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CONTACT
ABOUT
Tri-Valley CAREs was founded in 1983 in Livermore, California by concerned neighbors living around the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations where all US nuclear weapons are designed. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on Livermore Lab and the surrounding communities. Tri-Valley CAREs works to strengthen global security by stopping the development of new nuclear weapons in the US and promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons globally. Their work is characterized by an “inside-outside” strategy that engages both stakeholders at nuclear facilities and in government, as well as community members and workers directly affected by Livermore Lab’s weapons activities.
CURRENT WORK
Stopping production of the W87-1 warhead (the replacement for the W78 warhead), slated for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent. The W87-1 would require new-design pit production.
Opposing expanded nuclear weapons pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site. Tri-Valley CARES organized a congressional briefing on these two issues in November 2019. Also pursuing a strategy to obtain nationwide programmatic review of the health and environmental impacts of expanded pit production under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Stopping the planned increase in the explosive yield of bomb tests conducted in the open-air at Livermore Lab’s Site 300 experimental test site. These blasts, containing 121 hazardous constituents, would serve the mission of advancing Livermore Lab’s new and modified weapon designs.
SUCCESSES
Late 1980’s: Stopped the Department of Energy and Livermore Lab from building a toxic and radioactive waste incinerator. They achieved this by collecting over 10,000 signatures from concerned constituents, as well as meeting with Livermore Lab scientists and writing a scientific critique of Livermore’s environmental impact statement for the incinerator.
Early 2000s: Persuaded Congress to eliminate funding for a new, bunker-busting nuclear weapon that Livermore Lab was developing for use in the war on terror, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator bomb. Tri-Valley CAREs produced budget and policy reports on the RNEP and played a lead role in a national coalition that prevented this bomb from becoming a reality.
Late 2000s: Prevented development of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Tri-Valley CAREs produced a seminal report on RRW in January 2006, helped win funding cuts to the program, then briefed candidate Barack Obama’s point person on it, and, with allied groups, succeeded in shutting down the program.
View a full list of accomplishments here: http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/accomplishments.html
OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATION
Tri-Valley CAREs hopes to catalyze coalition efforts with other arms control and disarmament groups against the W87-1 and expanded pit production, in ways that are most appropriate for each group to undertake. This could include attending or assisting with their upcoming Congressional briefing, helping to elevate these issues through writing and educational efforts, Congressional and grassroots advocacy, media coverage, and more.
More broadly, Tri-Valley CAREs aims to improve the flow of information and expertise between grassroots/community groups outside the beltway and arms control/disarmament groups inside the beltway, so that this information can best inform the whole community’s analysis and advocacy.
Support DC-based arms control and disarmament groups in better using the power of story to build their advocacy “tool kits” – in part by including personal stories that illuminate the direct impacts of nuclear weapons on “front line” communities.