The power of one: Nancy Burton's lonely victory over Millstone

Connecticut lawyer, Nancy Burton, watched her lawsuits against the Millstone nuclear plant thrown out one after the other until the state Supreme Court ruled in her favor. It took a decade but Burton - who aims to shut Millstone down - last month won the right to legal standing to sue the state of Connecticut for failure to enforce pollution standards under the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act. Burton has pointed out that the Millstone reactors pulverize billions of fish and eggs using the once-through cooling system (see her Gone Fission chapter in our 2001 report, Licensed to Kill). The reactors also pump out radioactive water, damaging to human health.

Animal populations waning around Chernobyl accident site new study finds

Animal populations around the Chernobyl reactor accident site are diminishing, not flourishing, according to a new study. The investigation, the first of its kind, found that many species were significantly fewer in number since the 1986 reactor explosion, contradicting earlier assertions that animal populations were expanding in the absence of human populations in the region.

Billions of fish killed by reactor operation

A new report from a British researcher has found that fish are killed in their billions as a result of the operation of coastal nuclear reactors. These findings, by Dr. Peter Henderson at Oxford University, confirm those in our report of 2001 (see Licensed to Kill, below.) The British report described the effect on fish of nuclear reactor intake systems that can draw in a million gallons of water a minute plus the sea life living there. However, fish and other aquatic species - both fresh- and sea-water, are also negatively affected by the thermal discharges from reactors, particularly when the utility abruptly raises the temperatures of the discharge water, thermally shocking animals living in the vicinity. Such an incident occurred in August 2007 at the Braidwood Generating Station in Illinois where thousands of fish were killed, recorded in these dramatic photos.