Beyond Nuclear discusses bi-national radioactive waste risks on Sarnia, Ontario radio interview

On the 26th annual commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe (April 26, 2012), Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps discussed the risks of a proposed radioactive waste dump on the Lake Huron shoreline at Bruce Nuclear Complex with radio station CHOK, located in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Sarnia is downstream of Bruce, and is located just across the narrow and shallow St. Clair River from Port Huron, Michigan, U.S.A. Kevin had been the featured speaker the previous evening after a showing of "Into Eternity" at a meeting of the Blue Water Sierra Club at Port Huron city hall.

Last year, on March 23, 2011 (just 11 days after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe in Japan began), Kevin also spoke with CHOK about the risks of Bruce Nuclear's proposed shipment of radioactive steam generators by boat right down the St. Clair River between Port Huron and Sarnia. This shipment has been held off by determined resistance stretching from the Great Lakes to Europe. CHOK broke the news story about the proposed shipment in spring 2010.

Urge Senate Majority Leader Reid and your own U.S. Senators to block "consolidated interim storage" legislation!

Grace Thorpe, whom President Obama has praised for her work to block "centralized interim storage" sites for high-level radioactive waste targeted at Native American communitiesOn April 26th, 2012 -- the 26th annual commemoration of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe -- the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill that would authorize and fund a "pilot" program for "consolidated interim storage" of high-level radioactive waste at one or more locations in the U.S. The bill had previously passed the U.S. Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee for Energy and Water, chaired by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. The Chernobyl date is most ironic, for this "consolidated interim storage" proposal would launch unprecedented numbers of truck, train, and barge shipments of high-level radioactive waste onto the roads, rails, and waterways through most states -- risks critics have long dubbed "Mobile Chernobyls" due to the potential for accidental disasters (and "dirty bombs on wheels," regarding the potential for intentional terrorist attacks).

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future made "consolidated interim storage" its highest priority in its final report in January 2012. It did so without even reading the thousands of comments provided by concerned citizens and environmental groups. Those thousands of comments opposed "centralized interim storage" parking lot dumps, as well as the risky radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails and waterways they would unnecessarily create. For over a decade now, a united environmental movement nationwide has advocated hardened on-site storage instead, for wastes that already exist. For wastes that do not yet exist, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: STOP MAKING IT!

The BRC's prioritization of "consolidated interim storage," and its refusal to recommend against targeting Native American communities for such parking lot dumps, is also most ironic. BRC was created by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu, to seek a "Plan B" after their wise decision to cancel the scienitifically unsuitable Yucca Mountain national dumpsite. But they appointed 15 pro-nuclear members, which decided to repeat the long tradition of "radioactive racism" -- targeting Native American, as well as other low income communities, for such high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps. This, despite President Obama himself, in spring 2009, praising Native American environmental justice activist Grace Thorpe (see photo, above left) for blocking such dumpsites targeted at her own Sauk and Fox Reservation in Oklahoma, as well as scores of other reservations across the country. 

Please contact the office of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) at 202-224-3542. Urge that Sen. Reid block this dangerous bill from reaching the Senate floor. Remind him and his staff that such large-scale high-level radioactive waste shipments, to such Western targets as the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, or the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, would increase the risks of those wastes eventually being transferred to Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- a dumpsite Sen. Reid has successfully opposed for longer than a quarter century.

Also contact your two U.S. Senators via the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Urge them to block this bill. 

Urge Canadian government to cancel proposal to bury radioactive wastes on the Great Lakes shoreline

Bruce Nuclear Complex on the Lake Huron shore in Kincardine, Ontario, CanadaThe Canadian nuclear establishment in industry and government has proposed a radioactive waste dump on the Lake Huron shoreline at the Bruce Nuclear Power Complex. Consisting of a total of nine atomic reactors (one prototype permanently shut, eight commercial reactors still operable), Bruce is the largest operating nuclear power plant in the world (after its Japanese competition at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa shut down, at least temporarily). Located in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada, 50 miles to the east of the State of Michigan across Lake Huron, Bruce also hosts the "Western Waste Management Facility" (WWMF).

All of the so-called "low-level" and "intermediate-level" radioactive waste from 20 operable atomic reactors across Ontario (8 at Bruce, plus 8 at Pickering and 4 more at Darlington just to the east of Toronto) has, for years and even decades, been shipped to and consolidated at the WWMF. "Low-level" radioactive wastes have even been incinerated there, with untold radioactive releases to the atmosphere. It is at the WWMF that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) -- which owns the province's 20 atomic reactors, and is liable for the radioactive wastes generated -- proposes to bury all of its "low-level" and "intermediate-level" radioactive wastes in a "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) located a mere kilometer (half-mile) from the waters of Lake Huron, drinking water supply for tens of millions downstream in the U.S., Canada, and numerous Native American First Nations. Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada dubbed the DGR as the "Deep Underground Dump," or, more aptly, the DUD! OPG hopes to receive permission from the Canadian federal government's CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) and CEAA (Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency) to begin constructing the DGR/DUD as soon as late 2013.

Please email the Canadian federal government's DGR environmental joint review panel at DGR.Review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca, urging that this threat to the Great Lakes -- 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and drinking water supply for 40 million people -- is unacceptable on its face and must be cancelled immediately. 

To see OPG's proposal and the Canadian federal government's environmental review, go to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's website.

To see opponents' objections to the DGR/DUD, go to the Northwatch website.

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps has been invited, along with Diane D'Arrigo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, to serve as an expert witness for Great Lakes United (GLU) in its intervention against the DUD before the Canadian federal government's environmental review panel. Kevin has served on GLU's Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force for over a decade. GLU is a bi-national coalition comprised of scores of environmental groups in 8 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces.

Appeal from Japan to worldwide civil organizations concerning stabilization of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste

Workers (in white radiation protection suits, beneath damaged girders overhead) beside surface of elevated high-level radioactive waste storage pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4Green Action Kyodo, Shut Tomari Now!, and 70 additional Japanese civil organizations have launched an international petition requesting United Nations intervention to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 irradiated nuclear fuel storage pool (see photo, left). For over a year now, the entire Unit 4 reactor building, including its high-level radioactive waste storage pool, has been listing in the aftermath of the 3/11/11 earthquake, tsunami, meltdowns, and explosions. A strong enough earthquake could topple the pool, or collapse its floor, resulting in loss of the cooling water and a radioactive waste inferno discharging up to 8 times the radioactive Cesium-137 released at Chernobyl. Such a disaster could cause fatal radiation dose rates, necessitating the evacuation of all workers from the entire Fukushima Daiichi site, risking fires in a total of seven high-level radioactive waste storage pools containing 85 times the radioactive Cesium-137 released by Chernobyl.

The Japanese organizers have explained the petition's purpose as: "To urge the United Nations to act on stabilizing the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool, the further deterioration of which could result in a catastrophic release of radiation with international consequences. We will submit the petition to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and continue to work on gathering international support for stabilizing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant."

They request organizational signers only at this time. Please sign your group onto this petition, and urge other groups to sign on as well, by visiting the petition's homepage.

Would you rather store solar power overnight, or radioactive waste forevermore?!

"The people that are saying we need nuclear power and we have the technology to safely store nuclear waste for 250,000 years are the same ones who claim that we can't use solar because we have no way to store the electricity overnight! If we have the technology to do one, we ought to be able to figure out the other." ---Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Associates (pictured left)