ENERGY DEPARTMENT DISREGARDS COMMUNITY, CONGRESS WITH NUKE LAB EXPANSIONS

LIVERMORE - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Record of
Decision (ROD) dramatically expanding nuclear weapons material and
activities at Livermore Lab, located 40 miles east of San Francisco. The
DOE decision doubles Livermore Lab's plutonium limits, doubles a highly
enriched uranium storage limit, increases tritium (radioactive hydrogen)
storage, boosts the tritium "at risk" limit nearly 10-fold, green lights
prototyping plutonium bomb cores on-site, alters the National Ignition
Facility (NIF) to include plutonium and other new weapons experiments, and
names Livermore Lab as the location to manufacture NIF's fusion as well as
new plutonium fission targets.

"Today's decision puts the entire San Francisco Bay Area at risk," declared
Loulena Miles, staff attorney at the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs.
"The community has issued a resounding "NO" to these dangerous, ill-advised
plans, Miles continued, "The DOE received a remarkable 9,000 public
comments opposing increases in nuclear materials as well as the new weapons
activities these radioactive materials will support."

The ROD is the formal document implementing DOE's controversial preferred
alternative, set out in the final Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement
on Livermore Lab operations, issued in April of 2005. During the
legally-mandated public hearings and comment period, hundreds, including
Livermore Lab scientists and community members, spoke against the proposed
increases and thousands more sent emails, detailed technical analyses,
comment letters and postcards to oppose the plans.

PLUTONIUM AND HEU INCREASES

Today's DOE decision doubles Livermore Lab's plutonium storage limit,
called the "administrative limit" from 1,540 pounds to 3,080 pounds, enough
for roughly 300 nuclear bombs. The ROD also doubles the plutonium "at risk"
limit from 44 to 88 pounds, roughly enough for eight nuclear bombs. The "at
risk" limit is the amount of plutonium that workers will use in a single
room or process at one time. The expansion of on-site plutonium limits is
largely to enable Livermore Lab to produce prototype plutonium bomb cores,
called "pits," while perfecting techniques to manufacture new pits en
masse, e.g., at the DOE's proposed "Modern Pit Facility".

"One microscopic particle of plutonium, if lodged in the lungs, can cause
cancer and other diseases," said Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs'
executive director and close neighbor of the Livermore Lab. "There are
currently 7 million people living within a 50-mile radius of Livermore Lab,
and the nearest earthquake fault is less than 200 feet from the site
boundary," Kelly pointed out. "Instead of doubling, all plutonium
activities at Livermore Lab should be terminated and DOE should prepare and
circulate a plan for removing the Lab's nuclear materials."

The ROD also flies in the face of recent congressional criticism of DOE for
failing to demonstrate adequate concern about the urgent need for
consolidation of plutonium and highly enriched uranium away from Livermore
Lab and other densely populated DOE sites where these materials are more
difficult and expensive to defend. The U.S. House and Senate Energy and
Water Development Appropriation Subcommittees' bill to fund the Department
of Energy for fiscal year 2006 states: "The conferees are disappointed with
the lack of urgency demonstrated by the Department when it comes to
addressing the security and cost liability of having significant quantities
of special nuclear materials at multiple departmental facilities across the
complex."

Further, the ROD doubles the storage limit for highly enriched uranium in
the Livermore Lab Radiography Facility from 55 pounds to 110 pounds.

PLUTONIUM IN THE NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY

The design, scope and mission of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a
controversial mega-laser under construction at the Lab, will change, making
it much more dangerous to workers and the public, without providing cost
estimates for the changes. In the Record of Decision, the DOE directed
Livermore Lab to change NIF's design so that it can use plutonium, highly
enriched uranium and fissionable materials such as thorium 232 in
experiments. This change will enable the Livermore Lab to collocate
materials, straying from NIF's original mission of solely fusion ignition
experiments. This change will enhance NIF's usefulness for weapons design
purposes. Following these modifications, NIF's day-to-day operations will
be responsible for 60 % of the low level radioactive waste generated at
Livermore Lab and 20% of the Lab's total worker population radiation dose.

NIF's original budget was sent to Congress at $1 billion; current estimates
peg it at around $5 billion and rising. The lifetime costs for the facility
are estimated at 30 million dollars -- before the as-yet unknown costs for
new modifications will be factored in. Said Kelley: "It appears that DOE is
attempting to give NIF a new, enhanced weapons mission since scientists and
lawmakers are increasingly convinced that it will never achieve its stated
scientific goal of thermonuclear ignition. To make this change without
undertaking a new nonproliferation review is reckless."

TRITIUM INCREASES

Tritium (radioactive hydrogen) which escapes easily into the environment
and becomes incorporated in plants, animals and humans, will play a larger
role at Livermore Lab. The ROD increases the amount of tritium on-site from
30 to 35 grams, and dramatically boosts the amount that a worker can have
"at-risk" nearly ten fold, from 3.5 grams to 30 grams. The Lab will use
tritium for manufacturing fusion targets for the NIF and for developing new
diagnostics to enhance U.S. readiness to resume full-scale nuclear weapons
testing at the Nevada Test Site.

Livermore Lab acknowledges that tritium will escape during these activities
as well as during the cleanup and expansion of the extremely contaminated
Tritium Facility. "The community has already been bombarded with this
radioactive substance in our air, plants and rain water. It is time to stop
dumping tritium onto the unconsenting population of the Bay Area," says
retired Livermore Lab staff scientist Marion Fulk. Thirty grams of tritium
is 300,000 curies," Fulk continued. "I don't think people understand the
risk that poses. One curie is equal to 37 billion radioactive
disintigrations per second."

SOME DEFICIENCIES IN THE ROD

The final SWEIS (upon which today's ROD is based) chose not to study the
environmental impacts of a terrorist attack or internal sabotage. The DOE
and the ROD allege the idea of a jumbo jet hitting Livermore Lab is
"unforseeable," and so, therefore, the SWEIS only studied the impact of a
small plane hitting the facility, even though the Oakland, San Jose and San
Francisco airports are in close proximity.

The SWEIS omitted study of the Livermore Lab's proposed advanced biowarfare
agent facility -- though Tri-Valley CAREs is litigating the adequacy of the
DOE's previous environmental review for the planned facility, which is
slated to spray live anthrax, plague, Q fever and other bioweapon agents on
up to 100 small animals at a time.

The SWEIS improperly limits the alternatives analysis by paying far too
little attention to civilian programs at Livermore Lab. Moreover, it
glosses over the proliferation impacts of the proposed increases in nuclear
material and activities.

Tri-Valley CAREs, Natural Resources Defense Council and other organizations
are undertaking a detailed legal analysis of the final SWEIS and today's
Record of Decision. "With this decision, the DOE is increasing the nuclear
dangers we face," stated Miles. "Additionally, DOE is trampling on the
health and environmental well-being of Bay Area communities," said Miles.
"We believe a lawsuit may be necessary to stop these dangerous activities.
A lawsuit would seek to overturn the ROD and compel the DOE to re-issue the
SWEIS with a more honest and complete analysis of the proposed programs'
environmental and proliferation impacts."

Tri-Valley CAREs is also launching a petition campaign, calling upon the
Department of Energy to not double the plutonium storage and use at
Livermore Lab -- and on Congress not to fund DOE's planned increases.