Mayor, environmentalists declare victory of people power over nuclear power

Sarnia Mayor Mike BradleyAs reported by the Sarnia Observer, the Mayor of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, Mike Bradley (photo, left), has declared victory in a years-long campaign to block the shipment of radioactive steam generators, by boat on the Great Lakes, from Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, across the Atlantic Ocean, to Sweden. 

“It's a real testament to citizen power,” said Bradley, who has been a vocal critic of the move, along with a growing list of Ontario mayors, Quebec municipalties, coalition groups, environmental activists, and U.S. Senators. “We're fighting a very large and powerful organization.”

First Nations, including the Mohawks, as well as hundreds of municipalities in Quebec representing millions of citizens along the targeted shipment route, made the difference for the resistance.

Kay Cumbow, the nuclear power watchdog in Michigan who first discovered the risky shipping scheme through her research, then warned and activated others, has said "Thanks to everyone who wrote letters, signed petitions and helped get the word out about the dangers of this scheme that would have put the Great Lakes at risk, endangered workers as well as communities enroute, and would have put radioactive materials into the global recycled metal supply."

Maude Barlow, national chairwoman of the Council of Canadians, was quoted by the Ottawa Citizen: "This is a huge victory for communities around the Great Lakes...The Great Lakes belong to everyone and communities have a right to say 'no' to any projects that will harm them."

As indicated by Mayor Bradley in a separate Sarnia Observer article, the next big fight against "nuclear madness" brewing at Bruce involves proposals by Ontario Power Generation, the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to bury all of Ontario's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes -- from 20 atomic reactors across the province -- within a mile of the Lake Huron shoreline. Several communities near Bruce, largely populated by Bruce nuclear workers and in effect company towns, have also volunteered to be considered for a national Canadian high-level radioactive waste dump (for 22 reactors). Ojibwe First Nations, whose land the Bruce Nuclear site is built upon, have expressed grave concerns about the proposed DUDs.

Bi-national coalition rebuts motions to strike at Davis-Besse, while FOE defends legal victory at San Onofre

Terry Lodge speaks out against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension at a press conference in Oak Harbor, OH, in August 2012. The main bone of contention at that time was the recently revealed severe cracking of Davis-Besse's concrete containment structure.The environmental coalition challenging safety shortcuts by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC), on its proposed 2014 steam generator replacements at the Davis-Besse atomic reactor along the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo, has responded this week to motions to strike filed by FENOC and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff. The coalition's Reply to FENOC's motion to strike was filed on July 8th; its Reply to NRC staff's motion to strike was filed on July 11th.

If the NRC's Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) rules in favor of the motions to strike, whole sections of the coalition's intervention petition arguments could be erased from the record, and would no longer allowed to be raised.

The coalition challenging the risky steam generator replacements at Davis-Besse consists of Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario (CEA), Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club.

An overlapping coalition comprised of Beyond Nuclear, CEA, Don't Waste MI, and the Green Party of Ohio has also challenged FENOC's application to NRC for a 20-year license extension at Davis-Besse. The problem-plagued reactor's original 40-year license expires on Earth Day (April 22), 2017. If granted, the license extension would allow Davis-Besse to operate until 2037. This coalition's contention against NRC's bogus Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision, regarding the on-site storage risks of irradiated nuclear fuel, is still live. For example, little known is the fact that Davis-Besse's high-level radioactive waste storage pool has leaked radioactivity into the ground, precariously close to the Great Lakes shoreline. The Great Lakes represent 20% of the planet's surface fresh water, and supply 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations with drinking water. NRC has announced that a public comment meeting regarding its court-ordered Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision environmental impact statement will be held in the Toledo area sometime this autumn. More.

"A little Hope" for stopping the Great Lakes radioactive waste DUD!

Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump billboard, seen by hundreds of thousands of Toronto commuters dailyThe struggle against the Canadian nuclear establishment's proposal(s) to bury so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 reactors across Ontario, and perhaps even high-level radioactive wastes from 22 reactors across Canada, on the Lake Huron shore at or near the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, can be most daunting. Bruce "hosts" 9 reactors (8 operable reactors, 4 each at Bruce A and Bruce B, plus 1 pilot plant -- Douglas Point -- permanently shutdown), one of the single biggest nuclear power plants in the world. Bruce has also quietly incinerated most or all of Ontario's "low" level radioactive wastes for 40 years, with untold radiological emissions. All this, just 50 miles across Lake Huron from Michigan, and upstream from tens of millions of Americans, Canadians, and First Nations/Native Americans who draw their drinking water from the Great Lakes. In terms of the vast fortunes being made by Bruce Nuclear, as well as the harmful radiological releases occurring and radioactive wastes piling up, Bruce is making a killing, while getting away with murder.

Canadian federal decisionmakers have just closed the opportunity to register to speak out in opposition to the proposed "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive waste DGR (Deep Geologic Repository, or, more aptly, DUD -- Deep Underground Dump), and environmental assessment hearings will be held in September and October. As insane as this proposal is (would YOU bury poison next to your well?!, as the group Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump asks -- see photo, above left), the nuclear utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the nuclear utility comprised Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), and the Canadian Nuclear Safety (sic) Commission (CNSC) are racing, full steam ahead, to bury their forever deadly radioactive wastes within a mile of the Lake Huron shoreline.

But an antidote to such "nuclear madness" (à la Helen Caldicott's classic title) is at hand! In a recently published book, Tom Lawson of Port Hope, Ontario has shown that such insanity can be stopped dead in its tracks. Crazy Caverns: How one small community challenged a technocrat juggernaut...and won! tells the inspiring story of a years-long struggle to prevent Canadian provincial and federal government decision makers from allowing Eldorado/Cameco's dumping of uranium processing wastes on the Lake Ontario shoreline. Tom has generously made the book available for free online -- simply click on the link to enjoy your free copy!

Tom has dedicated his "little book" to his wife Pat, as well as "to all those who accept responsibility as citizens in a free society, who agree that the best government is the one kept constantly on its toes by ordinary citizens with the courage to trust their common sense rather than the reassurances of the 'experts.' The experts do not know better than we know what is good for us."

Together, Tom and Pat Lawson, and their friends, neighbors, and colleagues in their tiny, picturesque, but badly contaminated community, have resisted the "biased bafflegab" of the "Pirates of Port Hope" headquartered in their town (Eldorado/Cameco, "Canada's National Uranium Company," as dubbed by Robert Bothwell's company-financed, dubious historical celebration of the firm, and the company's governmental henchmen). Together, this "small group of thoughtful, committed citizens" (à la Margaret Mead) did change the world for the better, by blocking the burial of "a million tons of radioactive and toxic waste 'out of sight, out of mind' under Port Hope's downtown waterfront."

Their important victory can inspire us now, as we struggle to resist OPG's, NWMO's, and CNSC's insane proposal(s) on the Lake Huron shore (more recently, incredibly, the vague specter of yet another DUD, this time for radioactive decommissioning wastes, has also reared its ugly head). In fact, Pat Lawson has spoken out strongly in recent years against the Bruce DUD(s), traveling in the nearby Georgian Bay, where her family has roots extending back many decades.

What can YOU do, right now, to help stop the Bruce DUDs?! Start by signing the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition, and urge your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, etc. to do the same!

Bi-national coalition defends its challenge against risky steam generator replacements at Davis-Besse

Terry Lodge, Toledo-based attorney, speaking out against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension in August 2012 at Oak Harbor High School, OHTerry Lodge (pictured left), Toledo-based attorney representing a bi-national environmental coalition intervening against FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) risky steam generator replacements at its Davis-Besse atomic reactor, has filed PETITIONERS’ REPLY IN OPPOSITION TO FENOC ‘MOTION TO STRIKE.’

The coalition includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club. Its expert witness, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc, has warned that FENOC has taken similar shortcuts on safety as did Edison International with its dangerously flawed steam generator replacements at San Onofre, CA. Edison was forced to permanently shut San Onofre 2 & 3, after Friends of the Earth (FOE) successfully intervened for license amendment hearings after the replacement steam generators suffered extensive, premature degradation, putting 8 million residents and workers within 50 miles at risk. Arnie serves as FOE's expert at San Onofre, as well.

The coalition plans to reply in opposition to similar U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff motions to strike in coming days. More.

Davis-Besse has emergency shutdown, pressure boundary leakage; coalition presses case against risky steam generator replacements

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge speaks out against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension at an August 2012 press conference in Oak Harbor, OhioOn June 29th, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore near Toledo experienced an emergency shutdown.

The event notification report posted on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) website states:

'AUTOMATIC REACTOR TRIP DUE TO REACTOR COOLANT PUMP TRIP 

"Automatic trip of Reactor Coolant Pump 1-2 due to an electrical differential current fault resulted in an RPS actuation on Flux/Delta Flux/Flow. Startup Feedwater Valve 1 did not respond as expected post-trip and has been placed in manual control. All secondary side steam reliefs initially re-seated following reactor trip. Subsequent Main Steam Line #1 Safety Valve leakage mitigated during post-trip recovery actions. All other systems have functioned as expected. The plant is stable in Mode 3 - Hot Standby."

All rods inserted into the core during the trip. Decay heat is being removed via turbine bypass valves to the main condenser with normal feedwater to the steam generators. The plant is in its normal shutdown electrical lineup. The licensee characterized the trip as uncomplicated. 

The licensee will be notifying Lucas and Ottawa counties, the State of Ohio and will be issuing a press release. They have notified the NRC Resident Inspector.'

Helpfully translating that Nukespeak into plain English, David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Nuclear Safety, has prepared a powerpoint presentation to explain what happened at Davis-Besse.

Vanessa McCray at the Toledo Blade has reported on this story. She quotes Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

'...Kevin Kamps, a radioactive-waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear, said the most recent incident is another worry.

“A lot of plants have problems, but often times it’s a single problem a plant will have ...,” he said. “But for Davis-Besse, they have just a whole long list of problems, and that’s what concerns us too —that those might line up one day in a very bad way.”...' 

A U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear and Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, has challenged both Davis-Besse's proposed 20-year license extension, as well as its risky steam generator replacements.

More.