Welcome to Tri-Valley CAREs

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. Nuclear weapons decrease rather than increase human security. Nuclear weapons pose one of the great social, economic and ecological challenges of our time.

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:

1. Convert Livermore Lab from nuclear weapons development and testing to socially beneficial, environmentally sound research.

2. End all nuclear weapons development and testing in the United States.

3. Abolish nuclear weapons worldwide, and achieve an equitable, successful non-proliferation regime.

4. Promote forthright communication and democratic decision-making in public policy on nuclear weapons and related environmental issues, locally, nationally and globally.

5. Clean up the radioactive and toxic pollution emanating from the Livermore Lab and reduce the Lab's environmental and health hazards.

• Meet our staff (click here)

• Tri-Valley CAREs' Board (click here)

On the happy occasion of our 25th anniversary, we invite you to contemplate 25 of our successes through the years:

1. We stopped the Department of Energy (DOE) and Livermore Lab from building a massive toxic and radioactive waste incinerator. Further, we led the successful campaign to shut down Livermore Lab’s existing incinerator.
2. We prevented Livermore Lab from using lasers to produce weapons grade plutonium in an “engineering demonstration system” the Lab had built for this purpose. Then, we worked to stop a similar Livermore Lab scheme employing lasers to enrich uranium.
3. We won improvements in Livermore Lab’s program toclean up soil and groundwater contaminated by nuclear weapons research. Recently, we stopped a DOE plan to send 80 million gallons of contaminated groundwater from Livermore Lab into the San Francisco Bay, untreated.
4. We were the first group in the western U.S. to win an EPA grant to monitor the Superfund cleanup at Livermore Lab. Then, we became the first community-based group in the country to win a recognition award from EPA for our work.
5. We helped initiate a process to involve the community in deciding what to do about the plutonium-contaminated sludge from Livermore Lab that was given to residents for use in their lawns and gardens. We worked with state and county health agencies to establish a plutonium sludge task force.
6. We alerted the community to the elevated levels of plutonium discovered in three Livermore parks. Our advocacy succeeded in getting additional soil tests at Big Trees Park, west of Livermore Lab. We continue to press for cleanup.
7. We played a key role in convincing Congress to pass a compensation program for DOE workers made ill by on thejob exposure to radiation and toxic contaminants. Recently, we helped win special status for sick Livermore Lab workers being denied compensation because their records were missing. Our efforts on behalf of sick workers continue.
8. We compelled declassification of plans to use plutonium in experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is still under construction at Livermore Lab. The planned use of fissile materials, together with fusion (thermonuclear) fuel, belies the Lab’s claim that NIF is benign.
9. We revealed the truth about plans to use the NIF and other lab-based technologies to continue nuclear weapons design, contrary to U.S. treaty obligations. Our research has led to increased public awareness of the dangers of the so- called “Stockpile Stewardship” program.
10. We released in-depth reports on the Bush Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, the DOE nuclear weapons budget — and numerous other topics. Our research has been cited in congressional debates and in other forums.
11. We brought DOE nuclear weapons development activities to the attention of the Congress, including research and development at Livermore on bunker-busting nuclear weapons being developed for use in the open-ended “War on Terror.” We provided research that was used by Congressional committees to cut all funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) and “advanced concepts” teams working on mini-nukes and other weapons projects.
12. We followed the RNEP victory by countering the next new nuke scheme, the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). We helped win funding cuts for RRW two years in a row. Our work will continue until we end the program.
13. We increased community knowledge about the hazards posed by plutonium at Livermore Lab, gathering more than 13,000 signatures on our petition. We continue to press for removal of all of the weapons usable plutonium from the Lab due to security and environmental problems, and weadvocate that it never be used in weapons experiments again. Our efforts have helped publicize security deficiencies at the Lab, including failures to secure plutonium in the 2008 mock terrorist drill.
14. We submitted an innovative proposal to manage Livermore Lab as a “Green Lab,” after the Lab's management contract was put up for bid. Our proposal provided a vision for the future of the Lab in a nuclear-free world. Although our bid was not chosen, we brought important local and national attention to this issue and changed the terms of the debate.
15. We raised awareness about DOE’s Complex Transformation (Bombplex) plan to revitalize the nuclear weapons complex across the country, including at Livermore Lab. We prepared in-depth analyses of the plan and submitted alternatives. DOE has received more than 100,000 comments opposing the Bombplex. We will continue to work with allies to stop this DOE plan - including by litigation, if necessary.
16. Each year we bring community members to Washington, DC to meet with Congress and the Administration. We offer first-hand experiences and authentic voices from our communities to the debate over nuclear weapons and waste.
17. We participated at the UN in the Review & Extension Conference for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in numerous NPT meetings since. Our research on U.S. nuclear weapons has helped other countries in their efforts to hold the U.S. accountable to its disarmament obligations under the NPT.
18. We sued the government a dozen times — and have not lost a case in our twenty-five years. Examples include legal victories to force public disclosure of Livermore Lab’s nuclear weapons activities and to stop DOE from shipping plutonium from its Rocky Flats plant in Colorado to Livermore Lab.
19. We filed a lawsuit to compel DOE to hold public hearings and conduct program-wide and site-specific environmental analyses before building and operating advanced biowarfare agent research facilities at Livermore and Los Alamos Labs. Our lawsuit succeeded in getting DOE to consider the environmental impacts of a terrorist attack at these facilities. Further, at Los Alamos Lab, the DOE agreed to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). In 2008, we filed freshlitigation to stop operation of the Livermore Lab bio-warfareresearch facility without an EIS.
20. We defeated a bio-warfare agent research proposal for Livermore Lab’s Site 300. Following a year of communityoutreach, meetings with elected officials, neighborhood “houseparties,” door-to-door petitioning, and other escalating opposition, the Department of Homeland Security determined thatthere is no “community acceptance” here for this facility.
21. We brought much-needed attention to an anthrax release caused by Livermore Lab in the fall of 2005. Our advocacy forced the Lab to come clean with details surrounding the release. We also filed Freedom of Information Act requests concerning the anthrax release and obtained additional information about this unfortunate occurrence, which resulted in workers being placed on the antibiotic Cipro due to exposure risks.
22. We organize vigils and demonstrations at the gates of Livermore Lab. Working with allied groups throughout the Bay`Area, we have mobilized hundreds of peace advocates - and sometimes thousands - to say “NO” to nuclear weapons and “YES” to nonviolent solutions. This August 9 at 11 AM, we again invite you to Livermore to commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and rededicate our efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons and war.
23. We promote involvement by the “next generation” of youth in nuclear and related issues. We joined with othercommunity and student organizations to establish the statewide “Coalition to Demilitarize the University of California” to`call attention to the University’s involvement in nuclear weapons research.
24. We publish a monthly newsletter that, for two decades now, has kept our members and the community informedabout activities at Livermore Lab and throughout the DOE nuclear weapons complex. Our mailing list has grown from450 to 5,600 families. We also provide a website that includesfact sheets, reports, and other important materials.
25. We network and undertake coalition building regionally, nationally and internationally. We are promoting realsolutions and taking the concrete steps necessary to achieve a nuclear-free 21st Century.

These 25 successes provide a snapshot of our work together. Each of our successes has been a collaborative endeavor. Our members and friends continue to make it all possible.