Billboards inform Puget Sound citizens of Nuclear Weapons stockpiled in their Back Yard

Beginning on July 21, and continuing for four weeks, five billboards will display the following paid advertisement: Did You Know, You are only *** Miles from a Big Pile of Nuclear Bombs!  Let’s Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Included in the five advertisements are maps showing the proximity of the cities and billboards in Lynnwood, Shoreline, Kirkland, Gorst, and Seattle—to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, homeport for 8 of the Navy’s 14 Trident nuclear-powered submarines.  

The billboards serve as a public service announcement—informing the reader of the exact number of miles they are at that exact location, to nuclear weapons based at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.  The naval base is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the world.  Below is the Lynnwood, Washington billboard.

Pat Moriarity, the artist commissioned by Ground Zero to produce the billboards stated, "I have lived in Kitsap County for 25 years and have always been aware of the Bangor submarine base. That said, until recently I never really understood the true extent of just how many “ready to go” nuclear weapons were stockpiled so close to all our homes. I'd like to think if everyone knew, they’d also be concerned about getting rid of them. As a species we humans need to evolve past this ‘mutual assured destruction’ mentality, the scariest staring contest you can imagine.”

The cartoon style billboards by Pat Moriarity are the third of a series of cartoon billboards that show the proximity of communities across Washington State to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is homeport to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear warheads in the world.  The nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on SSBN submarines and are stored in an underground nuclear weapons storage facility on the base.

There are eight Trident SSBN submarines deployed at Bangor.  Six Trident SSBN submarines are deployed on the East Coast at Kings Bay, Georgia.  

One Trident submarine carries the destructive force of over 1,000 Hiroshima bombs (the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons).

 

Each Trident submarine was originally equipped for 24 Trident missiles.  In 2015-2017 four missile tubes were deactivated on each submarine as a result of the New START Treaty.  Currently, each Trident submarine deploys with 20 D-5 missiles and about 90 nuclear warheads (an average of 4-5 warheads per missile).  The warheads are either the W76-1 90-kiloton warheads, W88 455-kiloton warheads, or W-76-2 8-kiloton warheads.

The Navy in early 2020 started deploying the new W76-2 low-yield warhead (approximately eight kilotons) on select ballistic submarine missiles at Bangor (following initial deployment in the Atlantic in December 2019).  The warhead was deployed to deter Russian first use of tactical nuclear weapons, dangerously creating a lower threshold for the use of U.S. strategic nuclear weapons.

Comic Book artist Pat Moriarity, who created the cartoon style billboard near his home in Port Orchard, is an award-winning internationally known artist.  

Hans M. Kristensen is the expert source for the statement, “Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor… with largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the world.”  (See cited source material here and here.)  Mr. Kristensen is director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists where he provides the public with analysis and background information about the status of nuclear forces and the role of nuclear weapons.

The billboards are an effort by Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, a grass roots organization in Poulsbo, Washington, to reawaken public awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons in the Puget Sound region.

The billboard ads

The five billboard ads measure 10 ft. 6 in. tall by 22 ft. 9 in. in length and will be displayed for one month starting on July 21. The billboards—third of a series of billboards by Pat Moriarity--are located approximately at: 

* 14005 Highway 99 Lynnwood WA https://www.google.com/maps/search/47.87130374,+-122.27484673?sa=X&ved=1t:242&ictx=111 

* 13504 NE 124^th St., Kirkland, WA https://www.google.com/maps/search/47.711658,+-122.159571?sa=X&ved=1t:242&ictx=111 

* Roosevelt Way NE and NE 45^th St. (southeast corner), Seattle, WA https://www.google.com/maps/search/47.661145,+-122.317192?sa=X&ved=1t:242&ictx=111

* N 165^th St and Aurora Ave. N (northwest corner), Shoreline, WA https://www.google.com/maps/search/47.748895,+-122.345896?sa=X&ved=1t:242&ictx=111 

* Highway 16, east of Feigley Rd. W, Gorst, WA https://www.google.com/maps/search/47.52478,+-122.69835?sa=X&ved=1t:242&ictx=111 

Our proximity to the largest number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons puts us near a dangerous local and international threat.  When citizens become aware of their role in the prospect of nuclear war, or the risk of a nuclear accident, the issue is no longer an abstraction.  Our proximity to Bangor demands a deeper response.

Nuclear weapons and resistance

In the 1970s and 1980s, thousands demonstrated against nuclear weapons at the Bangor base and hundreds were arrested.  Seattle Archbishop Hunthausen had proclaimed the Bangor submarine base the “Auschwitz of Puget Sound” and in 1982 began to withhold half of his federal taxes in protest of “our nation's continuing involvement in the race for nuclear arms supremacy.''

On May 27, 2016, President Obama spoke in Hiroshima and called for an end to nuclear weapons.   He said that the nuclear powers “…must have the courage to escape the logic of fear, and pursue a world without them.”  Obama added, “We must change our mindset about war itself.” 

Contacts for more information:

Glen Milner (206) 365-7865

Rodney Brunelle (425) 485-7030

Pat Moriarity, artist, cartoondepot@earthlink.net

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The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was founded in 1977.  The center is on 3.8 acres adjoining the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington.  The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to explore the roots of violence and injustice in our world and to experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. We resist all nuclear weapons, especially the Trident ballistic missile system.

Eighty Years After Trinity, the Horror of the Atomic Bomb Lives On

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: I have written countless essays over the years about the infamous Trinity Test that took place eighty years ago. Trinity was the start of a long journey that has taken Humanity down the perilous road of preparation for its own destruction. Eighty years later, and after decades of my own work to abolish nuclear weapons, I am beginning to wonder if we have a death wish. It is not a question of whether or not we will one day experience a civilization-ending nuclear war, but WHEN! So long as nuclear weapons exist, it is a matter of probability that they will be used, ether accidentally or intentionally. It is quite simply a suicidal game of Russian Roulette. 

Ray Acheson is a brilliant and tireless activist.  Ray is Director of Reaching Critical Will, Women's International League for Peace Freedom’s (WILPF) disarmament programme. They are author of Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages and Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy. They organise for abolition, disarmament, and demilitarisation in their work with various coalitions and provide intersectional femi  nist analysis and advocacy at international disarmament forums.

Ray originally published the following essay at the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom.

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16 July 2025 marks 80 years since the detonation of the first nuclear weapon. Its legacy is that of death and destruction, with the burdens being felt disproportionately by Indigenous Peoples around the world. Eighty years on, nuclear abolition is imperative for justice and peace.

By Ray Acheson

16 July 2025

On 16 July 1945, the United States detonated the first nuclear weapon on the lands of the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico. The bomb, nicknamed “Gadget,” was made of plutonium. The so-called Trinity Test was conducted at White Sands, a beautiful desert about 120 miles south of Alburquerque, on colonised lands of First Nations Peoples.  

While the US government claimed the lands were “empty,” dire consequences were borne by local Indigenous communities, uranium mining workers, and others living near the test site. The lingering effects of the radioactive fallout extended beyond the immediate vicinity of the bombings, affecting generations to come and leaving a lasting scar on the environment and the lives of those residing in the surrounding regions. 

The Trinity Test spread radiation across all contiguous US states as well as Canada and Mexico. Recent scientific models show significant radioactive contamination in dozens of First Nations communities over the first few days following the explosion. 

The test was followed only weeks later by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in hundreds of thousands of immediate deaths and the suffering of many more from radioactive poisoning. 

Legacy of harm 

None of this is historical. The impacts of the Trinity Test are still being felt today, and the nuclear arms race it generated is accelerating. 

Since 1945, more than 2000 nuclear “tests” have been conducted worldwide by nine nuclear-armed states, causing widespread cancers and other health tragedies, environmental contamination, and displacement. 

The nine nuclear-armed states are modernising their nuclear arsenals, spending more than 100 billion dollars a year. In the midst of rising threats to use nuclear weapons and military confrontation among nuclear-armed states, the use of nuclear weapons is a horrifyingly real prospect. 

  
The Manhattan Project today 

It all began with the top-secret Manhattan Project. As the Nuclear Truth Project notes, this was a project of “unprecedented scope, initiated and sustained with private and corporate partners.”  

The Manhattan Project got its name because New York City was a key node in the development of the atomic bomb. The US Army Manhattan Engineer District managed the project early on, drawing on a research programme located at Columbia University, and collaborated with private companies at 30 sites throughout the city. 

The bombs used in New Mexico, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were built at what today is called the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Other sites around the world are also implicated in the bomb’s development—including uranium mines in so-called Canada and Democratic Republic of the Congo, a uranium enrichment and processing site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and a plutonium production facility in Hanford, Washington. 

Oak Ridge is still operating today, even after three peace activists broke into the lab in 2013 in an act of civil disobedience to draw attention to the horrors produced at the site. Hanford is closed, but continues to leak radioactive poison into the land and water around it, lending to its distinction as “the most toxic place in America.” 

Today, Los Alamos continues to function as one of the key nuclear weapon labs in the US. Its operations are expanding to build new “plutonium pits”—the cores of nuclear bombs. This has resulted in new construction at the facility, which has already run into delays and ever increasing costs. 

In June 2025, the US government requested a 29 per cent increase in the budget for nuclear warhead development and production—which would be the largest increase since 1962. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the US nuclear arsenal will cost about a trillion dollars over the next decade. Meanwhile, the government has slashed social programmes related to health care, education, food security, and more. 

Actions for nuclear abolition 

Eighty years after the Trinity Test, the only effective way to address the test’s poisonous legacy and current harms is to abolish nuclear weapons. There are actions everyone can take, including: 

• Demand reparations by all nuclear-armed states to all people impacted by nuclear weapon tests, bomb development, uranium mining, and radioactive waste; 
• Demand governments ensure that aboveground nuclear weapon testing is never resumed, end other forms of nuclear weapon testing, abolish uranium mining and nuclear weapon production, and not impose nuclear waste dumps on Indigenous Peoples; 
• Call on nuclear-armed states to immediately cease their nuclear weapon modernisation programmes and redirect that money towards nuclear disarmament, decommissioning and clean-up of nuclear sites, and a just transition for workers to socially and ecologically safe industries; 
• Call on your government to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which prohibits all nuclear testing as well as the development, possession, and use of nuclear weapons, and all other related activities; 
• Urge your local city or town council to join the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)’s Cities Appeal in support of the TPNW; Ask your parliamentarians, senators, or congressional representatives to sign the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge and work for nuclear disarmament; 
• Get involved in ICAN’s Don’t Bank on the Bomb initiative to remove your money from nuclear weapons and compel your bank, pension fund, or financial institution to stop funding nuclear weapon production; and Find out if the universities in your area are helping to build nuclear weapons and campaign to end those contracts. 

Resources for more information 

Time Zero podcast 

Nuclear Truth Project 

Trinity Nuclear Test’s Fallout Reached 46 States, Canada, and Mexico, Study Shows 

Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America 

The Prophets of Oak Ridge 

ICAN’s Interactive Tool on Nuclear Weapon Test Impacts

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END NOTE: Original source URL for Ray's essay: https://www.wilpf.org/eighty-years-after-trinity-the-horror-of-the-atomic-bomb-lives-on/