2006 CPEO Military List Archive

From: marylia@earthlink.net (marylia)
Date: 7 Apr 2006 00:54:21 -0000
Reply: cpeo-military
Subject: [CPEO-MEF] Group Hails Decision to Remove Plutonium; Outlines Unresolved Issues
 
Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 6, 2006

Marylia Kelley, executive director, Tri-Valley CAREs, (925) 443-7148
Loulena Miles, staff attorney, Tri-Valley CAREs, (925) 443-7148

COMMUNITY GROUP HAILS DECISION TO REMOVE DEADLY PLUTONIUM FROM LIVERMORE
LAB IN HEAVILY POPULATED BAY AREA; OUTLINES KEY UNRESOLVED ISSUES

LIVERMORE, CA -- In a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee
hearing yesterday, Thomas D'Agostino, the new Deputy Administrator for
Defense Programs within the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear
Security Administration said the federal agency will remove all nuclear
bomb usable quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by the end of 2014. These materials
are referred to as Category 1 and Category 2 Special Nuclear Material.

The DOE decision supports the conclusion of Tri-Valley CAREs that the
plutonium and highly enriched uranium stockpiles at Livermore Lab are
unsafe and vulnerable to catastrophic release in the event of a major
earthquake or terrorist attack. The Livermore-based group has long
advocated halting all operations with special nuclear materials at the
Livermore Lab, a crowded 1.3 square-mile nuclear weapons site located in an
urban setting and less than 200 feet from an active earthquake fault zone.

Ramping down plutonium operations at Livermore Lab was a focus of the team
of twelve Tri-Valley CAREs members that conducted nearly 100 meetings with
DOE officials, members of Congress and other decision-makers during a trip
to Washington DC last week.

"We applaud the decision to remove plutonium from Livermore Lab even as we
realize the devil will be in the details," noted Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley
CAREs' Executive Director who lives down the street from Livermore Lab.

"Tri-Valley CAREs will actively monitor the implementation of yesterday's
decision," Kelley continued. "We will press for both a more speedy removal
plan and for appropriate packaging to safeguard workers and communities
from the handling and transportation hazards posed by these deadly
materials."

Moreover, Tri-Valley CARES remains adamantly opposed to the DOE plan to
"transform" the nuclear weapons complex by designing and building new
nuclear weapons through the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, as
outlined in DOE's Fiscal Year 2007 budget request currently before
Congress.

"Plutonium and highly enriched uranium should be removed from Livermore Lab
as a security measure," said Kelley. "We reject the notion that DOE ought
to build a huge, new plutonium mega-plex at another location in order to
redesign and rebuild every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. The
so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead program is a recipe for nuclear
proliferation, not safety," Kelley concluded.

"We want to ensure that removal of plutonium from Livermore Lab will not be
used as an excuse to expand plutonium activities at Los Alamos Lab in New
Mexico and other sites within the nuclear weapons complex," said Tri-Valley
CAREs Outreach Director Tara Dorabji.  "In Washington DC last week we
called on Congress to stop plutonium work at Livermore Lab while reining in
DOE's proposed plutonium pit work at the Los Alamos Lab."

Dorabji continued, "As long as plutonium experiments continue unabated
throughout the nuclear weapons complex, we as a country will never be able
to address the waste issue. Consolidation of nuclear material is a
plausible solution only if the further design and development of nuclear
weapons ceases at all sites."

"It should not be forgotten that this is the very same DOE National Nuclear
Security Administration that made the decision to double the storage limit
for plutonium at Livermore Lab on November 29, 2005," remarked Tri-Valley
CAREs' Staff Attorney Loulena Miles. "That decision needs to be reversed so
that the government won't have a stated policy to remove plutonium while it
is shipping in additional material, putting workers and the local community
at needless risk."

The DOE decision to remove plutonium from Livermore calls into question the
future for Livermore Lab's new "gatling guns" as well. Tri-Valley CAREs and
other community members have objected to the February 2006 decision to
equip Livermore Lab with multiple high-tech military weapons, each of which
can simultaneously fire 7.62mm bullets from six barrels at up to 4,000
rounds per minute for a range of about one mile. The DOE National Nuclear
Security Administration Administrator Linton Brooks told reporters on
February 3rd that these weapons would enhance Livermore Lab's ability to
guard its large cache of radioactive plutonium.

Now that DOE has decided to remove the plutonium and highly enriched
uranium, Tri-Valley CAREs requests that the government revisit its decision
to place these guns on specially outfitted trucks and at fixed locations
around Livermore Lab. The kill-zone includes large residential
neighborhoods, City parks, little league fields, and an elementary school.

Further, Tri-Valley CAREs recommends that DOE undertake a process that will
incorporate input from local communities at all potential storage sites in
determining the safest and most logical path forward.


The House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Testimony is online
at www.house.gov/hasc/schedules/

Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551

<http://www.trivalleycares.org> - is our web site address. Please visit us
there!

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax


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