New Mexico state legislators, and All Pueblo Council of Governors, speak out against Holtec CISF

The Santa Fe New Mexican has reported on NM state legislators taking a stand against the Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) targeted at their state. The article reports: Pending federal approval, Holtec would store some 10,000 200-ton canisters underground on a 1,000-acre desert facility "35 miles from the nearest human habitat," according to the company's website. The drums of waste would come to New Mexico by train. (emphasis added) That's an odd thing for Holtec to say. Beyond Nuclear's members and supporters, who have provided legal standing for our intervention in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing proceeding, live and work within just a few, to several, miles of the targeted site for Holtec's CISF; one lives just a mile away. In addition, countless millions of Americans, in most states, live along the road, rail, and/or waterway transport routes that would be used to ship high-level radioactive wastes (HLRWs) to southeastern NM. On Sept. 5, 2019, the former head of Environmental Justice (EJ) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mustafa Ali, warned on Democracy Now! that such HLRW trucks, trains, and/or barges, would themselves be yet another EJ violation, as they pass through countless low income, people of color communities. Such shipments would go on for not years, but decades. It seems that for Holtec, certain people just don't count, when there are many billions of dollars to be made -- albeit, yet again, at public expense! (Not to mention risk, and liability!) But it's not just NM state legislators opposed to Holtec's CISF. In June 2019, NM's governor, public lands commissioner, and U.S. Rep., Deb Haaland (a Democrat, one of the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress, in 2018), all spoke out strongly against Holtec. In addition, the All Pueblo Council of Governors did so as well, against Holtec as well as the Interim Storage Partners CISF at Waste Control Specialists in Texas, on October 21, 2019.

MORE, including what you can do!

Exelon Nuclear's corrupt lobbying activities, seeking massive public bailouts, lead to multiple federal investigations, as radioactive risks mount

Exelon is not only the largest nuclear utility in the U.S., it is the biggest electric utility in the country. As reported by Midwest Energy News, multiple federal investigations, including by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as a U.S. Attorney's Office and grand jury, have been launched into Exelon Nuclear's lobbying activities involving Illinois state legislators and Chicago officials.

In the past several years, Exelon lobbyists have secured large-scale bailouts for its dangerously age-degraded atomic reactors in New York ($7.6 billion over 12 years; an Exelon lobbyist brazenly bragged, at a dirty energy industry conference, about the 750% return on investment!), Illinois ($2.35 billion over 10 years), and New Jersey. Its "nuclear hostage taking" tactic, as longtime Exelon watchdog Dave Kraft of Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) of Chicago calls it, is to "threaten" to close reactors by date certain, unless massively bailed out.

The threat is to the workers' jobs at the nuclear power plants, but also to local tax revenues, once reactors close for good. NEIS, Beyond Nuclear, and our allies say "yes please!" to the reactor closures (thereby averting core meltdowns, stopping high-level radioactive waste generation and worsening contamination levels), but have simultaneously long called for just transitions, for both the workforce, as well as the host communities. In September, Exelon did close Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania for lack of a bailout; it is using that to try to leverage bailouts at its several other decrepit atomic reactors across the Keystone State. Exelon is also seeking bailouts for reactors in Maryland, and elsewhere. MORE.

60 Minutes Australia's in-depth look at the Fukushima aftermath

"It was a sort of dread, empty feeling in my gut that there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about this and it would go on forever. And as a physician and a pediatrician I was absolutely horrified," said Dr. Helen Caldicott in the 60 Minutes feature, talking about her first reaction when she heard about the then unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011. Why dread? "Because I knew what sorts of diseases it would produce."

In this feature from April 2018, but still very much relevant today, we see how local people's lives have dramatically changed, the endless vigilance and testing for radiological contamination, and the tragedy of permanent displacement. And it exposes the government message that "everying is fine" and the fallacy of decontamination. "How do you clean up the cleanup?" asks the presenter.

11,000+ scientists have signed onto a bold new statement on the climate emergency

A new statement from five scientists -- World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency -- has been co-signed by more than 11,000 scientists around the world. Departing from the traditional notes of caution and uncertainty sounded in the IPCC reports and elsewhere, the group states in no uncertain terms that the time for action is rapidly slipping away.

"Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to 'tell it like it is,'" the statement begins. "On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency."

The statement goes on to list key areas of necessary change beyond energy policy but also including population growth, food management and economic issues. The statement itself makes no mention of nuclear power although it recommends replacing fossil fuels "with low-carbon renewables and other cleaner sources of energy if safe for people and the environment," an interesting qualifier that should obviously rule out dangerous nuclear power. In a supplement, nuclear is referenced only in a graph showing nuclear energy consumption in global decline. (Photo:Sam Saunders, Wikimedia Commons).

Kings Bay Plowshares protesters found guilty

 

Beyond Nuclear's Linda Pentz Gunter covered the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 for the UK daily, The Morning Star. The seven were charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor after they entered the Kings Bay Trident submarine base in Georgia on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Pictured above after the verdict are, left to right, Clare Grady, Liz McAlister, McAlister's daughter Frida Berrigan and Carmen Trotta).

After cutting a padlock (and replacing it), Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, Fr. Steve Kelly, Liz McAlister, Patrick O'Neill and Carmen Trotta split into three groups. Kelly, McAlister and Trotta cut through a fence and entered the Limited Area, a shoot to kill zone, where they displayed a banner before being peacefully apprehended. Colville and O'Neill went to the "missile display" site where they painted messages, splashed (McAlister's donated) blood and removed lit lettering and parts of the missile "monuments." Grady and Hennessy put up crime scene tape, painted messages and splashed blood, and left behind Daniel Ellsberg's book, The Doomsday Machine. 

The trial took four days (including an almost daylong jury selection process) and the jury took just two and a half hours to find all seven guilty on every count. They have been released to their families (with the exception of Kelly -- see why in the story). Sentencing is expected in January 2020.

Here is the beginning of Linda's report on the verdict. (Read the full article).

Seven peace activists who entered a US Trident submarine base in Georgia 18 months ago to protest against nuclear weapons were convicted on Thursday. 

The jury in the federal criminal trial took just under two-and-a-half hours to find the all of the defendants guilty on every count.

Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, Steven Kelly, Liz McAlister, Patrick O’Neill and Carmen Trotta were each convicted of conspiracy, destruction of property at the Kings Bay naval base and depredation — meaning damage — of government property. 

They were also found guilty of the lesser offence of trespass. The trial had lasted just four days.

Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said it would take her between 60 and 90 days to decide on their sentences.

All were released to their families except Father Kelly, a 70-year-old Catholic priest who has already spent more than 10 years of his life in jail for other protests. He remains incarcerated due to an earlier offence.

Read the full article.