Supplement Analysis regarding Enriched Uranium operations at Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN pending.

Tom Clements, 803 834 3084, [email protected]

Savannah River Site Watch

Virtual public hearing scheduled for April 30; comment period extended 15 days for Environmental Impact Statement on Plutonium Pit Production for nuclear weapons at Savannah River Site.

Jay Coghlan, 505 989 7342, [email protected]

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Fifteen day extension of comment period granted (to May 8) for Supplement Analysis on expanded Plutonium Pit Production for nuclear weapons at Los Alamos National Lab.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 3, 2020

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, South Carolina, 803.834.3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154, [email protected] 

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA, 925.255.3589‬, [email protected]

DOE Ignores COVID-19 Threat, Diverts Resources to Planning for Nuclear War by Releasing Draft Environmental Study on SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant 

Today, in the middle of the growing coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Department of Energy ignored the real national crisis and irresponsibly shifted its focus to planning for nuclear war, revealing plans to construct a Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.

DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today formally released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, whose proposed action is to establish the production of plutonium “pits” (nuclear warhead cores) at SRS at a rate of up to 125 pits per year, with at least 50 pits per year by 2030 as the stated objective for now.

Conversely, the “No Action Alternative” in the draft EIS is to not establish pit production at SRS and instead “utilize the capabilities at [the Los Alamos National Laboratory] to meet the nation’s long-term needs for pit manufacturing,” which NNSA defines as being at least 80 pits per year.

NNSA’s unjustified proposal drew strong opposition from Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and Savannah River Site Watch, public interest organizations located near DOE nuclear weapons sites. In addition, the organizations view NNSA’s proposed 45-day comment period as woefully insufficient given the coronavirus epidemic and will pressure NNSA for an extended deadline.

As its core justification for expanded pit production, NNSA claims in the document that it “…needs to establish additional pit production capability and capacity to (1) mitigate against the risk of plutonium aging; (2) produce pits with enhanced safety features to meet NNSA and DoD requirements, (3) respond to changes in deterrent requirements driven by growing threats from peer competitors...” Draft SRS EIS, Summary p. 3.

In contradiction to this, in 2006 independent scientists found that pits last at least a century, with no fixed end date (the average age of pits is less than 40 years). Up to 20,000 existing pits are stored at DOE’s Pantex Plant in Texas and their reuse must be studied, according to the groups. Enhanced safety can be better achieved operationally while handling nuclear weapons, whereas major design changes to pits could undermine reliability and push the U.S. back into testing.

The groups note that the draft SRS environmental impact statement includes no discussion of the alternative of ending the looming nuclear arms race and halting implementation of a provocative $2 trillion nuclear weapons “modernization” program to refurbish or replace every nuclear warhead in the stockpile, along with new means to deliver them.

Given this year is the 75th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings and the 50th anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty - and its failed disarmament commitments - the groups contend that real national security does not consist of more unneeded and costly nuclear weapons but more protection against such things as the pandemic that now threatens us.

The SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) would be located in the partially finished, ill-constructed MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility that cost at least $7 billion before being terminated in 2018, with another $5 billion to repurpose it for bomb production by 2030. Along with the production of at least 30 pits/year at Los Alamos, the apparent goal is to replace all plutonium pits in the stockpile for the rest of this century (some 4,000 nuclear weapons, of refurbished and new designs).

SRS Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs, sister groups in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), have long asserted that before the SRS EIS is prepared that a nation-wide programmatic environmental impact statement is legally required to assess all pit production alternatives, such as the reuse of existing pits. The agency has refused to prepare that new PEIS, setting up the possibility of a lawsuit under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch, said “The draft EIS lacks justification for production of pits and totally fails to establish how SRS, which has zero experience handling or producing pits, could take on this complex task. Absent a substantive assessment of the difficulties in converting the MOX building into a Plutonium Bomb Plant, NNSA is setting the project up for the usual delays, cost overruns and eventual failure, while risking more plutonium being stranded at SRS.”

Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, noted “The draft plutonium pit EIS presents the public and decision-makers with a cursory and flawed document that minimizes likely harm to human health and the environment while ignoring superior alternatives. My organization and others submitted documentation that the ‘need’ for plutonium pit production in the 2030 timeframe is driven by a elective, new-design warhead at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that would require pits unlike any in the current stockpile or storage. We requested that the DEIS consider the ‘need’ if new pit designs are not electively created, as is the case with Livermore’s W87-1 warhead. The DEIS dodges the question altogether, thus fatally flawing the analysis under the law.”

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico director, concluded, “NNSA’s waste of taxpayer resources on nuclear war planning and the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant is misguided in the face of the threat that COVID-19 poses to us all. Pursuit of a costly new Plutonium Bomb Plant once again demonstrates the inability of the Department of Energy to provide real leadership in the face of the real national security threat, the coronavirus pandemic.”

# # #

NNSA’s draft Savannah River Site environmental impact statement is available at https://www.energy.gov/nepa/downloads/doeeis-0541-draft-environmental-impact-statement

Federal Register notice, April 3, 2020 - Plutonium Pit Production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and Announcement of Public Hearing: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-04-03/pdf/2020-06557.pdf

This press release is available online at http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/PR-Pits-SRS-Draft-EIS-4-3-20.pdf and https://nukewatch.org/srs-eis-pr-4-3-20/

See JASON Plutonium Pit Lifetime Report - November 28, 2006

See, for example, https://www.aikenstandard.com/news/why-defense-leaders-discuss-the-need-for-plutonium-pits/article_45255e94-28a7-11ea-b9d1-bf80a2aee00d.html


MEDIA ADVISORY:
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S FY 2021 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CLEANUP BUDGET REQUEST 

February 6, 2020
For use with DOE’s scheduled budget release on Monday, February 10, 2020
For more information, key contacts are listed below.

According to media reports, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), has persuaded President Trump to increase its weapons budget by more than 20% in one year. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty has claimed that a failure to give her agency that huge increase would amount to “unilateral disarmament” despite the U.S. having thousands of nuclear warheads ready to launch on a moment’s notice.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a 33-year-old network of groups from communities downwind and downstream of U.S. nuclear weapons sites, strongly opposes this unnecessary and dangerous spending that promotes a new global nuclear arms race. In addition, Trump’s FY 2021 budget request is expected to cut or hold flat cleanup, nonproliferation, dismantlement and renewable energy programs that meet real national needs to pay for more unneeded nuclear weapons. To compound all this, DOE’s nuclear weapons and environmental management programs have been on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars for 27 consecutive years.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) and its member groups will be analyzing the following critical issues. For details, contact the ANA leaders listed at the end of this Advisory.

• Will NNSA’s “top line” budget request jump to $20 billion, as per media reports? If so, that topline number would be up from $16.5 billion in FY 2020, $15.2 billion in FY 2019 and $14.7 billion in FY 2018 (a 36% increase in three years).

• Will that expected $3.5 billion increase for FY 2021 be mostly or entirely for nuclear weapons programs under “Weapons Activities,” particularly for new nuclear warheads under “Life Extension Programs” and expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores for those new warheads? [Note: The other three NNSA budget categories are Federal Salaries and Expenses, Nonproliferation and Naval Propulsion.]

• Will the FY 2021 budget start another new-design nuclear warhead, such as the vaguely-named “Next Navy Warhead Life Extension Program” that NNSA introduced in its FY 2020 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan? If so, what is the true need for this new-design warhead?

• How much greater will requested funding be for the W87-1 above the $363 million projected last year for FY 2021? Does the NNSA budget disclose the role, cost and reliability risks of its novel-design plutonium pit? [Note: The W87-1 is NNSA’s proposed replacement for the Air Force’s existing W78 ICBM warhead. $112 million was appropriated for the W87-1 in FY 2020 and $53 million in FY 2019.]

• Will requested funding for the W80-4, the new warhead for a new “Long-Range Stand Off” air-launched cruise missile, top $1 billion for FY 2021? [Note: $898.5 million was appropriated in FY 2020 for the W80-4 and $645.8 million in FY 2019.]

• Expanded plutonium pit production is NNSA’s declared #1 priority. Will funding in its "Plutonium Sustainment" account jump from $710 billion in FY 2020 to $1 billion or more in FY 2021? Will most of that increase fast track the new Plutonium Bomb Plant at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina to make 50 or more plutonium pits per year? What portion will be for upgrades to the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s aging plutonium facility so the Lab can produce more than 30 pits per year?

• Is the rationale for expanded plutonium pit production changing from being a “hedge” against technical and geopolitical surprise to replacing all pits in all ~4,000 active and reserve nuclear weapons over the next 50 years? Why is expanded plutonium pit production needed to begin with when the U.S. already has more than 15,000 pits in storage and independent experts have found that pits last at least a century?

• NNSA directed $410 million in FY 2020 to “repurpose” the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS into a Plutonium Bomb Plant following cancellation of the boondoggle MOX program. Will NNSA continue to fund termination costs of the MOX project? Will Congress investigate the fraud and mismanagement of 8 billion taxpayer dollars that led to the cancellation of the MOX program?

• Will NNSA increase funding to nearly $1 billion in FY 2021 for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Plant near Oak Ridge, TN despite the revelation that its enriched uranium program (of which the UPF is a key part) will indefinitely rely upon two older facilities previously slated for closure that do not meet environmental and seismic standards? Are operating costs for those two old facilities included or not in NNSA’s budget cap of $6.5 billion for the UPF?

• Will NNSA’s dramatic budget increase seek adequate funds to address excess high risk buildings in Oak Ridge, Livermore and other nuclear weapons sites, or will officials continue to ignore the “ever increasing risk” (the DOE Inspector General’s description) to workers and the public until it’s too late?

• Will the Budget Request comply with the law (National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2020, Sec. 4409) and include for Fiscal Years 2021-2025 annual estimates of the costs of meeting legal cleanup milestones at each DOE site? DOE has never provided such cost estimates, which would demonstrate that the budget request is many tens of millions of dollars short of what is required by legal agreements with host states.

• Will DOE include the lifecycle cost estimate to clean up its nuclear sites? Chronic underfunding of DOE environmental programs leads to ever-increasing lifecycle clean-up costs — from $341.6 billion in FY 2016 to $388.2 billion in FY 2018 to $413.9 billion in FY 2019 to providing no lifecycle costs in FY 2020.

• Does the budget include any money for Yucca Mountain? For each of the last three years the Trump budget has included funding for this technically flawed site that is strongly opposed by the public and Nevada officials and for which Congress has refused to appropriate funds.

• Does the budget again include funding for "Consolidated Interim Storage" for commercial irradiated fuel (AKA lethal high-level radioactive wastes)? Previous Trump budgets have included that money even though DOE funding of private storage sites is prohibited by federal law and Congress refuses to appropriate the funds.

• How much funding is provided for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? [Note: $100 million appropriated in FY 2020.] Such funds are a bailout to the failing nuclear energy industry since SMRs are not technically or financially viable.

# # #

The annual Department of Energy Congressional Budget Requests are typically available on the scheduled release date by 1:00 pm EST at https://www.energy.gov/cfo/listings/budget-justification-supporting-documents

For information about specific DOE nuclear weapons sites and programs, contact:

Los Alamos Lab Pit Production and Life Extension Programs-

• Jay Coghlan: 505.989.7342, [email protected]

Livermore Lab and Life Extension Programs-

• Marylia Kelley: 925.443.7148, [email protected] 

Uranium Processing Facility and Dismantlements -

• Ralph Hutchison: 865.776.5050, [email protected] 

Pit Production and MOX Plant at the Savannah River Site -

• Tom Clements: 803.240.7268, [email protected] 

Environmental Management, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Yucca Mountain –

• Don Hancock: 505.262.1862, [email protected] 


COMMUNITIES PUSH BACK AGAINST REPORTS OF HUGE NUCLEAR WEAPONS BUDGET INCREASE 

*** immediate release *** 4 February 2020

Marylia Kelley, 925.255.3589, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, [email protected] 

Tom Clements, 803.240.7268, [email protected] 

Multiple sources indicate the FY2021 budget request from the Trump Administration will seek a dramatic increase in funding for nuclear weapons—an unprecedented leap of 20% over current spending levels, bringing the total for The National Nuclear Security Administration to $20 billion. Reportedly, the increase is earmarked principally for modernization programs for warhead design and plutonium pit manufacturing facilities.

News reports have included outlandish statements from NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty who suggested providing any less that $20 billion would amount to “unilateral disarmament,” a claim no truer than the since discredit declaration of a missile gap with the Soviets in 1962.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a nationwide coalition of grassroots watchdog groups from every major US nuclear weapons facility, notes that the current US nuclear stockpile has been certified reliable and is expected to be reliable for at least forty more years.

ANA released a letter to Congressional leadership calling for a hard look at the budget request when it arrives, scheduled for February 10, and encouraging House and Senate members to reject the increase as unjustified and unwise.

“The United States retains possession of nearly 4,000 stockpiled and deployed nuclear warheads and bombs. This is hardly disarmament,” said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California. “Moreover, a 20% increase for weapons activities would perilously escalate an already dangerous new arms race. Rather than speed the design and production of new warheads, such as the W87-1, the country would be better served by cleaning up the contamination impacting our communities from the first cold war.”

ANA has tracked spending on nuclear weapons programs for more than thirty years.

“It will be important for the House and Senate committees that discuss this budget to be anchored in reality,” said Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “There is no justification for a surge in nuclear weapons spending at this time. It is a brazen attempt by the NNSA and its contractors to exploit the last year of the Trump Administration; they want to gorge on taxpayer dollars while the trough is controlled by Republicans.”

The increase in spending would be used in part to fund new bomb production facilities, including two new facilities to produce plutonium pits—one at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and one at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. ANA members point out that funding these facilities in the FY2021 budget is premature.

“NNSA is required by a court order and by environmental law to conduct a full Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement review on expanded pit production. The recent announcement that they will not prepare the required analysis means they could well be facing a challenge in federal court” said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch in Columbia, SC. “NNSA hasn’t demonstrated the need for producing 80 plutonium pits per year, much less explained why they need duplicate facilities to do it. Clearly they are setting the taxpayer up for another boondoggle on the scale of the failed MOX project at Savannah River.”

ANA will work to inform committee staff and members about the reality behind the President’s budget request and to debunk the false claims being made by the Administration.

“Major corporations rake in billions in profits from weapons production activities every year,” said Coghlan. “We’re on the other end of that pipeline. We’re the taxpayers. And we depend on Congress to spend our money wisely.”

- 30 -

CLICK HERE for a copy of the ANA letter distributed to congressional committees with jurisdiction over the nuclear weapons budget.


Natural Resources Defense Council

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Savannah River Site Watch

Tri-Valley CAREs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 9, 2020

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in SC, 803.834.3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, [email protected] 

Geoff Fettus, NRDC, 202.289.2371, [email protected] 

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, 925.443.7148, [email protected]

Watchdog Groups Claim Nuclear Agency is Moving Forward to Manufacture New Plutonium Bomb Cores in Violation of National Environmental Law and an Existing Court Order 

The Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has formally announced that it is proceeding with aggressive plans to expand the production of plutonium pits without required nation-wide “programmatic” public review. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley CAREs assert this is in direct violation of the legal requirements of both the National Environmental Policy Act and a 1998 court order that stipulates that DOE must prepare a “programmatic environmental impact statement” (PEIS) when it plans to produce more than 80 pits per year. Plutonium pits are the radioactive cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons.

As background, U.S. industrial-scale plutonium bomb core production ended in 1989 when the FBI raided the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver while investigating environmental crimes. In 1997, the Department of Energy formally relocated the pit production mission to the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico after completing the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. At that time, the agency explicitly capped production at 20 pits per year.

In May 2018 the Defense Department and NNSA announced that they plan to increase pit production at LANL to at least 30 pits per year. In addition, the agency plans to establish redundant production of at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina by repurposing the partially built MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, a boondoggle that has already cost American taxpayers ~$7 billion. At the same time, LANL has had chronic nuclear safety problems that shut down operations at its main plutonium facility for three years - - the same facility now slated for expanded operations.

Expanded pit production will cost at least $43 billion over the next 30 years. Yet the Defense Department and NNSA have never explained why expanded plutonium pit production is necessary to begin with. More than 15,000 existing plutonium pits are stored at NNSA’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX. Independent experts have concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 100 years (the average pit age is less than 40 years old), with no specified end date. Crucially, there is no pit production scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, proposed future pit production is for speculative new-design nuclear weapons. In the past, this was for a “Reliable Replacement Warhead” and more recently an “Interoperable Warhead” that NNSA claimed to Congress was the centerpiece of a transformed nuclear weapons stockpile and production complex. Both proposed new-design nuclear warheads were subsequently canceled.

NNSA’s latest rationale for new plutonium pit production is for a future “W87-1” warhead for the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. But whereas the W87 is an existing type of plutonium pit, according to NNSA budget documents the agency plans to produce future “W87-like” pits, leaving much room for possible heavy modifications. That could adversely impact national security because newly produced plutonium pits cannot be full-scale tested given the global nuclear weapons testing moratorium, or alternatively could push the U.S. back into testing with serious international proliferation consequences.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) clearly requires that proposed major federal actions be subject to public environmental review, which federal executive agencies must undertake early in their decision-making processes. Since 2003 NNSA has tried through two supplemental PEISs and two LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statements to expand plutonium pit production but failed each time because of citizen opposition and lack of clear mission need.

This perhaps explains why NNSA now refuses to prepare a new supplemental programmatic environmental impact statement for expanded pit production. The four watchdog groups contend that is clearly required for three simple reasons: 1) NNSA must formally raise the pit production cap established in the 1996 PEIS; 2) a second site ~1,500 miles from LANL is now involved (i.e., the Savannah River Site); and 3) more than ample precedent exists for programmatic NEPA review of expanded plutonium pit production. And above all is the clear requirement in the 1998 court order that DOE must prepare a supplemental PEIS when it plans on producing more than 80 pits per year.

Tri-Valley CAREs’ Executive Director Marylia Kelley noted, “NNSA’s refusal to complete programmatic environmental review before plunging ahead with plans to more than quadruple the production authorization for plutonium bomb cores flies in the face of our country’s foundational environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act, and a standing Federal Court order mandating that the government conduct such a review. The order was obtained in prior litigation by Natural Resources Defense Council on behalf of itself, Tri-Valley CAREs, and additional plaintiffs. Today, I find myself shocked but not surprised that NNSA would so flagrantly flout the law. Moreover, use of a speculative untested pit in a new Livermore Lab-design warhead will degrade, not enhance, the safety and reliability of the U.S. stockpile. My group stands ready to uphold NEPA and the specific court order.”

“There’s a long legal history here,” said NRDC Senior Attorney Geoff Fettus. “But suffice it to say, it’s in everyone’s interest to carefully, and most of all publicly, assess whether it’s a good idea to aggressively expand the manufacturing of key components of nuclear weapons. There is a Federal Court order that directly addresses this issue. We have yet to see a meaningful response by NNSA to that order.”

Tom Clements of SRS Watch added, “NNSA is potentially facing a legal challenge for refusing to prepare the legally required over-arching environmental review of expanded pit production at Los Alamos and at the Savannah River Site, which has no previous pit manufacturing experience. Pursuit of the proposed Plutonium Bomb Plant at SRS is not only on shaky legal ground but the authorization and funding by Congress of all new pit production will be challenged this year and in subsequent years. The repurposing of the poorly constructed MOX plant for nuclear weapons production is guaranteed to run off the rails as DOE has repeatedly demonstrated that it is incapable of properly managing the budgets and schedules of such complex projects.”

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico concluded, “We need to find smart ways to face the world’s renewed nuclear arms race. Unnecessary expanded production of questionable plutonium bomb cores is not the way to do it. Instead of aggressively modifying nuclear weapons the U.S. should carefully preserve its existing, reliable, extensively tested nuclear weapons stockpile while working toward a future world free of them. It’s that kind of analysis and consideration of credible alternatives that the National Environmental Policy Act should give Americans instead of the nuclear weaponeers rubber stamping their self-interested agenda of nukes forever at the taxpayer’s expense.”

# # #

NNSA’s Federal Register Notice of Availability for the final Supplement Analysis is available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-01-08/pdf/2020-00102.pdf

It provides succinct background.

NNSA’s final Supplement Analysis is available at https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/01/f70/final-supplement-analysis-eis-0236-s4-sa-02-complex-transformation-12-2019.pdf

The 1998 court order that requires DOE to prepare a supplemental PEIS when it plans to produce more than 80 pits per year is available as Natural Resources Defense Council v. Pena, 20 F.Supp.2d 45, 50 (D.D.C. 1998), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/20/45/2423390/


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 17, 2019

Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in SC, 803.834.3084, [email protected]

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, [email protected] 

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, 925.443.7148, [email protected]

Watchdogs Issue Second Demand for Nation-Wide Review of Expanded Plutonium Pit Production 

Today, lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment sent a second letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the head of the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The letter demands a nation-wide programmatic environmental impact statement for the agencies’ proposed expanded production of plutonium pits, the fissile cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. Invoking the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the letter concludes:

“…we advise the agencies that timely compliance with NEPA is the best means for the agencies to keep these [expanded plutonium pit production] projects on track, as a failure to rigorously comply with NEPA may necessitate litigation, including if necessary motions for injunctive relief, all of which would likely increase the expense of DOE’s and NNSA’s proposed actions and extend their timelines further. Accordingly, we strongly encourage DOE and NNSA to come into compliance with NEPA by preparing a new or supplemental PEIS for its proposals regarding plutonium pit production, and to do so immediately. If the agencies continue on their current trajectory, we will have no choice but to evaluate all our options to enforce compliance with federal environmental laws.”

As background, on May 10, 2018, the Departments of Defense and Energy jointly announced that plutonium pit production would be expanded from the currently sanctioned level of 20 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico to at least 30 pits per year, plus redundant production of at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, which would be a completely new mission there. 

Expanded plutonium pit production is NOT to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. It is instead for shifting proposals for speculative new-design nuclear weapons, starting with the Reliable Replacement Warhead (canceled by Congress in 2008), the so-called Interoperable Warhead for both Navy and Air Force ballistic missiles (canceled by NNSA in late 2018 due to lack of Navy support), and now a new warhead dubbed the W87-1 to replace the W78 warhead on the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

Of particular significance, future pits will not be exact replicas of existing designs but instead according to NNSA’s congressional budget request will be “W87-like”, without further explanation. The potential danger is that national security will be degraded because these pits cannot be full-scale tested given the global testing moratorium, or alternatively could prompt the U.S. to resume testing, which would have grave international proliferation consequences. Nevertheless, expanded plutonium pit production is the NNSA’s declared #1 priority and is a central component of the Trump Administration’s $1.7 trillion nuclear weapons “modernization” program that is helping to fuel an escalating global nuclear arms race.

The legally required public environmental reviews were first demanded in an October 31, 2018 letter by Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), to which NNSA did not respond. A follow-up May 17, 2019 letter sent on their behalf by attorneys for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Washington, DC law firm Eubanks & Associates, LLP yielded quick results. On May 31, 2019, NNSA signed a formal Notice of Intent stating that three environmental reviews would be conducted: 1) a site-specific environmental impact statement for pit production at the Savannah River Site, 2) additional NEPA documentation for expanded pit production at LANL, and 3) a “Supplement Analysis” to the 2008 Final Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic EIS to determine whether or not a new supplemental PEIS should be completed. 

NNSA had already preliminarily concluded that a new supplemental PEIS is not required, but nevertheless offered the Supplement Analysis for public comment. The organizations on whose behalf the attorneys’ letter was sent responded by submitting detailed formal comment to NNSA. Perhaps most significant of all, the Natural Resources Defense Council pointed to a 1998 court order that it had secured while representing more than 60 citizen organizations that requires DOE to prepare a supplemental PEIS when the Department begins to plan for more than 50 pits per year with a single work shift, or more than 80 with multiple work shifts. Thus, DOE and NNSA are required to complete a new supplemental PEIS not only by NEPA requirements but also by a court order that NRDC noted it would enforce if necessary. 


NNSA proposes to implement pit production at SRS by repurposing the failed MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, a boondoggle that cost American taxpayers some $7 billion dollars. Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch, commented, “Lacking any justification for expanded pit production and absent any demonstration that the poorly constructed MOX building can be converted into a Plutonium Bomb Plant, NNSA needs to either abandon the new pit project or start over with the legally mandated PEIS.” He further added, “Before proposing the reuse of the MOX building, NNSA must cooperate with Congress in investigations and hearings into fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement at the bunged MOX project.”

Tri-Valley CAREs’ executive director Marylia Kelley commented, “As today’s letter notes, the government is twice-bound by legal requirements to complete a PEIS. On the one hand, NEPA itself requires a PEIS. On the other, there is also a federal court order that mandates a PEIS in the present circumstance. My organization, along with NRDC, is party to the Order. I am pleased that the attorneys’ letter sent today makes clear our willingness to act to uphold it. DOE and NNSA would be wise to ‘do the right thing’ by announcing they will commence a PEIS before taking any further action to expand plutonium pit production.”

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico Director, noted, “The Los Alamos Lab has a long track record of nuclear safety problems that must be resolved before expanded plutonium pit production is even considered. The government’s claimed need for expanded production needs to be critically examined in a new nation-wide supplemental PEIS for its environmental impacts, costs and potentially adverse national security impacts. Following that, given the massive changes proposed for LANL due to expanded pit production, NNSA will also have to prepare a new site-specific site-wide environmental impact statement for the Los Alamos Lab.” 

# # #

Nuclear Watch New Mexico is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California; and Savannah River Site Watch in Columbia, South Carolina. All three groups are members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a grassroots network of public interest groups that addresses Department of Energy issues nationwide. The three organizations are being represented by the public interest law firm Eubanks & Associates, LLC, based in Washington, DC.

Today’s letter to DOE Secretary Rick Perry NNSA Administrator Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty is available at https://nukewatch.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Second-Letter-Regarding-Need-for-PEIS-for-Plutonium-Pit-Production.pdf

The May 17, 2019 attorneys’ letter to DOE Secretary Rick Perry NNSA Administrator Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty is available at https://nukewatch.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Summary-Pit-Production.pdf

The 1998 court order in which NRDC was lead counsel for plaintiffs is available at https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/20/45/2423390/


Click here for the Second Letter Regarding Need for PEIS for Plutonium Pit Production.


Media Advisory - for immediate release…

Contacts:

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148; cell, 925-255-358

Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, cell, 510-306-0119

Dr. Robert Gould, Physicians for Social Responsibility, SF Bay Area, cell, 415-407-8972

       

LIVERMORE, CA - On August 6, 2019 a Rally, March and Nonviolent Direct Action titled, “Designing Armageddon at Livermore Lab,” will commemorate the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the site where the U.S. is designing new nuclear weapons for use today.

 

WHAT:  Dozens of groups will mark the 74th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan at the gates of Livermore Lab. The rally will expose the humanitarian consequences of the bomb with first-hand testimony from a survivor. Livermore Lab is designing Armageddon. It is imperative to gather at Livermore Lab on the date a nuclear weapon was first used in war to stop the creation of new warheads proposed by President Trump. More than 80% of Livermore Lab’s fiscal 2020 budget is for Nuclear Weapons Activities. Participants on August 6 will say “never again” to the use of nuclear weapons – and demand their global abolition.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 6. Rally at 8:00 AM (see below). At 9:30 AM, participants will march to the Lab’s West Gate, where a Japanese bon dance will call in the ancestors and the outlining of bodies on pavement will commemorate the vaporized shadows found after the atomic bombings. Those who choose will peaceably risk arrest. 

WHERE: The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, corner of Vasco & Patterson Pass Roads in Livermore. The march will go southward down Vasco Road to Westgate Drive. 

FEATURED RALLY SPEAKERS:

• Nobuaki Hanaoka, the special guest speaker, was an infant when the bomb fell on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. His mother and sister died from illnesses linked to radiation poisoning and his brother died at age 39 from premature aging associated with fallout from the bomb. Rev. Hanaoka is a retired minister in the United Methodist Church, who came to the U.S. following seminary training in Japan. He has settled in the Bay Area where he speaks, writes and teaches on topics of peace and human rights. Rev. Hanaoka will present the “Hibakusha Appeal” and solicit signatures from participants (see WHY, below).

• Daniel Ellsberg will be the keynote speaker. He is perhaps best known as the whistleblower who released “The Pentagon Papers” to hasten an end to the war in Vietnam. He was an analyst at RAND Corp. and a consultant to the Defense Dept., specializing in problems of command and control of nuclear weapons, war plans and crisis decision-making. In 2017 Ellsberg released his critically acclaimed memoirs, “America’s Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.”

• Dr. Sharat G. Lin will speak on current nuclear flashpoints. He is a research fellow and past President of the San José Peace and Justice Center. Lin writes and lectures on global political economy, labor migration, social movements, and public health. Last August he delivered an apology from the American people to the Japanese people for the U.S. atomic bombings at mass rallies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A medical radiation scientist by training, Lin has connections to the nuclear energy programs in Iran and India, providing him with inside knowledge of the decision-making behind those programs. His insights on the nuclear calculations of Iran and North Korea are reinforced by personal visits to these countries, and provide a vision for denuclearization.

• Marylia Kelley will address Livermore Lab’s role in promoting a new, destabilizing global arms race. She is Executive Director at the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs and brings 36 years of research, writing and facilitating public participation in decisions regarding the Lab and the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Kelley has testified before the House Armed Services Committee of the U.S. Congress, the California Legislature and the National Academy of Sciences, among other deliberative bodies. She has lived in Livermore since 1976. Kelley was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

• Rafael Jesús González will offer poetry and insight into the movement for nuclear disarmament. He is the City of Berkeley’s first Poet Laureate and an organizer of the 1983 International Day of Nuclear Disarmament. González has taught at the Univ. of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State Univ., Univ. of Texas, and Laney College in Oakland, where he founded the Department of Mexican and Latin-American Studies. His poetry and academic articles appear in reviews and anthologies in the U. S., Mexico, and abroad. In 2013 he received the César E. Chávez Lifetime Award. The City of Berkeley honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. 

• Roxanne will speak on divestment from nuclear weapons and war. She is a retired Judge who has worked and lived in Indian Country and seen firsthand the impacts of sacrifice zones created by the development of nuclear weapons. Roxanne first came into contact with nuclear issues in the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, which moved her to pursue graduate studies in renewable energy alternatives to the pollution, destruction and terror that nuclear weapons inflict. Roxanne currently organizes with CODEPINK's Divest From the War Machine campaign.

• Andrew Kodama and Julia Malakiman are co-emcees. They represent the fresh, dynamic leadership of young adults in the peace movement. Kodama is an educator, artist, and organizer born and raised in Walnut Creek, California. After working for the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center for two years doing community outreach he recently transitioned into the role of Executive Director in June. Malakiman returns to the Bay Area after completing graduate studies in France in Human Rights. She leads the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center in Palo Alto. As Director, she amplifies youth and minority voices while honing in on the grassroots success that local activists before her have fought for and achieved.

WHY: Our world is facing numerous nuclear flashpoints within global conflicts and crises that could catastrophically escalate at any moment.  Under Trump, the U.S. is on a path to spend nearly $2,000,000,000,000 (trillion) over thirty years to upgrade its nuclear weapons complex, warheads and delivery systems when inflation and the novel concepts in the Nuclear Posture Review are included. Russia, China, France, U.K., India, Israel and Pakistan have begun nuclear modernizations of their own. While halting talks with North Korea have commenced, the Trump Administration has scuttled the Iran nuclear deal and is escalating pressure on the Iranian regime.

The U.S. announcement, followed by Russia’s, of its intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on August 2, 2019 is another sign of deepening crisis among the nuclear-armed states. Following the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, this latest move imperils the entire structure of arms control and disarmament, including prospects for extension of the New START Treaty that expires in 2021. We may be heading into new, unpredictable rounds of arms racing. 

Having experienced unbearable devastation and sorrow, the A-bomb survivors – known as “Hibakusha”, continue to passionately appeal for a world without nuclear weapons based on their conviction that “no one shall ever again suffer as we have”. In the face of growing nuclear dangers they have launched the “Hibakusha Appeal”, a major international petition drive “call[ing] on all State Governments to conclude a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons. The average age of the Hibakusha now exceeds 80. It is our strong desire to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world in our lifetime so that succeeding generations of people will not see hell on earth ever again.”

OPPORTUNITIES: Interviews in advance or at the rally site with speakers, artists and organizers are available on request. Photo opportunities will be available at the rally site at 8 AM, along the march route and at Livermore Lab’s West Gate. There will be signs and banners. Call for details.

Click Here for the PDF version of this Media Advisory....

###



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2019

Contacts:  Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in So. Carolina, 803.834.3084, [email protected]

            Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154, [email protected]

            Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, 925.443.7148, [email protected]

Noted Environmental Lawyers Warn Government Not to Expand Production of Plutonium Bomb Cores in Violation of National Environmental Policy Act and Public Review

On behalf of three public interest organizations - Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and Savannah River Site Watch – attorneys for the law firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Eubanks and the Natural Resources Defense Council recently sent a 16-page letter to Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The detailed letter warns the nuclear agency to not proceed with aggressive plans to expand plutonium pit production without first meeting its legal requirements for timely public review and comment under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The three nuclear watchdog groups met with members of Congress and key committees to discuss the pit production issue at the national Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC Days in mid-May. Nearly 70 activists from a dozen states hosting nuclear weapons sites held more than 90 meetings with members of Congress and executive branch offices during the 3-day event.

Plutonium pits are the fissile cores or “triggers” of modern thermonuclear weapons. The NNSA and Defense Department jointly announced last year that production would quadruple from its currently authorized limit of 20 pits annually to at least at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and at least 50 additional pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina for a total of 80 or more. At LANL, pit production has been plagued with chronic nuclear safety problems spanning a decade. At SRS, plutonium pit production would be an entirely new mission. NNSA plans to “repurpose” the partially constructed Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS that suffered massive cost overruns before the program was canceled.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that federal agencies undertake a thoroughgoing environmental analysis of major projects. Moreover, federal proposals requiring implementation over broad geographic areas and long time frames, such as expanded pit production at multiple sites, must be analyzed in a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS). Therefore, the attorneys’ letter concludes

“… taking a hard look at the expansion of plutonium pit production at LANL and the repurposing of the MOX Facility at SRS, and considering alternatives to this proposed plan, is precisely what NEPA requires. And because NEPA mandates that agencies undertake the NEPA process as early as possible in order to promote informed decision-making, DOE and NNSA must undertake a PEIS as soon as possible.

Until DOE and NNSA fully comply with NEPA through the preparation of a PEIS, any irreversible or irretrievable commitment of resources to either the expansion of pit production at LANL or to the repurposing of the MOX Facility at SRS is unlawful. Accordingly, we request that DOE and NNSA respond to this letter within 30 days to explain when the agencies intend to undertake the required PEIS for the expansion of plutonium pit production at LANL and the repurposing of the MOX Facility for plutonium pit production at SRS.”

Accordingly, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and Savannah River Site Watch expect a response in the coming weeks detailing how the Energy Department and its semi-autonomous NNSA plan to meet their obligations. Should they fail to respond, the three organizations will consider concrete next steps available through both the law and the congressional appropriations process. The nuclear watchdogs vow to slow the government’s rush to expand plutonium pit production while violating the public’s right to analyze its environmental impacts and participate in public hearings and decision-making pursuant to NEPA.

# # #

On June 14, the three groups are sponsoring a public forum in Aiken, South Carolina - near the Savannah River Site - on NNSA’s pit production plans.  The forum will be held in the Aiken Municipal Building auditorium from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and the NEPA issue and lack of justification for expanded pit production will be discussed in detail.  For more information, see media advisory by the three groups: http://www.srswatch.org/uploads/2/7/5/8/27584045/pit_fourm_media_advisory_may_13_2019.pdf

The attorneys’ letter to NNSA Administrator Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty is available from the nuclear watchdog organizations. You will find it on the Nuclear Watch New Mexico website at

https://nukewatch.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Summary-Pit-Production.pdf

and on the Tri-Valley CAREs website at http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/5-17-19-Letter-Groups-Demand-NEPA-for-Pu-Pit-Production.pdf


Savannah River Site Watch (Columbia, SC)

Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM)

Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA)

Media Advisory

May 13, 2019

Forum on June 14 in Aiken, SC on Expanded Production of Plutonium “Pits” – for Nuclear Weapons – to Give Voice to Concerns in Face of DOE’s Failure to Engage and Inform the Public about the Risky Proposal

Ads on “Plutonium Bomb Plant” Forum to Run in Newspapers in Aiken, SC, Augusta, GA and On Line

Columbia, SC – The controversial proposal by the U.S. Department of Energy to expand production of plutonium “pits”- the core of all nuclear weapons - will be the subject of a public forum in Aiken, South Carolina on Friday, June 14, 2019.  The event is free and open to all members of the public.

In response to DOE’s lack of public engagement about the proposal and its potential environmental and health impacts, three public interest groups that work on DOE and nuclear weapons issues have taken the initiative on the matter. The questionable proposal by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration is to expand pit production at the Savannah River Site into the shuttered MOX plant - a totally new and unproven mission for SRS - and at the Los Alamos National Lab to 80 or more pits per year.  Such pit production for new and “refurbished” nuclear weapons may help stimulate a new nuclear arms race. The vague proposal is far from finalized and is unauthorized and unfunded by Congress.

To stimulate both a public discussion and attendance at the event, a quarter-page color ad - linked here in PDF and here in JPEG and here in PNG - about the forum will run in the Aiken (SC) Standard on May 12 & 13 and June 12 & 13, in the Augusta (GA) Chronicle on May 13 and on the Metro Spirit (Augusta) website from May 13 to June 13. The forum will be publicized by the groups, including via an “event” on the SRS Watch Facebook page.

Who:  Sponsors & Presenters: Savannah River Site Watch (Columbia, SC); Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM) & Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA) - all members of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA)

Co-sponsors:  Aiken Peace, Carolina Peace Resource Center, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions, League of Women Voters of SC, Nuclear Watch South, SC Chapter Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists

What:      Public forum on “Plutonium Bomb Plant: Risky Project Targeted for Savannah River Site”

When:     Friday, June 14, 2019, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where:    Aiken Municipal Building Auditorium, 215 The Alley, downtown Aiken, SC 29801

Contact:     Tom Clements, SRS Watch, tel 803-834-3084, [email protected]

      Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, tel. 505-989-7342, [email protected]

        Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, tel. 925-255-3589, [email protected]

###


Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

immediate release: Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Watchdog groups call for Congress to protect nuclear weapons communities—stop DOE limitations on Safety Board

contacts: Kathy Crandall Robinson (Washington, DC): 202 577 9875
Marylia Kelley (California): 925 443 7148
Joni Arends (New Mexico): 505 986 1973
Tom Carpenter (Washington state): 206 419 5829
Tom Clements (South Carolina): 803 834 3084
Jay Coghlan (New Mexico): 505 989 7342
Don Hancock (New Mexico): 505 262 1862
Ralph Hutchison (Tennessee): 865 776 5050

Watchdog groups from across the country are insisting the Department of Energy withdraw DOE Order 140.1, a controversial order that would compromise safety at dozens of facilities in the US nuclear weapons complex, and are asking key Congressional committees to annul the revised order and preserve the critically important prerogatives of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).

The order, first announced by DOE in April, 2018, has drawn scrutiny from members of Congressional committees with oversight over the Energy Department. DOE Order 140.1 seeks to limit access to information and personnel by the Safety Board .

Kathy Crandall Robinson will speak at a November 28 hearing in Washington, DC, at which DNFSB is soliciting comments from Department officials and members of the public. “Order 140.1, with its degradation of DNFSB’s role and authority, threatens to send us on a glide path back to a careless era as if this were a time when safety concerns and dangers at nuclear weapons facilities are shrinking. They are not,” Robinson says. “Instead, there are aging facilities, facilities operating where serious safety concerns have been raised, and some facilities where plans for increased production of nuclear weapons components could lead to novel dangers. For example, the President’s Nuclear Posture Review calls for production of 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030 and plans are being laid for increased pit production at Los Alamos as well as new capabilities at Savannah River Site.”

Members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of organizations that addresses nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup issues, hail the work of the DNFSB as a critical guard against DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration efforts to cut corners on safety.

“The Safety Board works outside of the media spotlight,” said Tom Clements, Director of Savannah River Site Watch in Columbia, South Carolina. “Its value to the public is immeasurable. DNFSB frequently provides information about SRS operations which DOE fails to communicate. The role of the Safety Board should be expanded, not curtailed.”

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California, said, “The DNFSB is absolutely vital to worker and public safety. I have spent 35 years monitoring Livermore Lab. I can tell you that workers and community members rely on the Safety Board to do its job—every day!”

DOE nonresponsive to public concerns

In August 2018, ANA sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry outlining the concerns of the Alliance. ANA groups noted that DOE is required by law to provide the Safety Board with ready access to facilities, personnel and information “as the Board considers necessary to carry out its responsibilities.” Noting that DOE’s Order was promulgated and put into effect with no public input, the ANA groups called for DOE to rescind the current Order.

Two months later, ANA has received no response—not even an acknowledgement of our letter—from the Department.

ANA’s letter asked Perry, at a minimum, to hold the Order in abeyance and to hold public hearings across the DOE weapons complex within 90 days to explain the need for the change in the DOE’s Order and to receive public comment.

“When it comes to safety, too often we get lip service from DOE and NNSA. Citizens have no way of checking up on them,” said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “We rely on the Safety Board. Their reports provide a window into the operations at sites across the country. Too often, they tell us of problems and incidents that pose risks to workers and potentially to the public. Of course, DOE and NNSA sometimes find this inconvenient—but that’s a small price to pay for operating as safely as possible. We are grateful for the technical expertise and the transparency that are the hallmarks of the work of DNFSB. This effort to constrain them is wrongheaded and dangerous.”

The need for Congressional action

The DNFSB held an initial hearing on August 28, 2018 to receive testimony from DOE and NNSA officials along with Safety Board technical personnel and the public. The hearing was marked by DOE’s insistence that the Order meant little in the way of actual change, and the Safety Board’s growing skepticism.

After the hearing Congressmen Adam Smith (WA) and Jim Cooper (TN) wrote a letter to the Safety Board expressing their concerns. Subsequently, Safety Board plans to reorganize itself were put on hold, and DOE was called on to explain Order 140.1 to Congress.

ANA believes DOE cannot be trusted to modify its Order in ways that preserve the integrity and access required by DNSFB’s authorizing legislation. In a letter dated November 27, 2018, ANA wrote to Congressional committee leaders asking for Congressional action to compel DOE to meet its obligations and provide unfettered access to DNSFB to information, documents, personnel and defense nuclear facilities across the weapons complex.

The need for DNFSB oversight

The public outcry comes in response to the DOE’s effort to implement DOE Order 140.1 in ways that would dramatically limit the Safety Board’s role at some of the most dangerous nuclear facilities in the country.

Under the revised order, the Safety Board is prohibited from talking to contractor employees—the people closest to the work—without getting authorization from managers and DOE.

“In an institution with a terrible track record of abusing whistleblowers, it is crucial that DNFSB have access to any and all personnel as they explore safety issues at our sites,” said Beatrice Brailsford of the Snake River Alliance in Idaho. “Stifling the collection of information from the people who have the most direct knowledge is a brazen attempt to control and limit the Safety Board’s access.”

The DOE Order also removes some facilities— rated Category 3 and under nuclear facilities—from DNFSB oversight altogether. “In essence, this makes DOE and NNSA self-policing,” Brailsford said. “There will be virtually no independent oversight on safety issues at some of these dangerous nuclear facilities. That is unacceptable.”

Safety Board track record

Tom Carpenter, Executive Director of Hanford Challenge, noted numerous instances of Safety Board intervention that identified serious safety concerns. “The list of Safety Board accomplishments is too long to enumerate here,” Carpenter said. “Within just the past several years, the Safety Board identified numerous concerns about the build-up of explosive and flammable hydrogen gases in the Hanford waste tanks. They have also tagged issues at the Waste Treatment Plant, including criticality control, flaws in the design and construction of electrical systems, and erosion and corrosion in the pulse jet mixer system for high-level waste.

“These were issues the Board raised because DOE and its contractor had failed to self-identify or correct them. The Board identified major issues with the potential releases of ammonia at the Waste Treatment Plant as well as design flaws that could deliver fatal doses to workers in some parts of that facility.”

ANA groups charge that many hazards identified by the DNFSB across the nuclear weapons complex would not have otherwise been brought forward or corrected, creating unacceptable safety conditions that would present a menace to human health, safety, and the environment.

“The Safety Board can save taxpayers’ dollars when they are listened to,” noted Hutchison. “In Oak Ridge, the Safety Board repeatedly pushed for the NNSA to integrate safety into the design of the multi-billion dollar Uranium Processing Facility bomb plant. NNSA refused—the result was a financial disaster that cost taxpayers more than half a billion dollars. It didn’t have to happen—if NNSA had listened to the Safety Board, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico noted, “In a June 2011 report, the DNFSB identified that the Waste Isolation Pilot Project [WIPP] underground repository ‘does not adequately address the fire hazards and risks associated with underground operations…. [nor] recognize the potential impact of a fire on WIPP's ability to process waste, and ultimately on the ability to reduce inventories of transuranic waste at other DOE sites.’ Unfortunately, DOE did not adequately address those problems and a February 5, 2014, underground fire shut down the facility.”

Joni Arends, Executive Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, New Mexico, cited Safety Board reports as key documentation in establishing worker exposures on the job; an October 2018 article in the Santa Fe New Mexican was able to use DNFSB reports after one sick worker’s exposure records disappeared. “Protecting worker safety at Los Alamos National Lab is essential,” Arends said, “and DNFSB reports are a critical record of incidents that we might otherwise never learn about.”

DOE Order limits Safety Board access

Many of the Safety Board’s most useful contributions come in the process of evaluating DOE/NNSA construction projects for safety. The revised DOE Order prohibits DNFSB from having access to construction plans for expensive and dangerous facilities.

“What makes this even more outrageous,” said Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, “is that NNSA and DOE consistently top the Government Accountability Office’s list of high risk projects—every time the GAO updates their list, they repeat their finding on DOE and NNSA, that poor management makes them highly susceptible to project failure, cost and schedule overruns, and outright fraud.”

DNFSB recommendations in New Mexico and Oak Ridge have led to increased attention to seismic concerns as new facilities were being designed.

Coghlan said, “This Order will shackle dissenting voices, put a straightjacket on those who best know unsafe conditions (the workers themselves), and encourage additional retaliation against whistleblowers. The attempt to remove Hazard Category-3 and under facilities from DNFSB purview appears to run counter to the Safety Board’s enabling legislation.”

Kelley agreed. “At Livermore, the Order means DNFSB may be barred from inspecting—or even entering—the Tritium Facility and other hazardous buildings in which severe safety violations have led to major radiation releases.”

The job of the Board is set out in the congressional legislation that created it in 1988. Its statutory mission is to “provide independent analysis, advice, and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy to inform the Secretary, in the role of the Secretary as operator and regulator of the defense nuclear facilities of the Department of Energy, in providing adequate protection of public health and safety at defense nuclear facilities.” The Board also reports to Congress annually.

“Limiting access to information, facilities and personnel, as proposed by the new DOE Order, will hamper the Board’s important oversight work to keep Congress, DOE, the public and the media informed about DOE’s failures to keep workers and the public safe,” said Arends.

- 30 –

ANA letter to Congressional Armed Services at: http://bit.ly/ana-armedservices

ANA letter to Secretary of Energy Perry at: http://bit.ly/ana-dnfsb

additional information:
Kathy Crandall Robinson, Tri-Valley CAREs and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (Washington, DC): 202 577 9875
Joni Arends, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (Santa Fe, NM): 505 986 1973
Tom Carpenter, Hanford Challenge (Seattle, WA): 206 419 5829
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch (Columbia, SC): 803 834 3084
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM): 505 989 7342
Don Hancock, Southwest Research and Information Center (Albuquerque, NM): 505 262 1862
Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (Oak Ridge, TN): 865 776 5050
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA): 925 443 7148


Tri-Valley CAREs • Nuclear Watch New Mexico • Savannah River Site Watch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 31, 2018
Contact
 Tom Clements, SRS Watch, in So. Carolina, 803.834.3084, [email protected]
 Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154, [email protected]
 Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, in CA, 925.443.7148, [email protected]

Watchdog Groups Claim Nuclear Agency is Moving Forward to Manufacture New Plutonium Bomb Cores in Violation of National Environmental Law

Today, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch, and Tri-Valley CAREs sent a letter of demand to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to inform the government that its plan to quadruple the production rate of plutonium bomb cores is out of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

NNSA’s premature plan to quadruple the production rate of plutonium bomb cores ("pits"), the heart of all US nuclear weapons, is out of compliance with requisite environmental law, the groups argue, as NNSA has failed to undertake a legally-mandated programmatic review and hold required public hearings.

The groups’ letter specifies, “…if NNSA continues to move forward with new pit production capacity at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site, it must begin preparation of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), as mandated by NEPA, without delay.” The letter further outlines the public review process that must be undertaken pursuant to NEPA, which includes public hearings and comment periods. The letter requests a response from NNSA within 30 days.

During a February 2017 confirmation hearing, NNSA Administrator Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty testified that expanded plutonium pit production was her number one priority. On May 10, 2018, she announced, as head of the agency, that NNSA would 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 by 2030.

U.S. industrial-scale bomb core production ended in 1989 in the closing days of the Cold War when the FBI raided the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver while investigating environmental crimes at the site. In 1996 the Department of Energy formally relocated the pit production mission to LANL after completing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that specifically capped production at 20 pits per year. NNSA is now moving ahead with plans to quadruple that rate while establishing redundant production at the Savannah River Site, which would be a completely new mission at that site.

The National Environmental Policy Act clearly requires that proposed major federal actions be subject to public environmental review, which federal executive agencies must undertake early in their decision-making processes. The three groups contend that, according to the law, NNSA may not take actions that will “limit the choice of reasonable alternatives” or “prejudice the ultimate decision on the program” until the agency issues a formal Record of Decision as the result of a NEPA process.

The groups further assert that the proper form for the NEPA review must be a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). As the letter states, NNSA has announced plans and is beginning to undertake actions that expand production far beyond the rate of 20 pits per year at LANL, which had been codified in a 1996 PEIS. Moreover, the now-planned 80 pits or more per year will establish production at a second site more than 1,500 miles from LANL. The law remains the same - as does NNSA’s obligation to it - thus necessitating a fresh PEIS. Following that review the groups note that NNSA must also complete required site-specific analyses.

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs, commented, “There is no technical requirement for industrial scale plutonium pit production in order to maintain the safety and reliability of existing U.S. nuclear weapons. The current limit of 20 pits per year is more than sufficient for that task. Instead, the NNSA’s present plan to expand pit production four-fold is driven by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s desire to develop a novel and speculative new nuclear weapon, called the “Interoperable Warhead-1”. This new-design was originally envisioned as a first-ever warhead that would be interchangeable for land-based and submarine-based missiles. However, the U.S. Navy has refused to support it. It is, in a word, unnecessary. This make-work program should be canceled. And, absent a genuine technical driver, the production of plutonium bomb cores should remain limited to the current cap of 20 per year.”

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, Executive Director, added, “There are at least 15,000 plutonium pits already stored at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX. Independent experts have found that pits last at least a century. Future production will not manufacture exact replicas of existing, previously tested pits. This raises serious issues of future nuclear weapons reliability since new pits can’t be full-scale tested, or alternatively could increase pressure to test, which would have severe international proliferation consequences.”

NNSA intends to house redundant plutonium pit production in a repurposed Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site. The MOX Program was designed to convert 34 metric tons of military plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel, but the project was plagued by never-ending cost overruns. Nevertheless, the State of South Carolina initially obtained a legal injunction preventing NNSA from terminating the MOX Program. However, on October 9, 2018, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the lower court’s injunction, removing that roadblock to NNSA’s plans.

Tom Clements, SRS Watch Executive Director, said, “Out of a misguided rush to build a new pit plant, NNSA stated that the way is now clear for starting pit production at SRS, but they are in error. There is no current legal basis for repurposing the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility for a plutonium pit production mission, so that work cannot now proceed. NNSA must not undertake activities at the MOX plant toward conversion to production absent the required programmatic environmental impact statement and site-specific NEPA analysis. NNSA should be aware that rushing to now convert the MOX plant to pit production can only cause legal headaches.”

# # #

Today’s letter to NNSA Administrator Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty is available from the three organizations. You will find it on the Nuclear Watch New Mexico website at: https://nukewatch.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NNSA-Pit-NEPA-ltr-10-30-18.pdf and on the Tri-Valley CAREs web site at www.trivalleycares.org in the “Press Room”.

A 2012 Navy memo demonstrating its lack of support for the Interoperable Warhead Program is available on the Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs web sites at: https://www.nukewatch.org/importantdocs/resources/Navy-Memo-W87W88.pdf and http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/W78_88LEP_Navy_Memo_9-27-12.pdf

Click here for the demand letter to NNSA


For immediate release: Monday, August 27, 2018

Watchdog Groups Oppose Energy Department Attempt to Limit Oversight, Endanger Safety at Nuclear Facilities

Contacts:

Kathy Crandall Robinson, Tri-Valley CAREs, (Washington, DC): 202 577 9875
[email protected]
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, (California): 925 443 7148
[email protected]

Add’l experts:

Tom Carpenter (Washington state): 206 419 5829
Tom Clements (South Carolina): 803 834 3084
Joni Arends (New Mexico): 505 986 1973
Jay Coghlan (New Mexico): 505 989 7342
Don Hancock (New Mexico): 505 262 1862
Ralph Hutchison (Tennessee): 865 776 5050

Watchdog groups from across the nuclear weapons complex are pushing back against a new Department of Energy order that severely constrains the oversight capacity of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board [DNFSB] at an August 28 hearing in Washington, DC. Kathy Crandall Robinson will speak at the hearing.

Members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of organizations that addresses nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup issues, hail the work of the DNFSB as a critical guard against DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration efforts to cut corners on safety.

“The Safety Board works outside of the media spotlight,” said Tom Clements, Director of Savannah River Site Watch in Columbia, South Carolina. “Its value to the public is immeasurable. DNFSB frequently provides information about SRS operations, which DOE fails to communicate. The role of the Safety Board should be expanded, not curtailed.”

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California, said, “The DNFSB is absolutely vital to worker and public safety. I have spent 35 years monitoring Livermore Lab. I can tell you that workers and community members rely on the Safety Board to do its job—every day!”

The need for DNFSB oversight

The public outcry comes in response to the DOE’s effort to implement DOE Order 140.1 in ways that would dramatically limit the Safety Board’s role at some of the most dangerous nuclear facilities in the country.

Under the revised order, the Safety Board is prohibited from talking to contractor employees—the people closest to the work—without getting authorization from managers and DOE.

“In an institution with a terrible track record of abusing whistleblowers, it is crucial that DNFSB have access to any and all personnel as they explore safety issues at our sites,” said Ralph Hutchison of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “Stifling the collection of information from the people who have the most direct knowledge is a brazen attempt to control and limit the Safety Board’s access.”

The DOE Order also removes some facilities— rated Category 3 and under nuclear facilities—from DNFSB oversight altogether. “In essence, this makes DOE and NNSA self-policing,” Hutchison said. “There will be virtually no independent oversight on safety issues at some of these dangerous nuclear facilities. That is unacceptable.”

Safety Board track record

Tom Carpenter, Executive Director of Hanford Challenge, noted numerous instances of Safety Board intervention that identified serious safety concerns. “The list of Safety Board accomplishments is too long to enumerate here,” Carpenter said. “Within just the past several years, the Safety Board identified numerous concerns about the build-up of explosive and flammable hydrogen gases in the Hanford waste tanks. They have also tagged issues at the Waste Treatment Plant, including criticality control, flaws in the design and construction of electrical systems, and erosion and corrosion in the pulse jet mixer system for high-level waste.

Carpenter continued, “These were issues the Board raised because DOE and its contractor had failed to self-identify or correct them. The Board identified major issues with the potential releases of ammonia at the Waste Treatment Plant as well as design flaws that could deliver fatal doses to workers in some parts of that facility.”

ANA groups charge that many hazards identified by the DNFSB across the nuclear weapons complex would not have otherwise been brought forward or corrected, creating unacceptable safety conditions that would present a menace to human health, safety, and the environment.

“The Safety Board can save taxpayers’ dollars when they are listened to,” noted Hutchison. “In Oak Ridge, the Safety Board repeatedly pushed for the NNSA to integrate safety into the design of the multi-billion dollar Uranium Processing Facility bomb plant. NNSA refused—the result was a financial disaster that cost taxpayers more than half a billion dollars. It didn’t have to happen—if NNSA had listened to the Safety Board, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico noted, “In a June 2011 report, the DNFSB identified that the Waste Isolation Pilot Project [WIPP] underground repository ‘does not adequately address the fire hazards and risks associated with underground operations…. [nor] recognize the potential impact of a fire on WIPP's ability to process waste, and ultimately on the ability to reduce inventories of transuranic waste at other DOE sites.’ Unfortunately, DOE did not adequately address those problems and a February 5, 2014, underground fire shut down the facility.”

DOE Order limits Safety Board access

Many of the Safety Board’s most useful contributions come in the process of evaluating DOE/NNSA construction projects for safety. The revised DOE Order prohibits DNFSB from having access to construction plans for expensive and dangerous facilities.

“What makes this even more outrageous,” said Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, “is that NNSA and DOE consistently top the Government Accountability Office’s list of high risk projects—every time the GAO updates their list, they repeat their finding on DOE and NNSA, that poor management makes them highly susceptible to project failure, cost and schedule overruns, and outright fraud.”

DNFSB recommendations in New Mexico and Oak Ridge have led to increased attention to seismic concerns as new facilities were being designed.

Coghlan said, “This Order will shackle dissenting voices, put a straightjacket on those who best know unsafe conditions (the workers themselves), and encourage additional retaliation against whistleblowers. The attempt to remove Hazard Category-3 and under facilities from DNFSB purview appears to run counter to the Safety Board’s enabling legislation.”

Kelley agreed. “At Livermore, the Order means DNFSB may be barred from inspecting—or even entering—the Tritium Facility and other hazardous buildings in which severe safety violations have led to major radiation releases.”

The job of the Board is set out in the congressional legislation that created it in 1988. Its statutory mission is to “provide independent analysis, advice, and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy to inform the Secretary, in the role of the Secretary as operator and regulator of the defense nuclear facilities of the Department of Energy, in providing adequate protection of public health and safety at defense nuclear facilities.” The Board also reports to Congress annually.

“Limiting access to information, facilities and personnel, as proposed by the new DOE Order, will hamper the Board’s important oversight work to keep Congress, DOE, the public and the media informed about DOE’s failures to keep workers and the public safe,” said Joni Arends, Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Group calls for DOE/NNSA hearings

In a letter to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, ANA groups note that DOE is required by law to provide the Safety Board with ready access to facilities, personnel and information “as the Board considers necessary to carry out its responsibilities.” Noting that DOE’s Order was promulgated and put into effect with no public input, the ANA groups are calling for DOE to rescind the current Order. Barring that, ANA is asking Perry to hold the Order in abeyance and to hold public hearings across the DOE weapons complex within 90 days to explain the need for the change in the DOE’s Order and to receive public comment.

“When it comes to safety, too often we get lip service from DOE and NNSA. Citizens have no way of checking up on them,” said Hutchison. “We rely on the Safety Board. Their reports provide a window into the operations at sites across the country. Too often, they tell us of problems and incidents that pose risks to workers and potentially to the public. Of course, DOE and NNSA sometimes find this inconvenient—but that’s a small price to pay for operating as safely as possible. We are grateful for the technical expertise and the transparency that are the hallmarks of the work of DNFSB. This effort to constrain them is wrongheaded and dangerous.”

ANA letter to Secretary of Energy Perry at: http://bit.ly/ana-dnfsb

additional information:
Kathy Crandall Robinson, Tri-Valley CAREs, will represent TVC and ANA at the DNFSB hearing on Tuesday, August 28, 2018 (Washington, DC): 202 577 9875
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA): 925 443 7148
Joni Arends, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (Santa Fe, NM): 505 986 1973
Tom Carpenter, Hanford Challenge (Seattle, WA): 206 419 5829
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch (Columbia, SC): 803 834 3084
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM): 505 989 7342
Don Hancock, Southwest Research and Information Center (Albuquerque, NM): 505 262 1862
Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (Oak Ridge, TN): 865 776 5050

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Fact Sheet


 

Media Advisory - for immediate release August 3, 2018

Contacts: Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148; cell, 925-255-3589

Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, cell, 510-306-0119

Dr. Robert Gould, Physicians for Social Responsibility, SF Bay Area, cell, 415-407-8972

On August 6, 2018 a major Rally, March and Nonviolent Direct Action, titled, “March for Nuclear Abolition & Global Survival,” will commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the site where the U.S. is designing new nuclear weapons for use today.

WHAT:  Dozens of No. California organizations will mark the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan at the gates of Livermore Lab. We will expose the humanitarian consequences of the bomb with first-hand testimony. We will say “never again” to the use of nuclear weapons – and call for their global abolition. We will gather at Livermore Lab to stop the creation of new and “more usable” nuclear weapons proposed by President Trump in his Nuclear Posture Review and fiscal 2019 budget, both released this year. It is significant to gather August 6 at the Lab where 89% of its fiscal 2019 budget is for Nuclear Weapons Activities.  http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/More_Money_for_Nukes.html

WHEN: Monday, August 6. Rally at 8:00 AM (see below). At 9:30 AM, participants will march to the Lab West Gate, where a Japanese bon dance and the chalking of bodies on pavement will commemorate the vaporized remains found after the atomic bombings. Those who choose will peaceably risk arrest.

WHERE: The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, corner of Vasco & Patterson Pass Roads in Livermore. The march will go southward down Vasco Road to Westgate Drive.

FEATURED RALLY SPEAKERS:

• Daniel Ellsberg will be the keynote speaker. He is perhaps best known as the whistleblower who released “The Pentagon Papers” to hasten an end to the war in Vietnam. He has been an analyst at RAND Corp. and a consultant to the Defense Dept., specializing in problems of command and control of nuclear weapons, war plans and crisis decision-making. Ellsberg recently released his critically acclaimed memoirs, “America’s Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.”

• Nobuaki Hanaoka, the special guest speaker, was an infant when the bomb fell on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. His mother and sister died from illnesses linked to radiation poisoning and his brother died at age 39 from premature aging associated with fallout from the bomb. Rev. Hanaoka is a retired minister in the United Methodist Church, who came to the U.S. following seminary training in Japan. He has settled in the Bay Area where he speaks, writes and teaches on topics of peace and human rights.

• Christine Hong is an assistant professor at UC Santa Cruz specializing in transnational Asian American, Korean diaspora, and critical Pacific Rim studies. Hong is co-editor of the Critical Asian Studies special edition on North Korean Human Rights.  She is a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War, the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea, and the Working Group on Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific.

• Carole Hisasue is a former media personality and producer in Tokyo. Influenced by the 2011 Fukushima disaster, she began working with San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace in California and the Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes in Japan, as well as other groups fighting for a nuclear-free world.

• Robert Gould, M.D. is past-President of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and President of the SF Bay Area Chapter of PSR since 1989. He is an Associate Adjunct Professor at UCSF School of Medicine, and has been a leader of the Peace Caucus of the American Public Health Association since 1986. He has authored numerous publications on the health impacts of nuclear weapons and the role of health professionals in promoting environmental health, peace and justice for all.

• Pennie Opal Plant is a co-founder of Idle No More SF Bay, a co-founder of Movement Rights, and a signatory of the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty. She has worked for more than 35 years to ensure that the sacred system of life continues in a manner that is safe, sustainable and healthy.

• Marylia Kelley is Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs. She brings 34 years of research, writing and facilitating public participation in decisions regarding the Livermore Lab and the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Kelley has testified before the U.S. Congress, the California Legislature and the National Academy of Sciences, among other deliberative bodies. She participated in the 2017 negotiations at the UN on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. She has lived in Livermore since 1976.

• Jacqueline Cabasso will deliver the rally “Call to Action,” initiating the march to the Lab gates. Cabasso is Executive Director of the Oakland-based Western States Legal Foundation since 1984. She participated in the 2017 negotiations at the UN on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Cabasso is a leading voice for nuclear weapons abolition, speaking regularly at events and conferences in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

WHY: As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists noted, “It is two minutes to midnight, the Doomsday Clock is ticking, global danger looms.” The iconic Clock represents the threat of nuclear war and its hands were set this year at 2 minutes to midnight, the closest they have been to annihilation since 1953. We stand at a pivotal moment between a civilization-ending nuclear exchange and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Under Trump, the U.S. is on a path to spend nearly $2,000,000,000,000 (trillion) over thirty years to upgrade its nuclear weapons complex, warheads and delivery systems when inflation and the novel concepts in the Nuclear Posture Review are included. Russia, China, France, U.K., India, Israel and Pakistan have begun nuclear modernizations of their own. While positive talks with North Korea have commenced, the Trump Administration has scuttled the Iran nuclear deal while escalating pressures on the Iranian regime. Our world continues to face numerous nuclear flashpoints within global conflicts and crises that could catastrophically escalate at any moment.

On the other side of the fulcrum stands the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted by 122 states parties at the United Nations in July 2017. The TPNW establishes both new law and a new norm, outlawing nuclear weapons development, testing, possession, use, transfer and/or any offer of assistance in a prohibited activity. Moreover, it bans the threat of use, which is the basis for “deterrence” policy. The TPNW is an historic, giant step forward toward the global abolition of these horrific weapons. On August 6, and the Treaty’s 1st Birthday, we will call on the U.S. to sign it.

OPPORTUNITIES: Interviews in advance or at the rally site with speakers, artists and organizers are available on request. Photo opportunities will be available at the rally site at 8 AM, and also along the march route and at Livermore Lab’s West Gate. There will be signs and banners. Call for details.

###



National Release from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

 

For more information:

Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA - [email protected], 925-443-7148

Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, TN - [email protected], 865-776-5050

Other key national and regional contacts are listed at the end of this release

 

For immediate release, August 3, 2018

Major Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemorations at U.S. Warhead Facilities Across the Nation Protest Trump’s Risky Nuclear Posture and Budget; Advocate Disarmament

 

Thousands of peace advocates, Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors), religious leaders, scientists, economists, attorneys, doctors and nurses, nuclear analysts, former war planners and others across the country are coming together to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this August 6 through 9 at key sites in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

 

Major commemorations, rallies, protests, many including nonviolent direct action, will place at the Livermore Lab in CA, the Y-12 Plant in TN, the Los Alamos Lab in NM, the Kansas City Plant in MO, the Rocky Flats Plant in CO, the Pantex Plant in TX, in Santa Barbara, CA near Vandenberg’s ICBM launch site, and in GA near the Savannah River Site, along with other locations around the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. (See list at the end of this release.)

 

These diverse events are sponsored by members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a network of three-dozen groups located downstream and downwind of U.S. nuclear weapons sites. These Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemorations are united by their reflection on the past, and, uniquely, by their focus on the present and future with a resolute determination to change U.S. nuclear weapons policy at the very locations that are linchpins in producing a costly, destabilizing new stockpile of U.S. nuclear warheads, bombs and delivery vehicles.

 

“Here in Tennessee, as in other locations across the country, I see daily evidence of a dangerous, escalating global nuclear arms race,” noted Ralph Hutchison, the longtime coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “This is epitomized by government plans for a new Uranium Processing Facility to produce H-bomb components at Y-12, including for new-design weapons.”

 

“U.S. plans to ‘modernize’ the arsenal are also underway in California at the Livermore Lab,” stated Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs’ executive director. “Livermore’s new Long-Range Stand Off warhead design geared toward ‘first use’ and its rapid re-start of an ‘interoperable’ warhead design previously delayed by the Obama Administration reveal two facets of this new arms race,” Kelley continued. “In contrast to the cold war, which was largely about sheer numbers, the new arms race and its dangers stem from novel military capabilities now being placed into nuclear weapons.”

 

“The Trump Administration has put the U.S. on a trajectory to spend nearly $2,000,000,000,000 [trillion] over the coming thirty years on new nukes and bomb plants to build them, when inflation and the new concepts in this year’s Nuclear Posture Review and fiscal 2019 budget request are considered, said Joni Arends, the director for Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in NM.

 

Around the world, pressure for the U.S. to show leadership toward the abolition of nuclear weapons is growing. Pope Francis has repeatedly pressed the moral argument against nuclear weapons, inveighing not only against their use but also against their possession. Moreover, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by 122 states parties at the United Nations one year ago. Already, fourteen have completed their ratification procedures for the Treaty, which will fully enter into force when 50 states parties have ratified it. The Treaty establishes new law and a new norm, outlawing nuclear weapons development, testing, possession, use, transfer and/or any offer of assistance in a prohibited activity.

 

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons shows us another future is possible,” said Rick Wayman, Deputy Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the ANA Board of Directors.  “The Treaty and the aspirations of millions of people for a nuclear weapons free future give me hope on this important anniversary of the first use of a nuclear bomb in war,” he continued. “We must listen to those in the U.S. and around the world who have been impacted by nuclear weapons. These weapons must be eliminated so that no one suffers the same fate ever again.”   

 

Actions this week at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities will highlight the mounting international calls for nuclear abolition, with U.S. organizers lending their deep and often unique “on the ground” knowledge from the gates and fence lines of the facilities involved in creating new and modified U.S. nuclear weapons. “This anniversary should be a time to reflect on the absolute horror of a nuclear detonation,” mused Ann Suellentrop of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Kansas City, “yet the new Kansas City Plant is churning out components to extend U.S. nuclear weapons 70 years into the future. The imperative to change that future is what motivates me to organize a peace fast at the gates of the Plant.”  

 

Key events at U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites include:

 

• Y-12 – remembrance, rally and nonviolent direct action, peace fast and lanterns. (www.orepa.org)

• Livermore Lab - peace camp, Aug. 6 rally, march, nonviolent direct action. (www.trivalleycares.org)

• Los Alamos Lab – commemoration and vigil, August 4, Ashley Pond, Los Alamos. ([email protected] or [email protected]) 

• Kansas City Plant – vigil and peace fast. (www.psr.org/chapters/kansas/)

• Savannah River Site – Aug. 9 seeds of peace observance, Carter Center Rose Garden, Atlanta, GA. (www.nonukesyall.org)

• Rocky Flats Plant – peace quilt, film, labyrinth mourning walk. ([email protected])

• Pantex Plant – Hiroshima exhibit, panel discussion. (www.peacefarm.us)

• Santa Barbara – commemoration to remember victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all innocent victims of war. (www.wagingpeace.org)

  

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability contacts available for interviews include:

 

• Joni Arends, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, jarends@nuclearactive.org, 505-986-1973 (NM sites)

• Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, [email protected], 505-989-7342 (NM sites)

• Ann Suellentrop, Physicians for Social Responsibility-KC, annsuellen@gmail.com, 913-271-7925 (MO site)

• Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, kevin@beyondnuclear.org, 240-462-3216 (Ohio sites)

• Jerry Stein, Peace Farm, [email protected], 806-351-2744 (TX site)

• Mavis Belisle, JustPeace, justpeace4@yahoo.com (TX site)

• Judith Mohling, Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center, judithmohling76@gmail.com, 303-447-9635 (CO sites)

• Glenn Carroll, Nuclear Watch South, atom.girl@nonukesyall.org, 404-378-4263 (SC, GA sites)

• Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action, pmartin@peace-action.org, 951-217-7285 (DC-based)

• Martin Fleck, Physicians for Social Responsibility, [email protected], 202-587-5242 (DC-based)

• Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, [email protected], 865-776-5050 (TN sites)

• Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, marylia@trivalleycares.org, 925-443-7148 (CA sites)

• Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, [email protected], 510-839-5877 (CA sites)

• Rick Wayman, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, [email protected], 805-965-3443 (CA sites)

 • More information about groups, actions and the nuclear weapons complex: www.ananuclear.org

 • For a calendar of more than 70 events, compiled by PSR: https://www.psr.org/HiroshimaNagasakiEvents ~ 

 

###


Site 300 Watchdogs to Challenge Toxic Bomb Blast Permit at Public Hearing Tomorrow (Thursday) in Tracy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 11, 2018

Note: Attorney and other contacts are at the bottom of this advisory…

Who: The longstanding nuclear weapons watchdog organization, Tri-Valley CAREs, with allied Central Valley and Bay Area environmental groups and community residents.

What: A press conference and Public Hearing. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (air district) will hold a Public Hearing to receive comments on its preliminary decision to grant a permit to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to increase the weight, size and yield of toxic, open-air bomb blasts at the Site 300 high explosives testing range on Corral Hollow Road near Tracy, CA. Tri-Valley CAREs will host a press conference alongside community members and allies 30-minutes before the Hearing.

When: Thursday, July 12, 2018. Press Conference at 6 PM; Public Hearing at 6:30 PM

Where: City Council Chambers, 333 Civic Center Plaza, Tracy, CA

Why: Livermore Lab’s Site 300 high explosives testing range, located about 7,000-feet from the City of Tracy, is poised to detonate huge toxic bomb blasts that will loft 121 hazardous contaminants high into the open air including beryllium, phosphine, hydrogen cyanide, vinyl chloride and dioxin.

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has issued its preliminary decision to give Site 300 a permit to increase the size, weight and explosive yield of toxic bomb detonations on a 7,057 square-foot outdoor firing table. The daily limit will rise from 100-pounds of high explosives to 1,000-pounds per day. The annual limit will rise from 1,000-pounds to 7,500-pounds per year.

These open-air blasts will be allowed to happen with no air pollution control, although the technology exists to move the explosions into a containment chamber, according to the air district “notice of preliminary decision-authority to construct” document package.

Moreover, the air district EXEMPTED this Site 300 permit from all provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This means that the detailed analysis one might expect prior to issuance of a permit will simply not be done.

Key Quotes: “It borders on the absurd to conclude that the environmental effects of a proposal to conduct multiple outdoor explosions per year, each using up to 1,000 pounds of novel ‘high-explosive compounds,’ could not be ‘significant’ enough to merit a full review under the California Environmental Quality Act,” charged Tri-Valley CAREs’ staff attorney, Scott Yundt. “Site 300 is located a mile away from ‘Tracy Hills,’ a new 5,500-home development, and it sits directly across the street from the Carnegie State Vehicular Recreational Park, which caters to dirt bike riders. At the very least, stakeholders and potentially impacted parties deserve the in depth, scientifically based disclosure that a full Environmental Impact Report provides,” Yundt concluded.

“These toxic explosions are extremely controversial,” noted Valeria Salamanca, Tri-Valley CAREs’ bi-lingual outreach specialist who has lived in Tracy most of her life. “I have copies of more than 1,500 letters sent to the air district opposing the permit. And, the City of Tracy and the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors both voted to oppose the project.” Salamanca continued, “It’s mystifying that the air district will not conduct the required CEQA review when its regulations state clearly that projects that elicit significant public concern must undergo a full analysis.” See, for example, http://www.valleyair.org/transportation/ceqa_implementation_summary_flowchart.pdf

“I am outraged that the air district intends to issue this permit without a full review of the noise impacts,” said Tri-Valley CAREs’ executive director, Marylia Kelley. “The Lab’s own data show that the explosions will definitely exceed the 120 decibel threshold that will rattle windows and pictures on walls. The Lab goes on to say it will try to avoid noise effects greater than 126 decibels. The Lab does not say that the impacts won’t exceed 126 decibels from time to time. Yet, the air district appears to have missed that key nuance when it dismissed the need for any further CEQA analysis of noise impacts before issuing the permit.”

The SJVAPCD will accept written comments until August 7, 2018. After that date, the air district will issue its final decision.

For more information, call the Tri-Valley CAREs office at (925) 443-7148 or contact:

• Valeria Salamanca, bi-lingual outreach specialist, 209-601-8489 (cell)

• Scott Yundt, staff attorney, 415-990-2070 (cell)

• Marylia Kelley, executive director, 925-255-3589 (cell)

###


TVC in DC Demands Cleanup, not Warheads

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 17, 2018

TRI-VALLEY CAREs WILL JOIN GROUPS ACROSS THE U.S. IMPACTED BY NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLLUTION TO DEMAND “MORE CLEANUP, NOT WARHEADS”

Livermore Lab Watchdogs to Meet in DC with Trump Administration and Congress

Five members of the nuclear weapons watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) will join activists from 20 U.S. states in Washington, DC next week to challenge the Trump Administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and its recommendation for four new warhead designs and the new plutonium and enriched uranium bomb plants to produce them.

“The fiscal year 2019 budget request advances nuclear bombs and production facilities for tomorrow while leaving our communities vulnerable to the radioactive and toxic poisons that are leaking into our environment today,” charged Tri-Valley CAREs’ Executive Director, Marylia Kelley. “We will demand more funding for cleanup, not warheads.”

The Livermore, CA-based group will participate in the 30th annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) “D.C. Days” from May 20 to May 23. ANA is a network of more than 30 local, regional and national organizations whose members live downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons sites. Tri-Valley CAREs and other ANA groups will conduct scores of meetings with members of Congress, committee staffers, and top administration officials responsible for nuclear policies and budgets.

“I am traveling to our nation’s capital to convince decision-makers to secure a safer tomorrow for my community,” said Tri-Valley CAREs’ Outreach Specialist, Valeria Salamanca. “My top priority is to speak truth to power about radiation exposures and environmental degradation stemming from weapons programs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and its high explosives testing range near my home in Tracy, CA,” she continued. Salamanca will meet with Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Tracy), among others.

Tri-Valley CAREs was founded in 1983 by neighbors and workers at the Livermore Lab, one of two locations in the country that designs every nuclear weapon in the U.S. stockpile. The group has 5,700 members; most live near or work at the Lab.

“This event will feature a special 30th anniversary reception honoring members of Congress and others who have acted to constrain nuclear proliferation this past year,” noted Tri-Valley CAREs’ Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt, who serves on the national DC Days planning committee and will present an ANA award to Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Additional information about DC Days is available at www.ananuclear.org. Media are invited to the special 30th anniversary ANA awards reception on Tuesday, May 22. It will be held in the Gold Room, 2168 Rayburn House Office Building, from 6pm to 8pm. Honorees include Rep. Barbara Lee and Sen. Ed Markey.

The DC Days team members from Tri-Valley CAREs available for interviews in CA or while in DC are:

• Marylia Kelley – Executive Director - Livermore, CA
• Tricia Moore – Community Member - Livermore, CA
• Scott Yundt – Staff Attorney - Oakland, CA
• Valeria Salamanca – Bilingual Outreach Specialist - Tracy, CA
• Joseph Rodgers – Nuclear Policy Analyst - Sonora, CA and presently a Masters Candidate at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey, CA

CONTACT: Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, 925.255.3589 (cell), [email protected]
Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, 415.990.2070 (cell), [email protected]
Valeria Salamanca, Bi-lingual Outreach Specialist, 209.601.8489 (cell), [email protected]

More information about the group is available at www.trivalleycares.org

###


For immediate release: Feb. 22, 2018
Contact: Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation (510) 306-0119
Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs (925) 443-7148

Olympic Closing Ceremony Watch Party

Peace Groups Call for Extension of the Olympic Truce, Postponement of Joint US-South Korea War Games & Dialogue and Diplomacy

Sunday, February 25
5:00 – 8:00 pm
Café Valparaiso
1403 Solano Avenue, Albany, CA

Albany, CA – Representatives of Bay area peace groups will gather Sunday, February 25, from 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm to watch the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, and call for dialogue and diplomacy with North Korea. The watch party will take place at the Café Valparaiso, 1403 Solano Avenue, Albany, California. The 2018 Winter Olympics are being broadcast by NBC.

In November 2017, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an Olympic Truce, or a cessation of hostilities during the Winter Games, which gained the support of 157 Member States including both Koreas and future hosts of the Olympic Games: Japan, China, France and the United States. The truce period spans the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, from February 2 – March 25, 2018

The Olympic Closing Ceremony watch party is part of a national Olympic Truce Campaign, endorsed by 135 organizations. As noted in the Olympic Truce Call to Action, another war with North Korea would be disastrous. It could easily go nuclear. It should be unthinkable, and there are peaceful diplomatic alternatives. For South Korea, which would bear the brunt of any conflict with North Korea, there is no military option. As a group of 58 retired US military leaders acknowledge in a letter to Trump, military action “would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties.” The people of Korea, North and South, the peoples of the region, and Americans all want peace.

Speakers at the Olympic Closing Ceremony watch party will include Paul Liem, Chair of the Korea Policy Institute, and Ann Wright, US Army Colonel, (ret), former US Diplomat, now with Women Cross DMZ and Veterans For Peace. Rafael Jesus Gonzales, Poet Laureate of Berkeley will read a new poem written specifically for this occasion.

Claire Greensfelder, representing NoWarWithNorthKorea.org, a campaign of INOCHI / A World Without Armies, will unveil their new billboard and bumper sticker campaign that will be officially launched next week. Other visuals will include signs and banners.

According to Ann Wright: “The Olympic truce needs to be extended past the Olympics so that there is the open space for genuine dialogue to resolve issues on the crisis of the Korean Peninsula. The South Korean government is showing strong indications that they want to speak to the North Koreans. I hope the United States government does not torpedo this opportunity for dialogue and ultimate resolution of issues for the Korean people. We must have dialogue not military confrontation!”

In a very significant development, South Korean President Moon Jae-in successfully persuaded a reluctant Donald Trump to postpone U.S.-South Korea war drills that would have overlapped with the Olympics. These joint military exercises typically involve hundreds of thousands of ground troops and such provocative scenarios as “decapitation” raids and simulate nuclear attacks. Delaying them could pave the way for a longer-term “freeze for freeze” deal—a suspension of military exercises for a ban on North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing.

Members of the Bay Area Korea Collaboration are using the occasion of the Olympic Closing Ceremony to call for an indefinite extension of the Olympic Truce, indefinite postponement of joint US-South Korean military exercises, US support for a proposed North-South Korea Summit, leading to direct talks between the US and North Korea, and an official end to the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice with a permanent peace treaty.

The Olympic Closing Ceremony watch party is sponsored by (alphabetical order):
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee;
Codepink women for peace;
Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC;
Gaza Freedom Flotilla;
INOCHI / A World Without Armies;
Korea Policy Institute;
Peace Action;
SF Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility;
Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment);
Veterans For Peace;
Western States Legal Foundation;
Women Cross DMZ;
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)-East Bay branch;
WILPF-San Francisco branch;
Xochipilli Latino Men's Circle

# # #

Dear Tri-Valley CAREs supporters: Here is a press release we just released along with our colleagues in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. It is crafted to give reporters probing questions to ask DOE regarding the nuclear weapons and cleanup budget for Fiscal Year 2019, which is scheduled to be released on Monday by the President. We will provide additional analysis following its public release. Read on...

DOE Budget Questions

for use with Monday, February 12, 2018 DOE budget release

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE) FY 2019 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CLEANUP BUDGET REQUEST

The Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) will drive increased spending for nuclear weapons programs that make America increasingly less – not more – secure. Cleanup, nonproliferation, and renewable energy programs are expected to be cut or held flat to help pay for weapons. The February 12 release of DOE’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget highlights will begin to put dollar signs behind the new nuclear arms race being escalated at the expense of programs that meet the country’s real needs.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a 31-year-old network of groups from communities downwind and downstream of U.S. nuclear weapons sites, will be analyzing the following issues. For details, contact the ANA leaders listed at the end of this Advisory.

- Will the “top line” budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) jump to $15 billion, as inside sources tell ANA? That topline number would be up from $13.9 billion in FY 2018, and $12.5 billion in both FYs 2017 and 2016.

- Will that expected $1.1 billion increase be mostly or entirely for nuclear weapons research and production programs under “Weapons Activities”? (The other three NNSA budget categories are Federal Salaries and Expenses, Nonproliferation and Naval Propulsion.)]

- Will there be immediate funding to jump-start a low-yield submarine-launched warhead for “limited” nuclear war, as called for in the President’s Nuclear Posture Review? What is the military utility of that new warhead, which, if fired, would give away a strategic sub’s position and force the target to react quickly without knowing the warhead’s yield? What does the FY19 budget justification say?

- Will the request define the scope and cost of the “W78 warhead replacement program,” which is to be accelerated to FY19 according to the Nuclear Posture Review? What are the FY19 and long-term costs for a “replacement program”?

- Will the budget request further boost spending on a new, de-stabilizing Long-Range Stand Off warhead to ride atop a new air-launched cruise missile? ($399 million in FY 2018)

- Will funding for transforming the B61 bomb into the world’s first “smart” nuclear weapon remain at about $778 million annually? Is NNSA still on track to produce the first B61-12 in 2020?

- Will the dismantlement budget increase beyond its current, inadequate $52 million given that there is an estimated backlog of 2,000 nuclear weapons awaiting disassembly?

- Will more than $300 million be provided for Livermore Lab’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), which repeatedly failed to achieve ignition even though taxpayers have spent more than $10 billion on it so far? Or will the Inertial Confinement Fusion budget, specifically NIF, be cut in recognition of its failure?

- What is the request for the plutonium fuel (MOX) project at Savannah River, which DOE admits is financially unsustainable: zero, cold standby (~$200 million), or enough to barely survive ($300+ million)?

- Will the budget continue to fund the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) bomb plant in Oak Ridge, TN, without requiring a formally approved plan? Given that more than $2 billion has been spent on designing UPF, when will the Administration tell taxpayers how much more it intends to spend?

- Does the budget increase funding for expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at Los Alamos or reveal movement toward relocating pit production to Savannah River? Why is more production needed when the U.S. has more than 15,000 pits, which experts conclude are durable?

- Does the Environmental Management (EM) cleanup budget (currently $5.4 billion) increase to meet all legally mandated milestones? States say agreements at a dozen DOE sites are underfunded.

- What is the lifecycle cost estimate to clean up nuclear weapons production? Chronic underfunding of DOE environmental programs leads to ever-increasing lifecycle clean-up costs — from $308.5 billion in FY 2013 to $341.6 billion in FY 2016 to $388.2 billion in FY 2018.

- Does the Hanford budget (more than $2.3 billion) protect workers from toxic chemical exposures, and fund construction of new double-shell tanks to replace the leaking ones?

- Does the budget include any money for Yucca Mountain? For FY 2018 the Trump administration requested $120 million for this technically flawed site that is strongly opposed by Nevada officials and the public.

- Does the budget increase funding (currently $30.87 million) for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) to provide independent oversight of DOE projects that have many cost over-runs, schedule delays, safety culture issues and technical problems?

- Is funding for design and licensing of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) (currently $95 million) increasing again even though SMRs are not technically or financially viable? Will the budget include DOE sites buying expensive and speculative SMR electricity in the future?

For information about specific DOE nuclear weapons sites and programs, contact:

Los Alamos Lab and Life Extension -- Jay Coghlan:
(505)989-7342 [email protected]

Livermore Lab, NIF and Life Extension -- Marylia Kelly:
(925)443-7148 [email protected]

UPF and Dismantlement -- Ralph Hutchison:
(865)776-5050 [email protected]

Savannah River and MOX Plant -- Tom Clements:
(803)240-7268 [email protected]

Environmental Management, Yucca Mountain -- Don Hancock:
(505)262-1862 [email protected]

Hanford – Tom Carpenter:
(206)292-2850 x 22 [email protected]

Idaho National Lab – Beatrice Brailsford:
(208)233-7212 [email protected]

LIVERMORE NUCLEAR WATCHDOGS TO CELEBRATE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AWARD

for immediate release, December 8, 2017

LIVERMORE NUCLEAR WATCHDOGS TO CELEBRATE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AWARD CEREMONY DEC. 10 WITH CHAMPAGNE TOAST & CHALLENGE AT LIVERMORE LAB

Tri-Valley CAREs, a U.S. partner in the Nobel-Winning International Campaign, Will “Lift a Glass” as Prize is Awarded for Historic Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty; Protest Trump Policy

Contacts: Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, (925) 443-7148, [email protected], and Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, [email protected]

OSLO & LIVERMORE – The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) will be awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday, December 10, 2017 in Oslo, Norway. ICAN is a global civil society coalition of more than 400 partner organizations in over 100 countries, including Tri-Valley CAREs (http://www.icanw.org/campaign/partner-organizations/).

2017 PEACE PRIZE: Said the Nobel Committee: ICAN is “receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

ICAN’s statement: “This prize is a tribute to the tireless efforts of many millions of campaigners and concerned citizens worldwide… insisting that [nuclear weapons] serve no legitimate purpose and must be forever banished from the face of the earth.”

Tri-Valley CAREs thanks the Nobel Committee and notes: “This is a remarkable achievement for ICAN. We are proud to be a part of the Campaign and to participate with other partners globally in bringing into force the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

2PM CELEBRATION IN LIVERMORE: Tri-Valley CAREs will host a celebration beginning at 2PM at the West Gate entrance to the Lawrence Livermore National Lab at Vasco Road and Westgate Drive. The event will include a short program with up to the minute news from Oslo, a public reading of the text of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a hanging of posters with the 10-page treaty on the sign and gates of Livermore Lab, a champagne toast, music and more.

According to Tri-Valley CAREs’ Executive Director, Marylia Kelley, “We will celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize while speaking truth to power in the United States about the illegality of nuclear weapons and the $1.7 trillion program to upgrade the U.S. arsenal over the coming three decades.”

Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt said: “The so-called ‘modernization’ of U.S. nuclear weapons and the policy initiatives expected soon in the form of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review will make the U.S. and world less safe. We need clear thinking and concrete steps toward a nuclear weapons-free future, not a new, volatile and horrifyingly dangerous arms race.”

There will be a photo op at the big Livermore Lab sign 12-10-17 shortly after 2 PM

For more about the Nobel Peace Prize, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and U.S. policy, www.trivalleycares.org and www.icanw.org/. Journalists, please note that there will be Nobel Peace Prize celebrations hosted by ICAN partners across the US and the globe. ###

Marylia Kelley
Executive Director

Community-Wide Forum on Toxic and Radioactive Pollutants and their Cleanup at “Site 300”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 20, 2017

CONTACT:Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs Executive Director, 925.443.7148, [email protected] Valeria Salamanca, Bi-lingual Outreach Specialist, 209.601.8489, [email protected]

Community-Wide Forum on Toxic and Radioactive Pollutants and their Cleanup at “Site 300” to Feature Environmental Protection Agency, Scientist, Non-Profit, and Tracy Residents

WHAT: A public meeting and the release of a new report on the Superfund law and the toxic and radioactive contaminants in soil and groundwater aquifers at the Livermore Lab’s “Site 300” high explosives testing range. The forum will focus on upcoming environmental decisions and what residents can do to improve the Superfund cleanup to protect community health and the environment for current and future generations. Spanish language materials and translation assistance will be available.

WHEN: Thursday, September 28, 2017 from 7 PM - 8:30 PM

WHERE:Tracy City Hall, 333 Civic Center Plaza, Room 203

PRESENTERS:
• Andrew Bain is the “Site 300” federal project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Bain will outline EPA roles and responsibilities in the Superfund process, including the law’s public participation provisions. Bain will also outline key contaminants and upcoming decision-making points.

• Peter Strauss is an environmental scientist and president of PM Strauss & Associates. In the mid-90s, Strauss began working with Tri-Valley CAREs to advise on the “Site 300” cleanup. His responsibilities include analysis of contaminants, their migration through the environment and potential cleanup technologies. Strauss is the author of a new report that will debut at the forum.

• Valeria Salamanca is a Tracy resident and the Bi-lingual Outreach Specialist at Tri-Valley CAREs. Salamanca graduated from Cal State University, Fullerton with a degree in Business Administration before returning to Tracy early this year. She is expanding environmental participation for Tracy area Spanish-speaking residents and youth. Salamanca will offer a community perspective on the importance of achieving a complete cleanup at “Site 300.”

• Marylia Kelley is Executive Director at Tri-Valley CAREs. She brings 34 years of research, writing and facilitating public participation in decisions regarding the Livermore Lab, nuclear weapons, and cleanup. Kelley has testified before the U.S. Congress, the California Legislature and the National Academy of Sciences. She has served on the Livermore Lab "Community Work Group" (since 1989) to advise the government and the community on the Superfund cleanup of toxic and radioactive pollution at the Lab’s Main Site. Kelley is leading efforts to establish a formal mechanism for public involvement in Tracy.

• Scott Yundt is the Staff Attorney at Tri-Valley CAREs and will serve as facilitator for the forum.

WHY: Decisions being made soon will determine the effectiveness and completeness of the “Site 300” Superfund cleanup. Background materials are available in English & Spanish at www.trivalleycares.org.

###

“2017 Youth Video Contest”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 15, 2017

YOUTH VIDEO CONTEST OPENS AUGUST 15, 2017 WITH $500 GRAND PRIZE

CONTACT: Valeria Salamanca, contest & outreach coordinator, Tri-Valley CAREs Cell: (209) 601-8489, Office: (925) 443-7148, [email protected]

Today is the opening day for Tri-Valley CAREs’ Youth Video Contest 2017. Any young person aged 10-30 has a chance to win up to $500 by creating a short video - up to 2 minutes in length - showing how nuclear weapons affect them and their world.

The contest is designed for the youth population and is intended to spark discussion about nuclear weapons and the effect that their development has on the air, soil, water and public health. The videographer may choose from any of those topics or devise a related one.

For young residents within the Tri-Valley and Tracy areas, videos can focus on the impacts of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s nuclear weapons activities. Both the Lab’s Main Site in Livermore and Site 300 in Tracy are on the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Superfund” list of most polluted locations in the nation, with radioactive and toxic wastes that have migrated into the underground water aquifers. Accidents and airborne releases have also occurred at both locations.

Tri-Valley CAREs is conducting this contest to provide an opportunity for youth to learn more about an issue that affects their lives, and to use their skills to win a Grand Prize of $500. There will also be a Second Place award of $250, and a Third Place award of $100. Videographers may use webcam, cell phone or any technology of their choosing. Contest entries may take a local, regional, national or international perspective. The contest is open to youth outside the Tri-Valley and Tracy. All interpretations of the subject matter are welcome and, for the first time, videos may be submitted in English or Spanish.

Young people interested in the Youth Video Contest are invited to visit the Tri-Valley CAREs Facebook page www.facebook.com/youthvideocontest2017 Or, go to www.trivalleycares.org/new/contest2017.html Contest details are available at both links. The deadline to submit a video is 5:00pm Pacific Time on October 31, 2017.

Winning videos will appear on the Tri-Valley CAREs website, www.trivalleycares.org, and will be debuted on the “big screen” at a public awards ceremony on Thursday, December 7, 2017 at the Livermore Main Library, Community Rooms A and B, 1188 South Livermore Ave.

Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) conducts research, analysis and advocacy on issues regarding environmental and community health. The group runs programs to improve the Superfund cleanup of hazardous wastes at both the Livermore Lab Main Site and Site 300. It also assists Lab workers who have suffered on the job exposures obtain federal compensation for their illnesses.

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“California Environmental Justice Coalition to Meet in Sacramento for Third Statewide Conference”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 11, 2017

Statewide Coalition of 66 Organizations, including Tri-Valley CAREs, Represents Urban, Rural and Indigenous Communities; Coalition Will Demand Improvements to California’s Environmental Justice, Civil Rights, and Language Access

Contact: California Environmental Justice Coalition (CEJC) [email protected] Tom Helme, CEJC Coordinator, Valley Improvement Projects, (209) 324-6414; Bradley Angel, CEJC Co-Founder, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, (415) 722-5270; or Marylia Kelley, Executive Director at Tri-Valley CAREs, a CEJC Co-Founding group with membership in Alameda and San Joaquin Counties, (925) 255-3589 (cell while on travel)

SACRAMENTO, CA – Over one hundred environmental justice and community leaders from dozens of organizations will be in Sacramento, California on August 12 and August 13 to hold their third statewide gathering. On Monday, August 14, CEJC will testify and present to the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Toxic Substances Control community-based recommendations for what should be included in their Civil Rights and Language Access Policies that the department must adopt by December of this year.

As a result years of organizing and advocacy, and our successful civil rights complaint, CalEPA and DTSC officials will have to listen to the concerns of the state’s environmental justice communities and those most vulnerable and affected by harmful pollution and environmental racism,” stated Bradley Angel of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, a CEJC co-founder.

Last year an historic Civil Rights complaint settlement was reached between DTSC, its parent agency CalEPA, and CEJC groups Greenaction and El Pueblo para el Aire y Aqua Limpia de Kettleman City (People for Clean Air and Water of Kettleman City).

The complaint was filed with the US EPA after Spanish-speaking residents in Kettleman City were only given half the time to comment about a drastic expansion of the Chemical Waste Management Inc. hazardous waste landfill in the small, mostly farmworker community.

Recently, 36 environmental justice, community and social justice organizations across the state, many from CEJC, submitted their recommendations regarding what DTSC must include in the civil rights and language access policies they are developing in order to comply with environmental justice and civil rights mandates and laws.

Maricela Mares-Alatorre, of El Pueblo para el Aire y Aqua Limpia de Kettleman City, also a CEJC co-founder stated, “This meeting is a proactive approach to working with regulating agencies in a way that will bring about systematic change.”

The hearing will come after a 2-day conference of over 100 CEJC members and allies who will plan the expansion of the coalition’s influence as well as its priorities and goals for the future. Members will also discuss the potential outcome of DTSC’s new policies, the recent Cap-and-Trade bill, and the attack on environmental protections expected from the Trump administration.

“In the face of adversity from the new federal administration, CEJC seeks to maintain its frontrunner status in policy, which is represented by over 60 grassroots community organizations aiming to uphold the Principles of Environmental Justice,” said Humberto Lugo of CEJC co-founder organization Comite Civico del Valle in the Imperial Valley.

The California Environmental Justice Coalition was founded in November of 2014 in Kettleman City. The 2017 Statewide Conference will mark the coalition’s third statewide gathering. Led by people of color and low-income communities, CEJC is a broad, inclusive, grassroots statewide coalition of small and large groups uniting urban, rural and indigenous communities in resistance against environmental racism and injustice, and committed to environmental, social, and economic justice. CEJC welcomes longstanding environmental justice organizations and newcomers alike.

CEJC members and community leaders will be available for media interviews upon request after the CalEPA/DTSC hearing at the numbers listed above.

Eric Luna, a member of Tri-Valley CAREs’ 2017 Board of Directors, and Legal Intern Makayla Whitney, will represent the group’s 4,700 members at this historic meeting. Interviews with Makayla and Eric are available on request.

For a list of member groups, see https://cejcoalition.org/cejcmembers/ and additional information, including campaigns, is at cejcoalition.org.

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“March for Nuclear Abolition & Global Survival”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 3, 2017

Click here to download the pdf.

Click here to download the pdf.

Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Lawsuit Appeal to Be Heard in Ninth Circuit Court on March 15

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2017

San Francisco– On Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 9:00 AM, the appeal of the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ “Nuclear Zero” lawsuit will be heard in the Ninth District Court of Appeals. The case, initially filed on April 24, 2014, alleges that the United States failed to uphold its legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary International law to begin negotiations “in good faith” for an end to the nuclear arms race “at an early date” and for nuclear disarmament.

The suit contends that the United States has clearly violated its legal obligations to pursue nuclear disarmament by spending large sums of money to enhance its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. already plans to spend an estimated $1 trillion on nuclear weapons over the next three decades and President Trump has said he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal even further to ensure it is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has “fallen behind in its nuclear weapons capacity.”

Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney of the Livermore-based disarmament group Tri-Valley CAREs (which closely monitors the large nuclear weapons program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) filed an Amicus Brief in support of the Marshall Islands. “As people directly affected by radioactive fallout from US nuclear weapons testing, the Marshallese are a particularly powerful voice calling for enforcement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In this time of escalating international tension, the US Courts, and really all of us, should be listening and taking our international obligations under the Treaty seriously.”

Marshall Islanders suffered catastrophic and irreparable damages to their people and homeland when the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear tests on their territory between 1946 and 1958. These tests had the equivalent power of exploding 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years.

The Marshall Islands does not seek compensation with this lawsuit. Rather, it seeks declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the United States to comply with its commitments under international law.

On February 3, 2015, the Marshall Islands case at the federal district court was dismissed on the jurisdictional grounds of standing and political question doctrine without getting to the merits. David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a consultant to the Marshall Islands in their lawsuit, stated, “We believe the Court of Appeals should reverse the decision of the lower court and allow the case to be heard on its merits. But, no matter the outcome of this appeal, the Marshall Islands has shown great leadership with their Nuclear Zero lawsuits. They are a small nation that has acted on behalf of all humanity.”

For more information about the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, Click here.

Note to editor: There will be a press conference outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at approximately 12:00 PM. Laurie Ashton, lead council for the Marshall Islands; Pastor Julian Riklon of the Marshall Islands; Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, Tri-Valley CAREs; Rick Wayman, Director of Programs and Operations at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation; and John Burroughs, Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, will be available for comment.

CONTACT:

Scott Yundt, 415-990-2070, [email protected]

Rick Wayman, 805-696-5159, [email protected]

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VIDEO CONTEST OPENS TO ENGAGE YOUTH IN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AT LIVERMORE LAB

$500 Grand Prize Offered for Winning Youth Video

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 25, 2016

The launch this month of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs’ third annual Youth Video Contest is part of the group’s ongoing initiative to engage the next generation in nuclear weapons and environmental policy questions and to ensure that their voices are heard.

“Youth voices are often left out of environmental decision-making at Livermore Lab,” noted Tri-Valley CAREs’ Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt, who is coordinating the contest. “The 2016 Youth Video Contest allows young people to speak to issues that will impact their future through video, a format of interest to many youth.”

“Are Clean Groundwater Aquifers Important to you?” is the theme of this year’s Youth Video Contest. The basic instructions are simple: Describe what you think. Address whether and why clean groundwater is important to you through the medium of video.

Youth from ten to thirty years old are invited to submit videos of two minutes or less, with a Grand Prize of $500, a Second Place prize of $250, and a Third Place prize of $100. All videos are due electronically by October 31, 2016 and will be posted on the contest Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/youthvideocontest2016 and Youtube Channel. Details of the contest can be found at: http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/contest2016.html

While submitters may take a broad perspective, contest rules require that the video address some aspect of groundwater pollution or related nuclear weapons activities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Main Site in Livermore or its Site 300 near Tracy, CA. Both locations are on the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Superfund” list of the most contaminated sites in the country, laregely because of contaminated groundwater. Cleanup of contamination at both sites is scheduled to take another 40-60 years or more.

Contestants need not be from Livermore or Tracy. Groundwater contamination affects a wide area. A committee that includes a professional videographer has been empaneled to judge the videos. Video submittals can be cartoons, live-action, documentary style, etc. Contestants can film with such technologies as cell phones and laptop web cams.

Winners will be notified in November 2016. The three winning videos will be shown at a special awards ceremony and party on Wednesday, December 7th at the Livermore Main Library, 1188 South Livermore Ave. The contest, now in its third year, attracted impressive entries last year, and the three 2015 winning videos can be viewed on Tri- Valley CAREs’ website.

CONTACT:

Scott Yundt, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

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California Environmental Justice Coalition to Hold Statewide Conference and Meet with Top State Environmental Officials

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8-17-16

Who: Community and statewide leaders representing more than 50 organizations from the California Environmental Justice Coalition (CEJC) will gather in Sacramento to strengthen collective goals and conduct advocacy with agency and elected officials to achieve greater justice and accountability. CEJC is an inclusive grassroots coalition founded in 2014 to unite urban, rural and indigenous communities suffering from pollution and environmental racism. See: https://cejcoalition.org/cejc-members/

What: CEJC’s “2016 Days of Action” will encompass a weekend conference to share information, strategies and best practices for winning toxic cleanup, environmental and cultural preservation, community resilience and other shared CEJC goals, followed by agency and legislative briefings by CEJC community leaders from across the state. Meetings have been scheduled with top officials from Cal/EPA, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the Air Resources Board and other agencies as well as with key members of the State Legislature.

Where: The media are welcome to observe proceedings and interview CEJC community leaders during the CEJC Sunday morning conference session at the Capitol Event Center, 1020 11th Street, in Sacramento during the times specified below. Media are also invited to attend the CEJC briefing with top environmental agency officials on Monday at the Coastal Hearing Room on the 2nd floor of the Cal/EPA building at 1001 I Street in Sacramento at the time listed below.

When: Sunday, August 21st from 9:45-11am: CEJC’s morning conference introductions. Monday, August 22nd from 11am-12:30pm; CEJC’s meeting with Cal/EPA and others.

Why: CEJC member groups work together to develop policies and initiatives and carry out joint campaigns to promote environmental justice for all. CEJC’s campaigns include reforming the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control and other state agencies to serve the needs of people and the environment instead of protecting the polluters. In Sacramento, CEJC member groups will be able to freely share the numerous pollution and health concerns of EJ communities, build solidarity and formulate a comprehensive plan to present to agencies and elected officials alike in order to address the disparities in environmental health and justice felt by the most exposed and vulnerable people in our state’s urban, rural, and indigenous communities. More info at cejcoalition.org

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

CEJC Coordinator, Tom Helme, Valley Improvement Projects, (209) 589-9277

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MAJOR RALLY & NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION ON AUG. 9 AT LIVERMORE LAB

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 4, 2016

“Disarm Now: We Stand with Nuclear Survivors for Global Justice” will feature Nagasaki A-bomb survivor Nobuaki Hanaoka on the 71st Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan

Program update: International lawyer John Burroughs will speak on the Nuclear Zero lawsuits brought by the Republic of the Marshall Islands against the world’s nuclear-armed states. Dr. Burroughs is part of the legal team arguing the cases before the International Court of Justice.

Marshall Islands’ Ambassador Tony de Brum had to cancel his flight due to illness.

WHAT: A coalition of Northern California peace and justice organizations will mark the 71st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan at the location where the U.S. is presently spending billions of tax-dollars to develop new and modified nuclear weapons including the new Long-Range Stand Off warhead, part of an ambitious trillion-dollar, 30-year plan to “modernize” the U.S. stockpile by enhancing it with novel designs and capabilities. “Disarm Now” will highlight the landmark litigation filed in the International Court of Justice by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) against the nine nuclear-armed states for their failure to disarm as required by international law. The RMI has also brought suit against the U.S. domestically, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is slated to hear the case. The RMI cites the illegality of Livermore Lab’s nuclear weapons activities in its filings.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 9, 2016. Rally program will begin at 8 AM sharp. Following the rally, there will be a procession to the Lab’s West Gate with drummers, art and banners. A traditional Japanese Bon dance will be performed at the gate and participants will “die-in” on the pavement and have their bodies outlined in chalk in memory of the vaporized shadows left by people who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some participants will peaceably risk arrest.

WHERE: Livermore Lab, corner of Vasco Road & Patterson Pass Road. Ample parking.

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

• Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, special guest speaker, was an infant when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. His mother and sister died from illnesses linked to radiation poisoning and his brother died at age 39 from premature aging associated with fallout from the bomb. He will share his experience and insights. Rev. Hanaoka is a retired minister in the United Methodist church, who came to the U.S. following seminary training in Japan. He has settled in the Bay Area where he speaks, writes and teaches on topics of peace and human rights.

• John Burroughs, J.D., Ph.D., is Executive Director of the New York City-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, the UN office of the International Association of Lawyers Against

Nuclear Arms. He is a member of the Marshall Islands’ international legal team in its Nuclear Zero cases in the International Court of Justice, where he presented oral arguments this spring. Dr. Burroughs has taught international law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School. He is the author or editor of several books and numerous book chapters and articles, including a recent article in Arms Control Today on the illegality of nuclear weapons under international law. Dr. Burroughs and the RMI legal team have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize alongside Marshallese Ambassador Tony de Brum.

• Jackie Cabasso will address resurgent U.S. militarism from the Asia-Pacific pivot to NATO expansion and the growing dangers of wars among nuclear-armed nations. Cabasso is the Executive Director since 1984 of the Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, National Co-convener of United for Peace & Justice and co-founder of the international Abolition 2000 movement (in 1995). She is an internationally recognized leading voice for nuclear weapons abolition, and is the recipient of the 2008 Sean McBride Peace Prize among other awards.

• Tara Dorabji will describe the nuclear weapons programs at Livermore Lab, where the portion of the facility’s budget devoted solely to nuclear weapons activities totals more than a billion dollars annually and comprises 86% of its overall funding from the Dept. of Energy. Dorabji has been active with Tri-Valley CAREs since becoming the group’s Outreach Director more than a decade ago. She has testified in hearings and other venues locally and has traveled extensively to brief members of Congress and administration officials on nuclear weapons policy, Livermore Lab, nuclear workers made ill by on the job exposures and related topics.

• Chizu Hamada will speak to the present day nuclear situation in Japan. Hamada is a co-founder of the Japanese-American No Nukes Action, formed after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown disaster to protest dangerous Japanese and U.S. nuclear policies.

WHY: On the 71st Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, we will gather at one of two U.S. national laboratories where scientists are busy designing new and modified nuclear weapons. Overall, the U.S. government spends about $2 million each hour on the nuclear weapons stockpile. This spending is slated to increase and to top $1 trillion over 30 years. Continuing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons stands in stark contrast with the stance of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The RMI has filed lawsuits against the world’s nine nuclear-armed states in the International Court of Justice. They have also filed separately against the U.S. That case is presently awaiting a hearing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The Marshall Islanders know all too well the devastating effects of living in the nuclear age. From 1946 to 1958, the U.S conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands. Yet, they are not seeking damages in this historic litigation. Instead they seek to compel compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its nuclear disarmament provisions, which have been incorporated into customary international law.

The Japanese Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) also speak for global nuclear disarmament, raising their voices to cry “never again,” so that no others shall ever feel the horrific blast, heat, thirst, radiation sickness and bloody death or lingering illness that follows. On this August 9th we will hear from survivor Nobuaki Hanaoka and recommit ourselves to efforts to abolish nuclear weapons – an urgent necessity for our collective survival.

MEDIA OPS: Interviews with speakers and organizers available on request. Call for details.

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

###


MAJOR RALLY & NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION ON AUG. 9 AT LIVERMORE LAB

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

“Disarm Now: We Stand with Nuclear Survivors for Global Justice” will bring keynote speaker Ambassador Tony de Brum from the Republic of the Marshall Islands and also feature Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor Nobuaki Hanaoka on the 71st Anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bomb dropped on the city of Nagasaki, Japan

WHAT: A coalition of Northern California peace and justice organizations will mark the 71st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan at the location where the U.S. is presently spending billions of tax-dollars to develop new and modified nuclear weapons including the new Long-Range Stand Off warhead, part of an ambitious trillion-dollar, 30-year plan to “modernize” the U.S. stockpile by enhancing it with novel designs and capabilities. “Disarm Now” will highlight the landmark litigation filed in the International Court of Justice by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) against the nine nuclear-armed states for their failure to disarm as required by international law. The RMI has also brought suit against the U.S. domestically, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is slated to hear the case. The RMI cites the illegality of Livermore Lab’s nuclear weapons activities in its filings.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 9, 2016. Rally program with The Honorable Tony de Brum, Nobuaki Hanaoka and others will begin at 8 AM sharp. Following the rally, there will be a procession to the Lab’s West Gate with drummers, art and banners. A traditional Japanese Bon dance will be performed at the gate and participants will “die-in” on the pavement and have their bodies outlined in chalk in memory of the vaporized shadows left by people who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some participants will peaceably risk arrest.

WHERE: Livermore Lab, corner of Vasco Road & Patterson Pass Road. Ample parking.

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

• The Honorable Tony de Brum, keynote speaker, is the former Foreign Minister of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and its current Ambassador for Climate. Born in 1945, de Brum grew up during the period of 67 U.S. nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, from 1946-1958, and as a nine year old boy witnessed the impact of the 15-megaton “Bravo” test. Ambassador de Brum represents his Pacific Island nation in its courageous, ongoing “Nuclear Zero” lawsuits against the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, including the U.S., for their “failure to disarm” as required by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and customary international law. His tireless pursuit of justice for the Marshallese people has been recognized with a Right Livelihood international award as well as a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, special guest speaker, was an infant when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. His mother and sister died from illnesses linked to radiation poisoning and his brother died at age 39 from premature aging associated with fallout from the bomb. He will share his experience and insights. Rev, Hanaoka is a retired minister in the United Methodist church, who came to the U.S. following seminary training in Japan. He has settled in the Bay Area where he speaks, writes and teaches on topics of peace and human rights.

• Jackie Cabasso will address resurgent U.S. militarism from the Asia-Pacific pivot to NATO expansion and the growing dangers of wars among nuclear-armed nations. Cabasso is the Executive Director since 1984 of the Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, National Co-convener of United for Peace & Justice and co-founder of the international Abolition 2000 movement (in 1995). She is an internationally recognized leading voice for nuclear weapons abolition, and is the recipient of the 2008 Sean McBride Peace Prize among other awards.

• Tara Dorabji will elucidate the nuclear weapons programs at Livermore Lab, where the facility’s budget devoted solely to nuclear weapons activities totals more than a billion dollars annually and comprises 86% of its overall funding from the Dept. of Energy. Dorabji has been active with Tri-Valley CAREs since becoming the group’s Outreach Director more than a decade ago. She has testified in hearings and other venues locally and has traveled extensively to brief members of Congress and administration officials on nuclear weapons policy, Livermore Lab, nuclear workers made ill by on the job exposures and related topics.

• Chizu Hamada will speak to the present day nuclear situation in Japan. Hamada is a co-founder of the Japanese-American No Nukes Action, formed after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown disaster to protest dangerous Japanese and U.S. nuclear policies.

WHY: On the 71st Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, we will gather at one of two U.S. national laboratories where scientists are busy designing new and modified nuclear weapons. Overall, the U.S. government spends about $2 million each hour on the nuclear weapons stockpile. This spending is slated to increase and to top $1 trillion over 30 years. This stands in stark contrast with the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The RMI filed litigation against the world’s nine nuclear-armed states in the International Court of Justice. They have also filed separately against the U.S. That case is presently awaiting a hearing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The Marshall Islanders know all too well the devastating effects of living in the nuclear age. From 1946 to 1958, the U.S conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands. Yet, they are not seeking damages in this historic litigation. Instead they seek to compel compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its provisions, which have been incorporated into “customary international law,” requiring nuclear disarmament. The RMI actions are led by their esteemed and indefatigable Ambassador Tony de Brum.

The Japanese Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) also speak for global nuclear disarmament, raising their voices to cry “never again,” so that no others shall ever feel the horrific blast, heat, thirst, radiation sickness and bloody death or lingering illness that follows. On this August 9, we will hear from survivor Nobuaki Hanaoka and recommit to our efforts to abolish nuclear weapons – an urgent necessity for our collective survival.

MEDIA OPS: Interviews with speakers and organizers available on request. Call for details.

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, 510-839-5877; 510-206-0119, cell

Stephen McNeil, American Friends Service Committee, 415-350-9305

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NUCLEAR “WATCHDOG” FILES FEDERAL LAWSUIT TO COMPEL RELEASE OF INFORMATION ABOUT TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE DANGERS AT LIVERMORE LAB

Tri-Valley CAREs charges Energy Dept. is illegally withholding documents on toxic “high-risk” facilities, anthrax shipments, use of plutonium in the National Ignition Facility and more; requests Special Prosecutor be named

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, June 10, 2016

LIVERMORE & OAKLAND, CA – Today, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) filed a Federal lawsuit in United States District Court for the Northern District of California against the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for numerous failures to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which requires federal agencies to respond to public requests for information within 20 days.

According to the complaint filed today in US District Court, Tri-Valley CAREs alleges four separate instances the DOE and NNSA failed to provide responsive, unclassified documents regarding operations at the agencies’ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as required by law. The information that is the subject of the litigation is overdue by up to four years.

“The DOE and NNSA are egregiously out of compliance with the law,” noted Tri-Valley CAREs’ Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt. “This frustrates the public’s basic right to know. The information is of urgent importance to the community, and involves important and timely issues like Livermore Lab’s use of plutonium in the National Ignition Facility and the state of decay at aging excess facilities identified by the DOE Inspector General as posing a ‘high–risk’ to workers and the public.”

“As a ‘watchdog’ organization, Tri-Valley CAREs relies on open government laws like the FOIA to do its work and inform the community,” stated Yundt. “By dragging its feet for years, and not providing the requested information, the government has not only violated the law but has potentially degraded the value of the information sought, which is often time-sensitive.”

Yundt noted, “In some cases, important opportunities for public input have elapsed and projects have gone forward while the group’s information requests went unanswered.”

“Many of the documents Tri-Valley CAREs requested contain information about possible breaches of toxic, radiological and biological materials from Lab operations and shipments. Keeping this information hidden does nothing to protect the public,” charged Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director. “Instead, it robs the community of the opportunity to press for changes that would better safeguard worker and public health and the environment.”

Kelley continued, “Moreover, DOE and NNSA are illegally withholding information we requested about plutonium policy.”

“The DOE and NNSA have exhibited a ‘pattern and practice’ of not responding to FOIA requests in the manner prescribed by statute,” Staff Attorney Yundt stated. “Routinely, these federal agencies have failed to fulfill Tri-Valley CAREs’ FOIA requests within the allotted timeframe and failed to provide an estimated date of their determination as required by President Obama’s 2008 Open Government Directive.”

The group’s lawsuit asks the judge to issue a court order appointing a Special Counsel to investigate the pattern of abuse wherein DOE and NNSA fail to comply with the law. The Special Counsel would then determine whether disciplinary action is warranted and against whom. “A positive ruling could set a precedent for openness and transparency with national implications,” said Yundt.

Tri-Valley CAREs was forced to bring similar FOIA litigation to compel the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act in 1998, 2000, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2013. “We should not have to file lawsuits in order to obtain public information,” said Yundt. “Congress enacted the FOIA specifically so that organizations like Tri-Valley CAREs would have free access to unclassified, non-exempt records that disclose the operation of the government.”

“We are prosecuting this lawsuit in order to hold the DOE and NNSA accountable and to vindicate the public’s right to be informed and to knowledgeably and democratically influence Livermore Lab projects and the nation’s nuclear weapons policies,” concluded Kelley. “The information we seek impacts our lives and our future.”

Tri-Valley CAREs was founded in 1983 in Livermore, CA by neighbors of the Dept. of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations where all U.S. nuclear weapons are designed. The Lab’s Main Site in Livermore was placed on the federal Superfund list of most contaminated sites in the country in 1987. Livermore Lab’s Site 300, located between Livermore and Tracy, was placed on the federal Superfund list in 1990. Tri-Valley CAREs represents 5,600 members, most of whom live and/or work in the shadow of Livermore Lab.

-- 30 --

A PDF of the Complaint filed today is available at here

We can also email it upon request. Call us at (925) 443-7148.

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

Scott Yundt, 415-990-2070, [email protected]

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Tri-Valley CAREs to Speak at Courthouse on Lab Nuclear Programs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 17, 2016

*May 25 Defendants of the Good Friday witness held on March 25 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory will appear at the Alameda County Courthouse in Fremont.

*WHAT* Press conference outside courthouse. More than a dozen nonviolent protesters cited and released at the gates of Livermore Lab will speak to media prior to entering the courthouse to answer their summons and determine their legal fate. Marylia Kelley of TriValley CAREs will also speak on the ongoing nuclear weapons development underway at Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab.

*THERE WILL BE A PHOTO OP* as defendants and their supporters will gather for song, and release a statement that on “Good Friday we remembered the death by torture of a leader in nonviolence at the hands of the Roman Empire at the location where we see a modern day parallel. Nuclear weapons designed at Livermore Lab are central to enabling today’s empire of violence around the world.”

Joining the faith-based defendants at the press conference will be Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs, a noted Livermore Lab watchdog organization. Kelley will report on the current nuclear weapons development activities at the Livermore Lab, illuminating the reason for protest at that site.

WHEN AND WHERE:* May 25, 8:15 a.m., Fremont Hall of Justice, 39439 Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538, entrance of courthouse.

*WHY* On Good Friday of this year, some one hundred and fifty people gathered for prayer outside of the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, hearing from Rev. Deborah Lee, Senior Program Director of Immigration with the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. Also speaking was Rev. Julian Riklon of the Marshall Islands where many people suffered the effects of nuclear weapons tests. After a prayer service, including song and liturgical dance, the group proceeded to the gates of the lab where 23 people were arrested as they stood or knelt in prayers for peace.

*BACKGROUND* Livermore Lab was founded in 1952 to develop the hydrogen bomb, and it continues to be the place where new weapons of mass destruction are designed. People of faith together with others concerned about the continuing development of nuclear weapons have gathered there for more than 25 years on Good Friday to call for an end to these weapons. The witness at which the defendants were arrested was sponsored by Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC and the Livermore Conversion Project.

CONTACT:

Carolyn Scarr, Ecumenical Peace Institute: 510-527-8370, (cell) 510-847-7613 [email protected]

WATCHDOGS HEAD TO CAPITOL HILL TO STOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS “TRILLION DOLLAR TRAINWRECK”-- REPORT SEEKS BIG CUTS IN WARHEAD MODERNIZATION AND BOMB PLANTS; DIVERTING SAVINGS TO CLEANUP AND WEAPONS DISMANTLEMENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 13, 2016

Livermore Group Highlights “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck” Policy Recommendations with Appearance Today on Democracy Now!

Dozens of community leaders from around the country will visit Washington, DC April 18 - 20 to oppose what they call “out-of-control” U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons projects that accelerate wasteful spending, increase proliferation risks, and generate radioactive contamination. The group will meet with leading members of Congress, committee staffers, and administration officials responsible for U. S. nuclear policies to press for new priorities.

Activists from nearly a dozen states are participating in the 28th annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) "DC Days." They will deliver copies of ANA’s new report, Trillion Dollar Trainwreck (bit.ly/trilliondollartrainwreck), which dissects the Obama Administration’s latest plans to spend more than a trillion dollars over the next 30 years on the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including massive amounts on Life Extension Programs (LEPs), new production facilities, and other projects at DOE sites. According to the 20-page analysis, “Most of [these programs] are completely unnecessary for national security. All of them are mismanaged, behind schedule, and wildly over budget.” ANA members will urge policymakers to redirect the money saved by cutting these programs to speeding up warhead dismantlement and cleaning up the legacy of nuclear weapons research, testing and production.

Marylia Kelley, executive director for the Livermore, CA-based Tri-Valley CAREs co-authored the report. “The escalating cost of maintaining US nuclear weapons is due not to the difficulty of the task or to excessive ‘aging.’ It is due to elective changes the DOE and its weapons labs are introducing into the stockpile,” she noted. “The new nuclear tipped cruise missile, in particular, should be cancelled.” Kelley appeared on Democracy Now! this morning with Amy Goodman.

ANA is a network of local, regional and national organizations representing the concerns of communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons research, production and waste disposal sites. DC Days participants include activists from groups that monitor such U.S. nuclear weapons facilities as Hanford, Lawrence Livermore, Rocky Flats, Los Alamos, Kansas City Plant, Pantex, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Savannah River and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

Tri-Valley CAREs is the 33-year strong nuclear weapons watchdog organization located next to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations where all U.S. nuclear weapons are designed. The group works to prevent proliferation-provocative new U.S. warheads and bombs, support nonproliferation locally and globally, and achieve cleanup under the Superfund law of toxic and radioactive wastes at Livermore Lab that have migrated through the environment into multiple groundwater aquifers. Tri-Valley CAREs has been an ANA member group since 1989 and is co-author of Trillion Dollar Trainwreck.

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Click here to read the "Trillion Dollar Trainwreck" report.

As part of its DC Days, ANA will sponsor an Awards Reception honoring leaders of the movement for responsible nuclear policies on Tuesday evening, April 19. Honorees include U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Representative Adam Smith, Los Alamos whistleblower Chuck Montano, and anti-nuclear reactor organizer Kay Cumbow: The event will take place in Room 902 of the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

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LOCAL GROUP HEADS TO WASHINGTON TO PRESS CONGRESS, OBAMA OFFICIALS TO STOP U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS “TRILLION DOLLAR TRAINWRECK” -- PUSH TO CANCEL BOMB PLANT AND WARHEAD “MODERNIZATION,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 11, 2016

Five members of Tri-Valley CAREs will visit Washington, DC from April 17 to April 20 to oppose U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons projects, which they say will lead to a “trillion dollar trainwreck” through out-of control spending, radioactive waste generation, and weapons proliferation. The group will meet with leading members of Congress, committee staffers, and top administration officials with responsibility for U. S. nuclear policies to press for new funding priorities.

The California delegation will be working with colleagues from a dozen other states who are participating in the 28th annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) "DC Days." The activists will meet with Senators and Representatives from [your state], leaders of congressional committees that oversee nuclear issues, and key federal agency staffers. They will share copies of ANA’s new report, “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck” a detailed analysis of the Obama Administration’s latest plans to spend more money on nuclear weapons without enhancing U.S. security.

Tri-Valley CAREs Executive Director, Marylia Kelley said, “Massive spending on nuclear weapons ‘modernization’ creates catastrophic risks for U.S. taxpayers, the environment and world peace. We will press policy-makers to cut programs that fund dangerous DOE boondoggles. The money saved should be redirected to dismantling weapons and cleaning up the legacy of nuclear weapons research, testing and production.”

Tri-Valley CAREs Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt will join Tri-Valley CAREs delegation along with Vecky Elliot of Tracy, Julie Kantor of San Francisco, and Avi Taylor of Washington DC.

ANA is a network of three dozen local, regional and national organizations representing the concerns of communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons production and radioactive waste disposal sites. As part of its DC Days, ANA will sponsor an Awards Reception honoring leaders of the movement for responsible nuclear policies on Tuesday evening, April 19. That event will take place in Room 902 of the Hart Senate Office Building from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

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QUESTIONS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE) FY 2017 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CLEANUP BUDGET REQUEST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

for use with Tuesday, February 9, 2016 budget release

The Obama Administration’s nuclear weapons policy is revealed much more by its spending plans than its rhetoric. On February 9, the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of Energy (DOE) budget request will illuminate the programs that President Obama wants to pass on to his successor.

Will it increase funding for additional nuclear weapons programs despite warnings that “modernization” is leading to a new arms race? Will the President keep faith with communities harmed by nuclear weapons activities and request the funds needed to stabilize nuclear materials and clean up contaminated land and waters at DOE sites across America?

The DOE Fiscal Year 2017 budget request will answer these and other questions of great importance to the American people and the world. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a 29-year-old network of groups from communities downwind and downstream of U.S. nuclear sites, will be looking at the following issues. For details, contact the ANA leaders listed at the end of this Advisory.

- Will the “top line” budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) rise to support nuclear weapons “modernization” and the new bomb plants necessary to fulfill that scheme?

- Does the budget request boost spending on a new Long-Range Stand Off warhead to ride atop a new air-launched cruise missile, with a combined $20-$30 billion cost and incalculable proliferation risks?

- Will funding for transforming the B61 bomb into the world’s first “smart” nuclear weapon remain at about $640 million annually? Is NNSA on track to produce the first B61-12 in 2020?

- Will the dismantlement budget increase beyond its current, inadequate $50 million given that there is an estimated backlog of 2,000 nuclear weapons awaiting disassembly?

- Will more than $300 million be provided for Livermore Lab’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), which repeatedly failed to achieve ignition even though taxpayers have already spent nearly $9 billion?

- What is the request for the plutonium fuel (MOX) project at Savannah River, which DOE admits is financially unsustainable: zero, cold standby (~$200 million), or enough to barely survive (300+ million)?

- Will the budget continue to fund the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) bomb plant in Oak Ridge, TN, without requiring a formally approved plan? Given that more than $2 billion has been spent on designing UPF, when will the Administration tell taxpayers how much it intends to spend?

- Does the budget increase funding for expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at Los Alamos? Why is more production needed when experts conclude that existing pits are durable?

- Does the Environmental Management (EM) cleanup budget (currently $5.3 billion) increase to meet all legally mandated milestones? States say agreements at a dozen DOE sites are underfunded.

- Why did the budget savings from DOE facilities that had a quick cleanup, such as Rocky Flats and Fernald, go to new weapons rather than to other cleanup sites as promised?

- Does the budget include $0 for Yucca Mountain? No funding is consistent with past requests that terminate this technically flawed site that is strongly opposed by Nevada state officials and the public.

- What are the lifecycle cost estimates to clean up the legacy of past nuclear weapons production? Chronic underfunding of DOE environmental programs is factor leading to ever-increasing lifecycle clean-up costs — from $308.5 billion in FY 2013 to $341.6 billion in FY 2016.

- Why is there increased funding for the shut down Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) when its re-opening is behind schedule and over budget? How much more money is requested for the Idaho National Lab, Los Alamos, Savannah River, and Oak Ridge because of the shutdown?

- Does the Hanford budget (more than $2.3 billion) protect workers from toxic chemical exposures, provide an Operational Readiness Review of Waste Treatment Plant safety, and fund construction of new double-shell tanks to replace the leaking ones?

- Does the budget increase funding (currently $29.15 million) for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) to provide independent oversight of DOE projects that have many cost over-runs, schedule delays, safety culture issues and technical problems?

- Is funding for design and licensing of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) (currently $62.5 million) increasing again even though SMRs are not technically or financially viable? Since private financing is lacking, will DOE reaffirm that it will not finance SMR construction?

CONTACT:

Marylia Kelley, 925-443-7148, [email protected]

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