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Saturday, March 03, 2007  
Activists Worried About Repercussions of Lawrence Livermore's Nuclear

By: Channel 5 evening news
Published In: KCBS

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS/AP) -- Local anti-nuclear activists are riled by yesterday?s announcement that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory won a competition for its design for a new generation of atomic warheads.



A year ago the Bush Administration ordered the competition between Lawrence Livermore and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Many of the warheads in the nation's stockpile were designed and built 40 years ago. Because their plutonium and other components are deteriorating in ways that researchers do not fully understand, the government spends billions of dollars each year tending to its aging stockpile.



But nuclear weapons opponents fear the project could send the wrong signal to the world at a time when the United States and its allies are trying to curb the spread of nuclear technology. The Bay Area group Tri-Valley CAREs, or Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, is among those opponents.



"This will make all of us in the United States and everyone else around the world less safe, not more safe," said CAREs Executive Director, Marylia Kelley. "This will lock Livermore Lab into an increasingly narrow nuclear weapons design future at a time when the lab should be shifting over to civilian science initiatives."



Organizers of the program say no final decision has been made yet on whether to actually build new nuclear weapons. In the meantime, Kelley said her group plans to take action.



?We have nearly 10,000 signatures on a petition to remove the plutonium from Livermore Lab more speedily and we will be following up with that. We will also be going to Washington D.C in April and speaking directly with the Department of Energy, with other Bush Administration officials, and with members of Congress. We will be advocating that Congress take a very, very careful look at the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program and ultimately cut its funding," she said.




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