READING ROOM

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced its proposal yesterday for “Enhanced Plutonium Facility Utilization” at its Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The proposed plan would significantly increase the allowable quantities of nuclear weapons-grade plutonium stored at the Livermore Lab. It would likewise raise the allowable quantities to be trucked in and out of the Lab, using roads and freeways such as the nearby I-580. Further, according to the Federal Register Notice, this sudden change would enable the Lab to conduct riskier operations with plutonium above what is currently authorized. The new plan could also allow increases of other nuclear materials in addition to...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) releases an annual public document that discloses the environmental impacts of operations at the Livermore Main Site and Site 300 entitled “Site Environmental Report.” It presents environmental monitoring results, compliance (or non-compliance) with environmental standards, and outlines LLNL’s environmental protection and remediation programs for the previous year. The recently released report for 2023 includes sections such as an environmental “Compliance Summary, Environmental Program Information, Air Monitoring Programs, Water Monitoring Programs, Terrestrial Monitoring, Groundwater Investigation and Remediation, and Quality Assurance” and...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Monday, November 4, 2024 For further information, contact: [email protected] At 11:45 pm on Election Day, Nov. 5, activists from around the state will gather near Vandenberg Space Force Base to witness and protest the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). During such tests, which occur several times a year, the weapons are launched from the Vandenberg base near Lompoc, Calif., and aimed at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.  Activists with the Defuse Nuclear War coalition issued the following statement on Saturday: We condemn these launches in the strongest possible terms as a wasteful, dangerous step backward for peace. Scheduling this...

October 2, 2024 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA CONTACTS Scott Yundt Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment [email protected] (925) 443-7148 Tom Clements Director, Savannah River Site Watch [email protected]  (803) 834-3084 Jay Coghlan Nuclear Watch New Mexico [email protected] (505) 989-7342 Queen Quet Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition [email protected] Ben Cunningham, Esq. South Carolina Environmental Law Project [email protected]  (843) 527-0078 AIKEN, S.C. — On September 30, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the United States Department of Energy (“DOE”) and its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security...

Savannah River Site Watch Tri-Valley CAREs Nuclear Watch New Mexico FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 17, 2024 Contact: Tom Clements, SRS Watch, 803.240.7268, [email protected] Scott Yundt, TVC, 415.990.2070, [email protected] Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, [email protected] Nearly three years after filing a Freedom of Information Act request, the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch has finally received the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) congressionally-required “Research Program Plan for Plutonium and Pit Aging.” However, the document is 40% blacked out, including references and acronyms. Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive cores of all U.S. nuclear...

In a January 24th letter sent by the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments to Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (Livermore Lab’s management entity), the DOE office announced that it is opening an investigation into an April incident in which radioactive contamination from the nuclear weapons lab was found on and off-site. The letter is scant on details, however it refers to an otherwise previously undisclosed, “March 2023 loss of contamination control and the discovery of contaminated property both on and offsite, including at a Lawrence Livermore National Security worker’s residence, on April 8, 2023.” Tri-Valley CAREs, a community-based watchdog group that...

Tri-Valley CAREs and Groups Across U.S. Celebrate the ‘Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,’ on Anniversary of its Entry-Into-Force; Call on U.S. to Sign  Events Scheduled from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Throughout the Middle WHAT:          January 22, 2024 marks the third anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Seventy countries have ratified the Treaty so far, with additional countries undertaking that process this year. The TPNW currently has ninety-two signatory countries. The Treaty’s rising membership reflects a growing consensus among most of the world’s countries that the extreme threat nuclear weapons pose to all...

For immediate release, November 9, 2023 Contact: Scott Yundt, executive director, Tri-Valley CAREs, [email protected] 925.443.7148 (office), 415.990.2070 (cell) The National Nuclear Security Administration has released the Final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operations of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (SWEIS) that purports to analyze all of the potential impact to the environment of the Lab for the next 15 years. The document was “scoped” in 2020 and released in draft form in November of 2022. Tri-Valley CAREs participated in the public process on both the scoping and the draft. The group worked to engage members of the public to participate and...