Help protect St.Louis drinking water!

A campaign is underway to petition elected officials in Missouri to protect the St. Louis drinking water threatened by the nuclear weapons wastes dumped in the West Lake Landfill. Please download and print the new palm card (here in triplicate for easy reproduction) and help spread the word. Palm Card text follows.

The radioactive wastes at West Lake Landfill threaten drinking water. These nuclear weapons wastes are contaminating the groundwater in the floodplain of the Missouri River — the water that many of us drink.

These radioactive wastes threaten our health. Exposure to radiation can cause birth defects, cancer, and genetic mutations. West Lake wastes contain some of the most dangerous materials on Earth.

These wastes must be removed. They will continue to release radioactive particles and rays virtually forever. Heavy rain, a flood, or a fire could increase the spread of the wastes. Unless removed, these wastes also threaten the economic health of our St. Louis region.

Federal judge greenlights unprecedented, high-risk, highly radioactive liquid waste truck shipments from Ontario to South Carolina

Political cartoon by Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo NewsMedia coverage:

WIBV TV, Buffalo, NY; Le Téléjournal Ontario (in French); Citizen-Times of Asheville, NC; Aiken Standard; Sierra Club's Green Life; Augusta Chronicle; Buffalo News; WLOS, ABC News Channel 13 in Western North Carolina; CHCH, Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada TV.

Press release by environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, re: judge's adverse ruling, allowing unprecedented, high-risk, highly radioactive liquid waste truck shipments from Chalk River Nuclear Lab, Ontario, Canada to Savannah River Site, South Carolina, U.S.A. (See the judge's 18-page Memorandum Opinion, and 1-page Order of Dismissal, both dated Feb. 2, 2017.) Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio and Diane Curran of Washington, D.C. serve as the environmental coalition's legal counsel.

U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY): Higgins Announces Approval of Bill Authorizing Risk Assessment of Proposed Nuclear Waste Transport across the Peace Bridge (Feb. 1, 2017).

Beyond Nuclear on Solartopia Radio re: Collapse of Atomic Energy Industry

THE COLLAPSE OF THE ATOMIC ENERGY INDUSTRY once again comes to Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour Radio. [The show is at 5pm Eastern on Thursday, Feb. 2nd -- listen live! -- and will be posted at the Solartopia Radio Show's archives afterward.]

LINDA SEELEY of the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace fills us in on the catastrophic Diablo Canyon nukes, surrounded by earthquake faults and in a tsunami zone.  We examine the deal being made to shut it down, and the effort to make that happen faster.

KEVIN KAMPS of Beyond Nuclear and TIM JUDSON of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service chime in on the collapse of Westinghouse, the overages in nuclear construction around the world, the appointment of an non-regulatory new chair for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the procession of state bailouts, and much more.

As we approach a green-powered Earth, we pray no more of these obsolete, obscene nukes will explode, and that the transition to renewables will proceed as fast as possible.

Thanks to host Harvey Wasserman for having us on once again. It's an honor and a privilege to appear alongside colleagues from NIRS and Mothers for Peace!

Opponents pack NRC's Pilgrim nuclear meeting

The Cape Cod Times reported on a packed NRC meeting in Plymouth, MA, hosted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on January 31 to explain the continued safety issues at the plant. The article begins:

"Paul Gunter (pictured) traveled from Washington, D.C., Tuesday to hear how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would explain a detailed email characterizing Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station as poorly equipped and poorly run.

The email was written in December by Donald Jackson, the leader of a federal inspection team sent to Pilgrim to evaluate its systems, procedures and staff.

Before the meeting started, many, including Gunter, were critical of the plant and the federal oversight.

"Only half of the problem is Pilgrim; the other half is the NRC's inability to enforce regulations," said Gunter, director of nuclear oversight for the national watchdog organization Beyond Nuclear.

Gunter was one of 300 who came to Tuesday's public meeting prompted by Jackson's internal email, which was inadvertently sent to a Pilgrim opponent.

Later in the meeting, former state Sen. Daniel Wolf of Harwich said the NRC's role is a balance of public safety with corporate issues. "I think it's out of balance," he said.

And Cape Downwinder Donald Barton told federal officials that the NRC's credibility "is at an all-time low in Massachusetts."

Read the full article.

It is now 2.5 minutes to midnight. Words matter when Trump speaks of nuclear weapons, climate.

Thank you to Scott Stapf of the Hastings Group's Tweet, calling attention to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' (BAS) historic announcement regarding its iconic Dooms Day Clock -- by setting the Clock at two and a half minutes to midnight, BAS has pegged the current danger to people and the planet -- from nuclear weapons, climate change, and other technological threats such as cyber attacks -- at the same level as 1953, when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. first began exchanging hydrogen bomb test blasts, in the earliest days of the Cold War nuclear arms race.

Watch the BAS press conference, held today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Note that one BAS speaker pointed to cyber attacks impacting the grid -- and highlighting the potentially catastrophic risks to nuclear power plants as a case in point (atomic reactors, and their high-level radioactive waste storage pools, depend on the electric grid for its primary source of electricity to run safety and cooling systems), another BAS speaker gave nuclear power as a hopeful example of positive technological development that could make the world a better place. Beyond Nuclear very much disagrees with the latter assertion, of course.

The Washington Post has reported on this story. Two of the BAS speakers at the press conference above, Lawrence M. Krauss and David Titley, have published an op-ed at the New York Times entitled "Thanks to Trump, the Doomsday Clock Advances toward Midnight."

(There are those who think the BAS Doomsday Clock is too optimistic. See the film Thirty Seconds to Midnight -- The Final Wake Up Call, posted online at YouTube. It features Dr. Helen Caldicott, Beyond Nuclear's founding president.) More.