Honor the memory of an anti-nuclear matriarch by urging Congress to do its job agaisnt radioactive risks

Mary Sinclair, a Michigan-based reactor slayer, radioactive waste dump stopper, and defender of the Great Lakes against radioactive reactor and waste risks, passed away on Jan. 14th at the age of 92, after devoting decades of her life to anti-nuclear activism. Beyond Nuclear has posted a memorial statement on its website. Please help honor the memory of this respected and beloved anti-nuclear leader by doing what she did so well, by challenging the out-of-control nuclear power industry by courageously speaking truth to power. Contact your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative as they return to work for the new congressional session. Call their offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge that they do their job to protect the lives, health, safety, security, environment, and taxpayer dollars of their constituents, as by blocking any additional federal loan guarantees for new reactors or uranium enrichment facilities. While they're at it, they should strenuously exercise their congressional oversight on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and rein in the rogue nuclear power industry before it causes a BP Gulf of Mexico scale disaster, only this time with a radioactive twist.

PHMSA pledges to comply with NEPA in letter to U.S. Senators

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has pledged to seven U.S. Senators that it intends to fully comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) before approving a Canadian radioactive steam generator shipment through U.S. territorial waters on the Great Lakes. PHMSA's Administrator, Cynthia L. Quarterman, wrote to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold on November 8, 2010. Feingold led the effort, that included six other Democratic Senators from Great Lakes states (Durbin from IL, Levin and Stabenow from MI, Casey from PA, and Schumer and Gillibrand from NY), to question and express concerns about the proposed shipment of 16 radioactive steam generators from the Bruce nuclear power plant on the Lake Huron shoreline of Ontario, via Lakes Huron, St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario and the rivers and waterways that connect them, across the Atlantic Ocean, to Sweden for "recycling" into consumer products. While PHMSA's pledge to comply with NEPA is welcome, the broad international environmental coalition opposing this shipment and the "recycling" of radioactive waste continues to call for a careful and comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement to be performed, rather than a lesser Environmental Assessment and "Finding of No Significant Impact" (FONSI) rubberstamp. In addition, the PHMSA letter to Sen. Feingold listed 17 instances of "[radioactive] nuclear power plant large components [having] been transported in U.S. waters" -- although some of these shipments were previously known to the public, some of them were not, including a 2001 radioactive steam generator shipment on Lake Michigan from Kewaunee nuclear power plant in northern Wisconsin to Memphis, TN.

Still time to say 'no' to radioactive waste from Germany

The public comment period for submitting comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on a proposed plan to import radioactive waste from Germany has been extended to January18 from December 30. Salt Lake City-based Energy Solutions, Inc., wants to incinerate German nuclear waste at its Tennessee plant, then ship incinerator ash back to Germany. Incineration can release contaminants into the air that are difficult or impossible to capture in filters including tritium and mercury. Please sign the petition opposing this plan today! And send your written comments to the NRC: Office of the Secretary, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications.

Texas judge halts radioactive waste dump expansion, for now

Will the Lone Star State become the Lone Radiation Warning Symbol State?A Texas judge has granted environmentalists a last minute temporary restraining order against a vote by the Texas-Vermont "low" level radioactive waste dump commission that could replace the Lone Star on the state's flag with a Lone Radiation Symbol, opening the state to radioactive wastes from 36 additional states. The vote is being rushed by dump proponents in order to lock in approval of the dump's expansion before the new Governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin, a Democrat calling for Vermont Yankee's shut down, can appoint new Vermont Commissioners to the panel to represent his opposition to the plan. If approved, Waste Control Specialists' (WCS) dump, on the Texas/New Mexico border very near the new LES/Urenco uranium enrichment facility in New Mexico, would replace the Barnwell, South Carolina national "low" level radioactive waste dump. Barnwell's closure to wastes from all but South Carolina, New Jersey, and Connecticut on July 1, 2008 has meant that most "low" level radioactive wastes in 36 additional states have had nowhere to go, and have piled up at reactor sites. WCS is owned by a Dallas billionaire infamous for his political donations in Texas.