"Fukushima Freeways?!" Recap of Just Completed Educational Speaking Tour Re: High-Level Radioactive Waste Shipping Risks across Eastern and Central Iowa

Mike Carberry of Green State Solutions, and Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear (wearing ballcap), with the inflatable mock nuclear waste cask, Iowa City.See the press advisory at this link, or posted in the web site entry below, for additional links to more information.

The events -- in Davenport and Iowa City, Iowa on Mon., Oct. 22, and Des Moines, Iowa on Oct. 23, went well. We had good turn outs with quality discussion, and really planted seeds for future collaboration. We'd like to thank everyone who came out to make the events a success. And we'd especially like to thank Mike Carberry of Green State Solutions (see photo, left) for doing all the logistical support work, that made the entire three-city tour possible. We'd also like to thank the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, and PSR Iowa (Physicians for Social Responsiblity) for not only co-sponsoring the tour, but also attending.

(Please note, the event scheduled for Omaha, Nebraska on Oct. 23 was cancelled. We look forward to rescheduling it in the not too distant future. Anyone who would like to help us pull a Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska event together in the near-ish future, please contact Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps at (240) 462-3216, or kevin@beyondnuclear.org.)

Posted below are links from the just completed Iowa events:

1. The power point presentation by Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog.

2. An animation, prepared by Scott Portzline, Security Consultant, Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA), about radioactive waste transport risks in Iowa.

3. A 90-second aerial drone-captured video, featuring transport routes in Pennsylvania. (Lessons learned are certainly applicable to Iowa.)

4. A short informational video, “Nuclear Transports – Eye-Witness to Rulebreaking,” also prepared by Portzline. (Again, lessons learned are certainly applicable to Iowa.)

The PHOTO OP, an inflatable, full-scale replica of a highly radioactive waste Legal Weight Truck-sized shipping cask, was a big hit when deployed in Iowa City (see photo, above left).

Please note, one would not want to stand so close to a real high-level radioactive waste shipping or storage container. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's permissive rules allow for 10 millirem per hour of gamma and neutron radiation to be emitted at a distance of six feet away (one to two chest X-rays worth, per hour); at the cask's surface, the dose rate goes up to 200 mR/hr (20 to 40 chest X-rays per hour); surface contamination of the exterior of the container makes such dose rates much worse.