[NukeNet] Public Hearings March 18 & 19: DOE plan is "costly, dangerous and a thin disguise for new nukes"

[Marylia Kelley]

FYI: Our press release, sent out yesterday afternoon. Read on...


RESIDENTS, PEACE, RELIGIOUS, ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
PROTEST PLANS FOR NEW U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS "BOMBPLEX"

Call Energy Dept. Plan Costly, Dangerous and a Thin Disguise for New Nukes

A broad range of Livermore Lab neighbors and Northern California peace,
religious, science and environmental advocates oppose the Dept. of Energy's
(DOE) plan to build new bomb plants. They will speak at public hearings on
March 18 and March 19. The DOE National Nuclear Security Administration is
holding hearings in Tracy, CA near the Livermore Lab Site 300 and in
Livermore near the Livermore Lab main site (see hearing locations & news
briefing details at bottom of page 2).

The public hearings follow the release by the Department of its draft
"Complex Transformation" Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement. The DOE plan involves a massive reorganization of the nuclear
weapons complex, including new bomb plants to produce new nuclear weapons.
Under DOE's "preferred alternative," at least $150 billion tax-payer
dollars will be spent over the next two decades to rebuild 26 million
square feet of nuclear weapons design, testing and production plants across
the nation. "The DOE is attempting to sell the American people a bill of
goods by referring to this plan as a 'consolidation' when it is really a
'revitalization' of the nuclear weapons complex," remarked Marylia Kelley,
the Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs and a close neighbor of
Livermore Lab.

The driving force for "Complex Transformation" is the controversial
Reliable Replacement Warhead program to re-design every nuclear weapon in
the enduring U.S. arsenal. The first new RRW nuclear weapon is being
designed at Livermore Lab. Congress cut funds for the RRW last year, but
the DOE returned this February 2008 with more than $40 million for
continued development of the RRW in its fiscal year 2009 budget request.
Robert Schwartz, Tri-Valley CAREs' Staff Attorney, stated, "At a time when
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is in danger of unraveling, it defies
reason to revitalize U.S. nuclear weapons development and production. The
DOE's 'Complex Transformation' plan will devastate U.S. non-proliferation
goals and the international treaty that underlies them."

Kelley added, '"Do as I say, not as I do' is not an effective foreign
policy. Instead of building new nuclear weapons, Tri-Valley CAREs supports
a 'curatorship' approach, which would fully maintain the safety and
reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile as it awaits
dismantlement under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The
'curatorship' approach would foreswear designing new nuclear weapons and
make the U.S. and the world a safer place."

"The DOE plan amounts to shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic while
locking the rudder in place and steaming full speed ahead," charged
Jedidjah de Vries, Tri-Valley CAREs' Outreach Director. "Should we be
arguing about the number and alignment of the chairs, or discussing where
the ship is headed? We need a new nuclear policy, not a new 'Bombplex'," de
Vries concluded.

The DOE's "Complex Transformation" plan will affect future operations at
the Livermore Lab main site in Livermore and its Site 300 high explosives
testing range in Tracy. The DOE plan will keep tritium, the radioactive
hydrogen of the H-bomb, at Livermore Lab forever. "The risks are too great
and the area is too populated to continue conducting tritium research and
development at Livermore Lab, said Kelley. Additionally, Tri-Valley CAREs
calls on DOE to remove all plutonium and highly enriched uranium from
Livermore Lab by 2010. "These dangerous materials should be stored as
safely and securely as possible and never used in nuclear weapons
experiments again," concluded Kelley.

"We who live next to DOE weapons sites like Livermore Lab are still
experiencing the health and environmental impacts of the first arms race,"
added Bob Sarvey, a Tracy business owner who lives near the Lab's Site 300
high explosives testing range in Tracy on Corral Hollow Road. "We say,
'clean up the existing mess, don't create new ones'. The Livermore Lab main
site and Site 300 are already Superfund sites on the EPA's list of most
contaminated locations in the nation."

Moreover, Livermore Lab plans to increase its high explosive testing at
Site 300 eight-fold and to do so using the DOE "work for others" budget
line. "These bomb blasts will pollute our air, land and water just as much
whether it is the DOE or another agency, such as the Department of Defense
or the Department of Homeland Security, that foots the bill," Sarvey
pointed out. "These bomb tests should end, period. And, we will call on the
DOE to stop all bomb tests at Site 300, regardless of which agency funds
them."

Hearing speakers like Cara Bautista, the Deputy Political Director at Peace
Action West, will also discuss that the DOE plan includes building a new
plutonium facility and 80 new plutonium pits (bomb cores) every year at the
Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico. "If funded, this proposal gives our
nation’Äôs most expensive and dangerous Cold War relic a steroid shot in
the arm," Bautista commented.

Jacqueline Cabasso, the Executive Director of the Oakland-based Western
States Legal Foundation, highlighted the connections between the DOE’Äôs
planned "Bombplex" and the 5th anniversary March 19 of the Iraq war. "The
U.S. attacked Iraq on the pretext of ending a nuclear weapons program that
did not exist," Cabasso commented. "On the fifth anniversary of this
illegal war and occupation, the DOE is holding hearings in Livermore on its
latest plan to modernize the very real laboratories and factories where the
U.S. designs, builds and maintains nuclear weapons. ’ÄòComplex
Transformation’Äô would allow the government to keep thousands of nuclear
weapons for decades to come and to build thousands more should it choose to
do so. We’Äôve found the weapons of mass destruction!"

-- 30 --

HEARING LOCATIONS AND NEWS CONFERENCES ON THE DOE’ÄôS "BOMBPLEX" PLAN:

1. Tri-Valley CAREs, Western States Legal Foundation, Peace Action West and
residents and colleague organizations will offer a press briefing on the
DOE’Äôs "Complex Transformation" plan on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 6:30
PM, Holiday Inn Express, Tracy.

2.  The above-mentioned public interest organizations, Livermore Lab
neighbors and others (including special international guests) will hold
press briefings on the DOE’Äôs "Complex Transformation" plan on Wednesday,
March 19, 2008 at 11:30 AM (before the daytime hearing session) and at 6:30
PM (before the nighttime hearing session), Robert Livermore Community
Center, 4444 East Avenue, Livermore.

At both locations, there will be a photo exhibition of the effects of the
atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima, Japan, as well as other posters and
visuals. Please see www.trivalleycares.org, www.wslfweb.org, and
www.peaceactionwest.org for more information.

Call, Tri-Valley CAREs (925) 443-7148, Western States Legal Foundation
(510) 839-5877, or Peace Action West (510) 849-2272 ext. 122 for interviews.

Marylia Kelley,
Executive Director

Tri-Valley CAREs
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA  94551

Ph: (925) 443-7148
Fx: (925) 443-0177
Web: www.trivalleycares.org
Email: marylia at trivalleycares.org or marylia at earthlink.net