Tri-Valley CAREs works to strengthen global security by stopping the development of new nuclear weapons in the US and by promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons globally. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on the Lawrence Livermore Lab and surrounding communities.
TRI-VALLEY CAREs FILES OPENING BRIEF IN APPEAL OF LOWER COURT RULING TO ALLOW ADVANCED BIO-WARFARE RESEARCH AT LIVERMORE LAB
Mar11
Release Date:
3-11-11
Group Charges Multiple Violations of Law, Public Safety & Community Right to Know, Asks Ninth Circuit Court to Halt Operations, Compel Full Environmental Impact Statement
SAN FRANCISCO -- Today, Tri-Valley CAREs of Livermore, California filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging a ruling from the U.S. District Court of Northern California allowing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to continue operating a controversial bio-warfare agent facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory without proper environmental review.
The bio-warfare agent research facility, known as a Biosafety Level-3, or BSL-3, is for experiments with live anthrax, plague, Q fever and dozens of other exotic, potentially lethal pathogens. Some of these agents would be aerosolized for use on small animals (up to 100 at a time) to ascertain how effective the agents would be in killing humans. Further, the facility is authorized to conduct experiments with genetically modified biological agents of potentially novel virulence.
The Livermore Lab BSL-3 is housed in a portable building. According to DOE, the facility's inventory may include up to 50-liters of bio-agents at any one time.
Tri-Valley CAREs' Staff Attorney, Scott Yundt, noted, "We are challenging the Livermore Lab BSL-3 because the DOE failed to adequately analyze the potentially catastrophic consequences this facility could have on Livermore Lab workers and the surrounding Bay Area and Central Valley communities in the event of a act of sabotage or a terrorist act similar to the anthrax mailing attacks on the US House and Senate buildings in 2001."
Yundt continued, "In Tri-Valley CAREs' initial lawsuit against the facility, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered DOE to go back to the drawing board to consider the impacts of a terrorist attack on human and environmental health, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The DOE did not comply with the Court's order or NEPA. Instead, it offered a warmed-over version of its original, deficient analysis, claimed that there would be a low probability of an intentional incident, and began operating the facility. However, the same document acknowledged potentially great consequences of an act if it were to occur, but failed to analyze those consequences."
Briefing on the case should be completed in April with a hearing to follow. The group asks for a decision that sets aside the lower court’s ruling and compels DOE to undertake a more in depth analysis in a full Environmental Impact Statement with public hearings. The group is also requesting that the Ninth Circuit will suspend operation of the BSL-3 until such time as it can demonstrate compliance with the law.
Tri-Valley CAREs filed its most recent litigation over the facility in the district court on March 10, 2008. Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled against Tri-Valley CAREs on September 30, 2010. The group filed its Notice of Appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court on November 18, 2010, and, today, filed its opening brief of 69 pages.
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