In This Issue...

- You are invited to a special workshop, "Got Plutonium?," on the DOE plans to double the plutonium storage limit at Livermore Lab. Check out page 3 and the enclosed flier for details.

- Tri-Valley CAREs celebrates a victory in assuring cleanup of radioactive and toxic contamination at Livermore Lab’s main site and site 300. Get the scoop at left on page 4.

- Italian dinner & movies will benefit Tri-Valley CAREs on October 19. See page 3 and the enclosed flier for details.

-Strategic planning focuses Tri-Valley CAREs for the coming year. Read about our current accomplishments and our new priorities for 2006 on page 1. Please know that we appreciate the part our members play in all of our group’s achievements. We thank you.

- And, more! See page 3 for volunteer opportunities, and page 2 for a short report on our participation in the recent anti-war demonstration.

Focusing for Impact

Our cup and bowl overflowed this year with successes and yet we wondered — how can we keep this up, can we do more?

On a beautiful Saturday in August, two dozen representatives from Tri-Valley CAREs’ board, staff and membership gathered at our annual Strategic Planning Retreat to map the outlines for our work in the coming year.

Meeting Our Current Goals

First, we took a look back at the past twelve months. Did we meet the goals we set at our last retreat? The Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed Plutonium-Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation project was canceled outright, funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator was zeroed out for 2005, the budget for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) was nicked, an amazing 9,000 public comments were turned in to protest planned increases in nuclear weapons activities at Livermore Lab and, following that, an additional 3,000 signed letters were sent to DOE Headquarters.

In recent months, Tri-Valley CAREs sent representatives to speak to the U.S. Congress, to meet with the States Parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty on the occasion of its review conference, and to address the assembly in Geneva of the States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention. We boosted our outreach to youth, produced our first nuclear CD, continued our legal battle to prevent an advanced biowarfare research facility at Livermore Lab, advocated for and with sick Lab workers to amend the compensation law, and so much more.

Choosing the New Priorities

We analyzed the tools that have served our mission well. These include research, litigation, media, policy advocacy, public education and community organizing. We then focused our attention on choosing Tri-Valley CAREs' program priorities; these delineate the substantive work on which these various tools will be focused in 2006.

Our priorities are: stop new and modified nuclear weapons; prevent Livermore Lab from importing bio-weapon agents without proper review or public hearings; reduce the Lab’s nuclear weapon design infrastructure (including NIF); win cleanup of toxic and radioactive contamination around the Lab's main site and site 300; conduct community education on radiation and health issues; support "green" alternatives to weapons work at Livermore; demilitarize the University of California; obtain justice for sick workers; aeliminate nuclear bomb-usable quantities of radioactive material at Livermore Lab.

Our plate was full last year and it remains so for the coming year. What to do? One simple and fun exercise demonstrated two important ways to keep Tri-Valley CAREs organizationally effective as we go forward.

We gathered on the lawn at the retreat center. Two ceramic mixing bowls, one small and one large, sat before us. We each stated our wishes for Tri-Valley CAREs’ work and then poured those ideas metaphorically in the form of water into the small bowl.

The ideas and goals were all excellent. However, before every idea could be poured, the water began to overflow.

This got us thinking about how to better focus (i.e., pour less water into the existing bowl) — and also how to expand our capacity (i.e., get a bigger bowl in order to hold all the water). Our 2006 plan incorporates both strategies.

A summary of how we met our 2005 goals is available on request. Informal notes from the retreat will be available soon.

Lab Security Found Lacking --Again

A long-awaited report on the state of security at U.S. nuclear weapons sites, including Livermore Lab, was released this past month. The study was commissioned by former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham following revelations of stunning security problems over the past few years. The study's results are highly critical of security measures throughout the complex.

The reviewers, headed by retired Admiral Richard Mies, imply that the plutonium and highly enriched uranium stored at Livermore Lab is particularly vulnerable, though they do not mention the Lab by name. The report states: "It appears that some SNM [Special Nuclear Material] is being stored at some DOE/NNSA sites more for convenience than necessity...".

Key findings include: DOE has failed to create a needed plan to more securely store its bomb grade nuclear materials; DOE has permitted weak security standards at some sites; and, DOE has used inadequate vigor in carrying out "force on force" exercises designed to test security.

Moreover, the report cites a string of prior reports that had included similar security recommendations that have gone unimplemented. This may be the study’s most damning finding.

The Mies report may never have seen the light of day had it not been for a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO. Released in September following the request, the report’s cover page sports a date of May 2, 2005.

Danielle Brian, POGO's executive director, commented, "It is unfortunate that DOE not only kept this report from the public but is now failing to acknowledge the dramatic changes this report recommends." And, true to form, thus far the DOE does seem to be saying that it is already implementing most of the report's recommendations -- without actually making the sweeping changes that are required.

Big Win for Cleanup at Livermore Lab

We are happy to announce a major victory in our ongoing efforts to ensure a genuine and comprehensive cleanup of the massive radioactive and toxic pollution at the Livermore Lab main site and site 300 high explosives testing range.

The Lab’s main site in Livermore was named to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund list of most contaminated sites in the nation in 1987. The EPA then sampled soil and groundwater at the Lab’s site 300, located between Livermore and Tracy, and added it to the Superfund list in 1990. Tri-Valley CAREs has been monitoring the cleanup for more than two decades.

Some of you will recall that over the past two years we have worked to unite the federal EPA, the state Department of Toxics, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Cities of Livermore and Tracy to oppose a new Department of Energy (DOE) plan called the "Risk Based End States (RBES) Vision."

The RBES Vision basically consists of weakening cleanup requirements. Tri-Valley CAREs produced technical comments on the various drafts of the RBES approach, detailing its negative impact on our environment. A number of you responded to our action alerts and sent letters to DOE ­- and we thank you.

In September, the DOE released its final reports on the RBES Vision for Livermore Lab’s main site and site 300. And guess what?

The final documents recommend that the DOE abandon the RBES approach at Livermore Lab and stick instead to meeting its current cleanup obligations at the two sites. Hooray!

Here are a couple of sentences from the final documents. First, DOE acknowledges that its RBES approach was designed to let the government walk away and leave radioactive and toxic materials in the ground in violation of the nation’s environmental laws. As the documents state, "The DOE recognizes that the ...Vision may not agree with site compliance agreements or regulations."

Further, the final documents offer two reasons for abandoning the RBES approach, and reason number one is community and regulatory opposition. The final documents state: "A Risk-Based End State strategy is not recommended because …of opposition by the regulatory agencies and other stakeholders [that means us]."

The final reports compare environmental site conditions and remedial strategies between the current cleanup plans and the RBES approach. A significant difference between the current cleanup and RBES at each site is the point of compliance for contaminated groundwater.

On-site cleanup of groundwater under the current cleanup baseline is intended to restore and protect groundwater as a potential future resource. This is in line with how we define real cleanup ­ make it so that someone could drink it.

The RBES approach would not remediate on-site groundwater to levels protective of using it as a potential future resource. The RBES would have let DOE off the hook for cleaning up any on-site groundwater. RBES would have moved the point of compliance with federal and state environmental laws to the off-site boundary.

The final documents also offer interesting, although not very detailed, analyses of cleanup time frames and cost. At the Livermore Lab main site, under the current cleanup strategy, the cleanup will be complete in 2077 with a remaining cost of $446 million. At site 300, under the current cleanup strategy, the cleanup is projected to be complete in 2058, with a remaining cost of approximately $146 million.

The final documents predict that employing an RBES approach would be even more expensive and time consuming! This is the second reason DOE gives for not recommending RBES at Livermore Lab. The DOE’s primary, underlying assumption is that because the RBES approach would leave significant contamination in the soil and groundwater at the Lab’s main site and site 300, the regulatory agencies would require the Lab to increase its monitoring frequency in order to keep track of the pollutants. And, again because the groundwater under both Lab sites would not be fully cleaned up, the number of decades the Lab would have to keep on monitoring would therefore increase as well.

In short, this analysis suggests that because we have a vigilant community and some good regulators, we would compel the DOE and the Lab keep track of the contamination that would not be cleaned up under RBES ­- and, so, in the final analysis, DOE decided that would be cheaper and faster for them to actually clean up the pollution than to keep on monitoring it.

Implicit in all of this is the fact that DOE Headquarters was hoping to neither monitor more extensively nor clean up. The tragedies will be at the nuclear weapons sites around the country where the DOE is able to roll over the regulatory agencies or the community. With no united front to oppose it, these folks will get the "RBES Vision" instead of cleanup.

The lesson for us is plain. This is not a final victory. It is an interim win of great importance, but we need to stay vigilant and engaged over the long haul to ensure that our soil and groundwater is actually cleaned up. Moreover, this victory demonstrates the importance of maintaining cooperative relationships and conducting regular meetings and dialogue with federal and state regulators, cities, the DOE and Livermore Lab’s environmental restoration staff.

The next test will be at Livermore Lab’s site 300. In 2006, the DOE and the Lab must come out with a proposed plan to remediate the heavily polluted area around the unlined waste dumps, called the Pit 7 Complex. This area includes a 2 mile-long and still growing radioactive tritium plume with commingled sub-plumes of depleted uranium and chemical contaminants. Stay tuned.

CAREs Was There

On Saturday, September 24, Tri-Valley CAREs members, families and friends united in San Francisco, calling for peace and an end to the war in Iraq.

Some of our members gathered at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART Station for a friendly ride up to the city. More joined us at the Dolores Park staging area and along the march.

Our brilliant blue "Abolish Nuclear Weapons" banner became our visible rallying point as we participated in the largest San Francisco demonstration since the war’s outset.

The crowd was diverse and there were vast numbers of different groups represented, yet solemn unanimity prevailed along the march route and among speakers at the Jefferson Square rally destination. All called for peace and an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq.

One marcher crystallized the emotion of the moment. Ipod and speakers in tow, he cranked up the classic Edwin Starr song "War! What Is It Good For? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"

Meanwhile, back in the Tri-Valley, additional Tri-Valley CAREs members, friends and progressive colleagues staged a solidarity "sign-holding" event in Pleasanton. Folks made slogans such as "Bush Lied" and "U.S. Out of Iraq," to name but two.

While there were a few rude gestures and "thumbs down," organizers report that most passersby honked and offered a "thumbs up" -- and some cheered, showing that there is significant local sentiment against the war.

If you would like to be called or emailed the next time that we get together for a peace march or demonstration, please call Mary at (925) 443-7148.

Appealing Group

- Safeguarding our precious environment

- Preventing the development of horrific new nukes

- Standing up for justice for sick workers

- One of the most effective watchdog organizations in the country

- All of the above

Tri-Valley CAREs depends on contributions from its members & friends to carry out its work. We invite you to become a partner in creating peace, justice and a healthy environment by sending a tax-deductible donation today.