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PO Box 8574
Atlanta, GA 31106
404-378-4263
Cell 404-432-8727
info@nonukesyall.org
NO NUKES Y'ALL!
NUCLEAR WATCH SOUTH | WHAT IS TRIDENT?
THINK BEYOND TRIDENT
What is a Trident Submarine?
USS Tennessee in dry dock at Kings Bay, St. Marys, GA is a primary target in a nuclear war
Trident submarines are powered by nuclear reactors and armed with long-range strategic nuclear missiles. Trident submarines carry fully one-half of the entire arsenal of U.S. nuclear weapons. One-fourth of the United Statres’ nuclear arsenal is deployed at the Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base on the coast of Georgia in St. Marys.
Each of 14 Trident submarines in the U.S. fleet is armed with 20 long-range Tomahawk rocket missiles or D5 nuclear missiles manufactured by Lockheed. Each nuclear missile is tipped with up to eight nuclear warheads. A single Trident carries 90 nuclear warheads. Trident submarines, built by General Dynamics, are in service at Bangor Naval Base near Seattle in the state of Washington in addition to St. Marys, Georgia. If either one of these bases were a country, it would be the third largest nuclear weapons state on Earth.
The Trident submarine is fantastically expensive. In 2020, the U.S. started a new arms race and is planning to build 12 bigger, deadlier new Trident subs at a cost of $8.8 billion apiece. As the novel coronavirus pandemic was just beginning in March 2020, Kings Bay entered into a $500 million contract to expand the base to accommodate the anticipated new Tridents.
Global Threat
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Artist's rendering of missiles being fired from a Trident submarine
The Trident system is designed to be a first-strike weapon. Trident is morally incompatible with every principle of freedom, justice and ethics for which the U.S. claims to stand. When it deployed the Trident weapons system, the U.S. created significant imbalance in the already delicate nuclear equilibrium in a world bristling with thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. Far from providing more security, the Trident program has been an unprecedented pork-barrel project, robbing the U.S. treasury and placing the entire world, including the U.S., at risk of nuclear holocaust. In addition, Trident subs and nuclear weapons stored at the Navy bases are primary targets in a nuclear war.
Environmental Consequences
Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base, St. Marys, GA
The Trident system has serious environmental impacts beyond the destruction its use would cause. The Cumberland Sound where Kings Bay is located must be dredged frequently to accommodate the mammoth subs which are as tall as a five-story building and nearly two football fields in length. Tritium, a dangerously radioactive form of hydrogen has been found in Puget Sound in Washington where it leaked from the subs’ power reactors. Kings Bay occupies the only known calving waters on Earth for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (see A Whale Tale).
Swords into Plowshares
Kings Bay Plowshares 7
A Trident submarine is the most dangerous vehicle on our planet. Each submarine has an explosive force 1,200 times greater than the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima killing 150,000 people. One Trident submarine is capable of ending civilization in 30 minutes, less time than it takes to order a pizza.
On April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, seven plowshares activists entered Kings Bay to symbolically disarm the nuclear weapons and to call attention to the ongoing “giant triplets” of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism, which MLK confronted in his revolutionary Beyond Vietnam speech one year prior to his murder.
A Trident submarine is nothing less than a mobile storage and detonation device for global death. The wealth which it squanders could house, feed, clothe, educate and provide health care and true security to all U.S. residents.
THINK BEYOND TRIDENT
In January 2021 the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force of international law. Land mines and biological and chemical weapons are outlawed by similar ban treaties. Although the U.S. has not signed any of these treaties it is notable that weapons merchants have ceased manufacturing the outlawed weapons. We have arrived at a historic moment when global nuclear disarmament is within our grasp.
A Whale Tale
A critically endangered North Atlantic right whale swims with her newborn calf in coastal Georgia waters
Construction of the base at Kings Bay was well underway when an injured baby North Atlantic right whale on Little St. Simons Island drew scientific attention — it was discovered that the mysterious whale spends six months of the year in Georgia. The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale’s only known calving waters are in the Cumberland Sound currently occupied by Trident. Pregnant right whales migrate to Georgia every winter to give birth and nurture their newborns from November through April. The constant dredging to accommodate the massive submarines disrupts the crucial whale habitat, and Naval sonar testing has proven injurious to the ancient mammal as well as turtles, dolphins and other creatures. The State of Georgia champions the whale as the State Marine Mammal, but the North Atlantic right whale population continues to decline. Can we save these whales from extinction?
YOUR ACTION NEEDED
Please communicate your concerns about nuclear weapons, Trident submarines, Kings Bay and the endangered North Atlantic right whales to Georgia’s new senators:
Senator Raphael Warnock
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Jon Ossoff
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Contact Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you to the senator that you request.
GET INVOLVED!
Here is contact information for groups who work on Kings Bay, Trident, marine conservation and other nuclear issues:
NUCLEAR WATCH SOUTH
404-378-4263
info@nonukesyall.org
www.nonukesyall.org
BEYOND TRIDENT
912-399-4862
beyondtrident@gmail.com
www.nonukesyall.org/Trident.html
SUSIE KING TAYLOR WOMEN’S ECOLOGY INSTITUTE
404-587-3182
register@susiekingtaylorinstitute.org
www.susiekingtaylorinstitute.org
Beyond Trident Campaign Launched in Georgia
BRUNSWICK, GA 4/4/20 Local activists Robert Randall, Roxane George, Teresa Berrigan Grady and Sarah Cool have been meeting with local and statewide citizen activists to launch a new campaign to bring increased awareness to the impact of Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine base on the coastal Georgia environment and economy.
The Beyond Trident Campaign aims to resist U.S. Navy plans to expand and modernize Kings Bay to accommodate a new, larger submarine fleet as part of the U.S. instigation of a new global nuclear arms race.
The Beyond Trident Campaign mission is to abolish nuclear weapons and power by focusing on the intersections between racism, militarism and excessive materialism. The purpose is to change hearts and minds in order to generate active resistance to nuclear weapons in south coastal Georgia. The Beyond Trident Campaign will work to ensure that the community conversations about nuclear weapons that have been inspired by the actions of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 will continue and expand into support for a nuclear ban.
Beyond Trident aims to increase and support the involvement of activists and community members in Camden County, where the base is located, and in Glynn County, where most of the activities related to the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 have taken place. A related goal is to encourage people in Camden County to think about ways to diversify the local economy, which was not always dependent on Kings Bay Naval Base. Beyond Trident intends to provide people in both Glynn and Camden Counties with information and tools to urge their elected officials to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to oppose the U.S. nuclear weapons modernization currently underway.
Beyond Trident will work to create bridges between groups and issues to increase local understanding of the intersections between racism, militarism and extreme materialism.
BEYOND TRIDENT CAMPAIGN
P.O. Box 421
Brunswick, GA 31521
912-495-8395
BeyondTrident@gmail.com
"To the village square
we must carry the facts
of atomic energy.
From there must come America's voice."
ALBERT EINSTEIN
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