"Freeze Our Fukushimas!" Today is National Call In Day to NRC

More than 6,000 of you co-signed Beyond Nuclear's petition to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  The petition calls on the NRC to halt operations on the deteriorating  General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors here in the US similar in design to the  Fukushima Dai-ichi units.

Call Toll Free

Friday, October 7, 2011   

10 AM to 12 Noon Eastern Standard Time

Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Public Hearing with Beyond Nuclear

1-877-553-7601 (passcode 5087356)

1-866-741-7099 (passcode 3340595)

1-866-732-2413 (passcode 8181837)

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Webcast at http://video.nrc.gov

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Following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, the US government permanently closed a US reactor, the graphite-moderated Hanford N-reactor near Richland, Washington. Why? The antiquated reactor too closely resembled the design of the exploded Chernobyl reactor that blanketed much of the northern hemisphere in long-lived radioactive fallout.

Now following Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, more than 6,000 of you have co-petitioned with us to call upon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to "Freeze Our Fukushimas" and shutter dangerously old and deteriorating General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors here in the US similar in design to the  Fukushima Dai-ichi units. There, nuclear accidents have closed 24 miles of Japan's coastline to human habitation and forced hundreds of thousands more Japanese to live in sickening radioactive contamination.

The NRC has scheduled a public hearing to take public comment on requested emergency enforcement actions to suspend operations at these increasingly dangerous Fukushima-style nuclear reactors. Speakers will include Paul Gunter and Kevin Kamps (Beyond Nuclear), Dale Bridenbaugh (former GE engineer), Arnie Gunderson (Fairewinds Associates), Debi Katz (Citizens Awareness Network), Lou Zeller (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League), Randy Kehler (Safe & Green Campaign), Michael Mariotte (Nuclear Information and Resource Service), Bobbie Paul (Georgia WAND) and more... 

You can participate in this public meeting via the toll free telephone bridge lines or watch the live webcast from NRC headquarters.

Please mark your calendars and help us mobilize a national campaign to hasten the closure of the most dangerous atomic reactors in America. Invite your friends, colleagues and post on listserves.

Update on October 11, 2011 by admin

The archived webcast of Beyond Nuclear's NRC Petition Review Board meeting on its emergency enforcement petition is now available. [ 1hr. 30 mins.]

Women in Japan to stage sit-in; call for global solidarity

Women in Fukushima will be sitting in at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from October 27th to 29^th to demand the evacuation of Fukushima children and no resumption of nuclear power plant operation (43 of the 54 reactors are currently shuttered for scheduled maintenance.) They are asking women from all over Japan to join the sit-in on October 30^th. The women point out that seven months of government refusal to evacuate Fukushima children is a crime against humanity, and it can no longer be tolerated. The women of Fukushima are calling on women around the world to act in solidarity with similar actions at the same time – whether in front of Japanese embassies or consulates or elsewhere. Shortly before the sit-in a new network – Women for a Nuclear-Free Future – will be launched in Sapporo and Osaka, Japan on October 24^th and in Tokyo on November 23^rd.

Coalition Against Nukes national rally in New York City, October 1st

Beyond Nuclear is honored to co-sponsor and field speakers to the national rally of Coalition Against Nukes in New York City on Saturday, October 1st. Beyond Nuclear's founding president, Helen Caldicott, will be the keynote presenter. Beyond Nuclear board member Karl Grossman, and Beyond Nuclear Radioactive Waste Watchdog Kevin Kamps, will also be featured speakers. Beyond Nuclear will also have an information table at the event. See the website for more. Rally info and updates are at http://www.coalitionagainstnukes.org/.

Additional speakers include: Brent Blackwelder, President Emeritus, Friends of the Earth; former US Congressman John Hall, who represented NY's 19th District, including Indian Point;Harvey Wasserman, anti-nuclear activist, author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030; and Alice Slater, Founder of Abolition 2000.

Rally co-sponsors include: Friends of the Earth, NYC Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Ralph Nader, New York Physicians for Social Responsibility, NYPIRG, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Helen Caldicott Foundation, IPSEC, Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Westchester Citizens Awareness Network, Shut Down Indian Point Now, Time’s Up, ECOFEST, Rock the Reactors, and more.

To contribute, volunteer or get more info, email NYCRally@CoalitionAgainstNukes.org, call 631-377-1560, or write CAN, 51 Startop Dr., Montauk NY, 11954. Coalition Against Nukes has put out a press advisory about the event.

Watch (unedited) the Japanese activists' presentation Sep 22, 2011

Video runs a little over one hour.

Update on September 27, 2011 by admin

And watch the Indian Point discussion here: http://politube.org/show/3285

A crie de coeur in New York ...and other photos

Sachiko Sato made her pleas known and heard when Japan Prime Minister Noda arrived 200 yards away from our No Nukes rally near the UN on September 22. Below are photos from the visit by our Japanese delegation of activists and farmers to New York City and Peekskill, NY near the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Photos: ©David M. Grossman.