Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
Tri-Valley CAREs stops nuclear weapons where they start. We watchdog the nuclear weapons complex and its Livermore Lab, one of two locations that develops all US nuclear bombs and warheads. Nuclear weapons pose one of the great social, economic, and ecological challenges of our time. We work toward their global abolition. |
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Tri-Valley CAREs was founded in 1983 in Livermore, California by concerned neighbors living around the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations where all US nuclear weapons are designed. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on Livermore Lab and the surrounding communities.
Tri-Valley CAREs’ overarching mission is to promote peace, justice and a healthy environment by pursuing the following five interrelated goals:
- Convert Livermore Lab from nuclear weapons development and testing to socially beneficial, environmentally sound research.
- End all nuclear weapons development and testing in the United States.
- Abolish nuclear weapons worldwide, and achieve an equitable, successful non-proliferation regime.
- Promote forthright communication and democratic decision-making in public policy on nuclear weapons and related environmental issues, locally, nationally and globally.
- Clean up the radioactive and toxic pollution emanating from the Livermore Lab and reduce the Lab’s environmental and health hazards.
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TVC In the News
Nuclear weapon opponents gather at Livermore Lab to declare: ‘Never Again!’
People’s World August 15, 2025
LIVERMORE, Calif.—Among advocates for abolition of nuclear weapons mobilizing worldwide on Aug. 6 to commemorate the 80th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were over 100 peace protesters who gathered outside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Westgate entrance to honor victims of the attack and to call for the weapons’ total abolition.
The theme of their gathering: 80 Years of Nuclear Devastation – Remember Our History, Reshape Our Future.
Livermore Lab, one of two locations designing every nuclear bomb and warhead in the U.S. arsenal, has played a central role in escalating the power and reach of these weapons since its founding in 1951.
Marylia Kelley, co-founder, executive director emerita and now senior advisor at Tri-Valley CAREs (Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), which monitors the Livermore nuclear weapons complex and works for the weapons’ worldwide abolition, began her remarks with a tribute to the now-dwindling role of hibakusha, survivors of the bombings who have devoted their lives to sharing their memories of the horrific attacks with the world.
Kelley highlighted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded last year to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, and recalled bombing survivors who have shared their stories at past commemorations at Livermore Lab, including Nagasaki survivor and retired Methodist Minister Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka and Hiroshima survivor Takashi Tanemori.
“In this period, we who are here, we who strive for peace and justice, must pick up the torch being passed to us by the last witnesses who experienced the atomic explosions,” Kelley said. “Today at Livermore and moving forward, we heed their plea of ‘Never again,’ and pledge to do everything in our power to make sure the world does not forget the human devastation caused by nuclear weapons and the absolute imperative of their elimination.”
With the Trump administration calling for an overall 58% boost in spending for “nuclear weapons activities,” Livermore Lab’s overall 2026 budget request is up by 16% over last year to nearly $3 billion, with nearly 90% earmarked for nuclear weapons development.
While the Lab has sought over the years to “mask its horrific weapons activities in the neutral language of science,” Kelley said, “we are here today to pull down that mask—follow the money!”
She held up a pie chart of the Lab’s 2026 budget request, citing weapons and components the Lab is developing:
- The W80-4 new warhead that will let pilots launch a sneak attack from thousands of miles away to strike a target anywhere in the world with an earth-hugging, radar-evading nuclear weapon;
- The new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCMN, to be placed on small U.S. Navy submarines that have not carried nuclear weapons for over three decades;
- The W87-1 warhead to top the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile which will be deployed in land-based silos throughout the Midwest.
- The W-93, a totally newly designed warhead to be deployed on the large nuclear-armed submarines that patrol the ocean.
- New plutonium bomb cores, or pits, to be installed on the W87-1 warhead.
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Demonstration outside LLNL commemorated 80 years since nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Crowd of approximately 90 people gathered outside of Lab for event organized by Tri-Valley CAREs
Peaceful protesters rallied outside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory last week calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide, in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Approximately 90 people gathered Aug. 6 for “80 Years of Nuclear Devastation: Remember Our History, Reshape Our Future” — organized by Tri-Valley CAREs — to echo the call of atomic bomb survivors “hibakusha,” who urge world governments to rid themselves of nuclear weapons, according to Livermore resident and Tri-Valley CAREs executive director Scott Yundt.
“We as a nation are at a pivot point,” Yundt said in a statement. “We must step back from the abyss while we still can. The August 6 commemoration at Livermore Lab is one such step.”
Attendees of the annual event gathered outside of LLNL at 9 a.m. on a lawn located on the north side of Westgate Boulevard, Yundt said.
Speakers discussed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, LLNL’s history and ongoing role in the development of nuclear weapons, the environmental and fiscal cost of nuclear weapons development as well as the goal of global nuclear disarmament, Yundt said.
The lab has an annual budget of nearly $3.3 billion, according to an LLNL fact sheet. It has also contaminated the site and nearby environment, Yundt noted.
Among the calls to action was an urge to contact congressional representatives to cosponsor House Resolution 317 — proposing the U.S. leads the world’s retreat from the brink of nuclear war as well as halt and reverse the nuclear arms race, Yundt said.
“I feel keenly the responsibility to ‘pick up the torch’ being passed to us by the Japanese survivors of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Tri-Valley CAREs senior advisor Marylia Kelley said in a statement. “Being at Livermore Lab with other peace advocates on August 6 is part of my commitment to ensure the world never forgets the human devastation of nuclear weapons and the imperative for their abolition.”
Following the rally, about 60 attendees participated in a “die-in” wherein a mock siren announced the faux dropping of an atomic bomb and participants laid on the street in front of the lab entrance. Their bodies were outlined in chalk, which Yundt said recalls how some people in Hiroshima were vaporized to ash by the atomic bomb.
Participants then rose for a traditional Japanese Bon Dance to commemorate ancestors who died as a result of the bombings.
By noon, everyone had left the site and the lab entrance was reopened, according to Yundt. LLNL spokesperson Michael Padilla said the demonstration did not impact employees’ daily work.
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U.S. nuclear weapons sites remember 80th anniv. of Hiroshima A-bomb
OAK RIDGE, Tennessee – Events commemorating the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima were held in some U.S. cities on Wednesday, its 80th anniversary, including Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where uranium was enriched to make a deadly weapon that ushered in the nuclear age.
The southern U.S. city was a secret site built to produce highly enriched uranium as part of the Manhattan Project, under which the United States sought to develop atomic bombs.
While a number of Americans believe that the atomic bombing hastened the end of World War II and therefore reduced overall casualties, some people have come to be more ambivalent toward nuclear weapons.
Outside the so-called Y-12 complex, which still stores nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear-powered vessels, over 20 people offered paper cranes in memory of the victims of the Hiroshima bombing, and remembered their sufferings and the range of destruction rendered by the ultimate weapon.
Gyoshu Utsumi, a 73-year-old monk at a Buddhist temple in the state who hailed from northeastern Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture, recited a sutra after the participants observed a moment of silence to mark the blast 80 years ago on Aug. 6.
Utsumi was joined by Emily Strasser, a Tufts University professor whose grandfather worked on uranium enrichment as a chemist at Oak Ridge, among others. She admitted feeling bewildered at her grandfather’s involvement and said targeting an atomic bomb at a civilian population is unacceptable.
In San Francisco and nearby Livermore in California, home to one of the United States’ nuclear weapons laboratories, people also gathered to rally for nuclear abolition.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located around 30 miles east of San Francisco, is one of only two sites in the United States currently designing nuclear weapons.
A coalition of community groups who have gathered outside the laboratory nearly every year since 1981 to remember the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki returned this anniversary with renewed urgency.
Group members staged a die-in, a form of protest popularized by environmental and antiwar advocates in the 1970s, commemorating the people who perished in the atomic bombings or soon after due to radiation.
After the outlines of their bodies were chalked into the pavement, participants rose to perform a Japanese Bon dance.
Lifelong advocates for nuclear disarmament said they felt the current nuclear threat level is higher than it has ever been in their lives.
That sentiment was shared by the crew of the Golden Rule, the peace boat that first sailed in 1958 with the mission to end the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and celebrated its arrival in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Gerry Condon, 78, the president of the Golden Rule committee, said they are sailing today against the looming threat of nuclear war.
“All the guardrails are off,” Condon said.
Related coverage:
Activists protest outside California national lab to mark 80th anniversary of atomic bombing of Japan
AP News – By Michael Wittner, Patch Staff, August 5, 2025
Anti-Nuclear Weapons Rally Takes Place In Livermore On Hiroshima 80th Anniversary
80 Years Later: Honor the Memory, End the Threat
Press Releases
“Remember our History, Reshape our Future” – Nonviolent Rally & Action at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab
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Lawsuit Compels Nationwide Public Review of Plutonium Bomb Core Production
Historic Settlement Reached in NEPA Lawsuit Over Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production
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All Press Releases CLICK HERE!
Government Quietly Announces Dangerous New Plan for More Plutonium at Livermore Lab to Increase its Nuclear Weapons Activities
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U.S. ICBM Test Launch Set for Election Day from California, Activists Denounce It As ‘Wasteful’ and ‘Dangerous’
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 latest test on Election Day is a clear attempt to avoid public scrutiny of these tests, even as the continued existence of ICBMs is a profound threat to the life and security of every single person in the United States and around the world. We ask that the upcoming ICBM test, and all future scheduled tests, be canceled.
ICBMs have been sold to the public as a guarantor of security. In reality, they are an imminent threat to public security. In the words of the late Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine, these weapons make “any conflict enormously more dangerous than it has to be” by increasing “the danger that any armed conflict between major nuclear states can escalate to all-out war.” ICBMs are on hair-trigger alert and, once launched, cannot be recalled, virtually guaranteeing a strike on the country that launches them. As long as ICBMs exist, we live with the constant risk that misinterpreted intelligence, human error, or a single rash decision could end civilization as we know it within an hour.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources. The U.S. has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernize” its ICBM force, which in practice means replacing the entire system. The ICBM program is now an astonishing 81% over budget and years behind schedule, not including the expense for its new W-87-1 nuclear warhead development being done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the new plutonium pits that will built at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yet the U.S. Secretary of Defense has certified, through a “comprehensive, unbiased review” not shared with the public, that the program will proceed.
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