01/24/2026
Lakewood - WA
Community members from around the South Sound gathered in front of a new billboard on Bridgeport & Pacific warning of the expiration of the last nuclear limitation treaty, NewStart, on February 5th.
Dr. Karl Riecken, a member of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR), began the event by saying “On February 5th, the NewStart Treaty Expires. If that treaty expires the number of nuclear weapons deployed in our world will go up. There are already enough nuclear weapons in our world to destroy it several times over. The solution is only to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Standing before I’m asking you to call your representatives about the NewStart Treaty..”. I'm doing this because as a physician, I care about the health and safety of my patients and the people I’m looking at right now.”
Chris Ferguson, a Quaker and leader with the Tacoma Friends Meeting shared “Since our inception over 350 years ago, Quakers have been opposed to participation in war. Since the introduction of nuclear weapons in 1945, it’s become ever more urgent for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to armed conflict. The expiration of the NewStart nuclear weapons treaty poses a dire threat to the uneasy nuclear truce that has existed for the past 80 years. We urge representatives to take action by blocking funding for nuclear testing and by supporting the resumption of the NewStart Treaty.”
Kit Burns, a retired architect and member of WPSR said “Recently president Trump said he wants to increase the military budget by 500 billion dollars. Our nuclear weapons budget is already committing us to spend 2 trillion dollars on nuclear weapons. Do you want to spend 2 trillion on educating our future generations? This is a critical decision point where leaders can step up and speak out against an arms race.”
Pastor Laura Nile Tuell of Lakewood Presbyterian Church said “Along with our interfaith colleagues I support Pope Francis’s 2019 declaration in Hiroshima, “that the use of atomic energy for the purposes of war is immoral, just as the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral”. It has long been said that the budget is a moral document. We are told that there isn’t money for childcare or elder care, childcare, or healthcare. Yet we are poised to spend atrocious amounts of money on these weapons while slashing vital services. This is contrary to our moral values.”
Eric Ard, a leader with AboutFace, Veterans Against the War shared “It’s never been more clear, the stewards of the two largest nuclear arsenals (US and Russia) are dangerously reactionary and volatile. An arms race would only further exacerbate the tensions in a world on the brink. Nuclear weapons, if used for their designed purposes, would make a world on the brink irretrievable.”
Lauren Bisplinghoff, an activist and leader with Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation spoke as well
“I speak as a Unitarian leader and person of indigenous ancestry… I want to be clear about where we are here. On February 5th the NewStart nuclear agreement expires. If it is allowed to lapse without a replacement, no binding limits on nuclear weapons, no verifications, no guardrails against escalation.
When a nation prepares endlessly for war, that logic does not stay overseas. It imbeds itself into the land use decisions and how people are treated at home. We see this in the production chain of nuclear weapons, which begins not in abstract strategy rooms, but in real places and real land inhabited by real people. Here in Washington state the Hanford site remains one of the most contaminated nuclear locations in the world. Decades of plutonium production left behind millions of gallons of nuclear waste, impacting the Columbia River in particular. Communities downstream, mostly rural, working class, and indigenous have been left with elevated health risks from this legacy.
Mark Fleming, a leader with the Olympia Veterans for peace shared “Veterans for Peace nationally calls for ending war as an instrument of national policy and to abolish nuclear weapons. In the meantime, if we can’t abolish nuclear weapons, we need to control them, that’s why people need to speak to their representatives: Senator Patty Murray, Senator Cantwell, and their congressional delegation.”
George Rodkey, a leader with Tahoma Pax Christi and St. Leo’s Catholic Church shared “In a message to the bishop of Hiroshima on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing, Pope Leo said nuclear weapons offend our shared humanity and also betray the dignity of creation, whose harmony we are called to safeguard”. The Vatican has called on the nuclear armed nations to fulfill Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and take up the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
Joanne Dufour, a leader in the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said “ We are part of a much larger voice that is praying for the same goal. The NewStart Treaty is a part of that goal because in fact, it worked. There are voices around the world..half the world’s governments have signed on to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We want that hope for the world. We know we’re all in this together and we want a better world.”
Learn more at nwanw.org/newstart
