A Legacy of Contamination, How the Kingston coal ash spill unearthed a nuclear nightmare, Grist By Austyn Gaffney on Dec 15, 2020 This story was published in partnership with the Daily Yonder.
………………………………….The apparent mixing of fossil fuel and nuclear waste streams underscores the long relationship between the Kingston and Oak Ridge facilities………… .
……….In 2017, a former chemist named Dan Nichols stumbled upon a news story that revealed the existence of the additional health problems TVA feared. High levels of uranium had been measured in the urine of a former cleanup worker named Craig Wilkinson. Like Thacker, Wilkinson had worked the night shift. After dredges piped the coal ash back onshore, Wilkinson used heavy equipment to scoop, flip, and dry the wet ash along the Ball Field.
Although Wilkinson worked at the Kingston site for less than a year, he quickly developed health issues, including chronic sinus infections and breathing problems that eventually led to a double-lung transplant. Frustrated by his sudden decline in health, Wilkinson shelled out over $1,000 for a toxicology test because he wanted to know what occupational hazards might be lingering in his body.
After reading Wilkinson’s story, Nichols sat stunned. Though he was not associated with the spill, he’d been unable to shake his obsession with the Kingston disaster. Nichols had worked as a Memphis-based field chemist for a wastewater technology company, and he was used to studying lab reports on industrial water supplies and samples. For years he’d been trying to solve a mystery that no one else seemed to be aware of: why Kingston regulators deleted and then altered a state-sanctioned report showing extremely high levels of radiation at the cleanup site.
Roughly a month after the spill, Nichols read a Duke University press release stating that ash samples collected at Kingston by a team led by Vengosh, the geochemist, showed radium levels well above those typically found in coal ash. Nichols knew that the state environmental regulator, the Tennessee Department for Environment and Conservation, or TDEC, was also testing soil and ash samples at the site. After seeing Vengosh’s high radium readings, he wondered if TDEC’s report would also show high levels of either radium or uranium. (Radium is a decay element of uranium.) Later that spring, Nichols visited TDEC’s website and discovered the test results.
“I opened it up and went to uranium, and it was just off the charts,” Nichols recalled. In a 2020 affidavit, Nichols reported that these levels were “extremely high so as to be alarming.” At least 27 soil and ash samples were collected from at least 20 different sites surrounding Kingston beginning January 6, 2009. The levels ranged from 84 parts per million (ppm) to 2,000 ppm. The average level was over 500 ppm, as much as 50 times the typical uranium content found in coal ash.
The next morning, when Nichols slumped back into his computer chair and refreshed TDEC’s website, he saw that the report had been changed. The high uranium readings had plummeted. Now the average uranium levels in the ash were 2.88 ppm, a tenth of the typical uranium content found in coal ash and illogically, below levels naturally occurring in soil. Luckily, Nichols had downloaded the unaltered report the night before.
A month later, Nichols sent the two lab reports to one of the attorneys representing Tennessee residents affected by the spill in a lawsuit they’d brought against TVA. According to Nichols, the lawyers weren’t interested. Nevertheless, Nichols was determined to find more proof of the unusually high levels of on-site radiation. In between cutting hay and spraying weeds on his family farm, he spent years poring over information online about TVA, coal ash, and uranium before he stumbled across Wilkinson’s story.
Back in 2014, Wilkinson’s urine tested for unusually high levels of both mercury and uranium. The mercury is more easily explained: The most common cause of mercury contamination, according to the EPA, is coal-fired power plant emissions, which account for 44 percent of all man-made mercury pollution. The 2008 spill released 29 times the mercury reported at the Kingston site for the entire decade before it, and TVA documents show high levels of additional legacy mercury were present in the Clinch River and could have migrated into the Emory. Today, Wilkinson has symptoms attributable to methylmercury poisoning including blurry vision, fatigue, a hearing impairment, memory loss, and loss of coordination that caused him to fall out of the machines he operated until retiring on disability in 2015.
But most shocking to Nichols was the high level of uranium in Wilkinson’s body — it was 10 times the U.S. average, and identical to the median levels that one study found in workers exposed to the substance. Prolonged occupational exposure to uranium is strongly linked to chronic kidney disease, which Wilkinson suffers from. Because Wilkinson’s toxicology results were taken four years after he left Kingston, they likely show lower uranium levels than what he and other cleanup workers initially had.
Wilkinson’s results left no doubt in Nichols’ mind that the original uranium readings he’d saved were significant. A reporter for the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Jamie Satterfield, contacted him after the report he saved showed up in court proceedings. Satterfield published a story about the altered uranium readings in May of this year.
In response to her story, TDEC told the News-Sentinel that its updated uranium readings, which plummeted by 98 percent, were due to a change in the sampling method used for the tests. (Satterfield also reported that radium levels had been lowered between the initial TDEC report Nichols downloaded and the updated one; the department attributed this to a “data entry error.”) In an email response to Grist and the Daily Yonder, a TDEC spokesperson elaborated that the sampling lab, which was neither staffed nor supervised by TDEC, “discovered there were interferences in the analysis of soil and ash samples for uranium” and subsequently changed the method of analysis from one EPA-approved protocol to another. The new results were then published without public notice of the alteration.
“Changing lab reports is a very serious thing,” Nichols said. “But I can assure you data entry errors don’t cause a man to test for unusually high levels of uranium. That’s [TDEC’s] big problem.”
Unbeknownst to Nichols, Russell Johnson, the district attorney with jurisdiction over Roane County, where Kingston is located, had informed TDEC’s commissioner in 2017 that he was beginning a criminal probe into the Kingston cleanup. “I am deeply concerned with the apparent intentional conduct of the cleanup contractors and their supervisors, actions that took place in Roane County, conduct that may indeed have caused serious bodily injury or possibly even death to a number of people,” Johnson wrote in a letter to TDEC.
In concert with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Johnson began investigating whether TVA or its contractors “suppressed information” as part of the coverup alleged in the 2013 worker lawsuit against Jacobs. They now have Nichols’ evidence as well. But despite this ongoing investigation, it’s unclear if workers will ever learn for certain whether or not they were exposed to dangerous substances besides the coal ash itself. (Bob Edwards, an assistant district attorney working under Johnson, told Grist and the Daily Yonder that the district attorney’s office could not comment on a pending investigation.)………………….https://grist.org/justice/tva-kingston-coal-ash-spill-nuclear/
In the case of Julian Assange, what is on trial is nothing less than our right to know what is done by governments in our name, and our capacity to hold power to account.
Law and Disorder: The case of Julian Assange, DiEM25, By Pam Stavropoulos | 10/12/2020,
What kind of law allows pursuit of charges under the 1917 United States Espionage Act — for which there is no public interest defence — against a journalist who is a foreign national?
The closing argument of the defence in the extradition hearing of WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange has been filed. For this and other reasons it is apposite to consider the authority invested in the law before which, in democratic societies, we are ostensibly all equal.
In fact, notwithstanding the familiar claims of objectivity (and as `everybody knows’ in Leonard Cohen’s famous lyric) the reality is somewhat different. Jokes about the law attest to this:
‘One law for the rich…’
‘Everyone has the right to their day in court — if they can pay for it’
‘What’s the difference between a good lawyer and a great one? A good lawyer knows the law. A great lawyer knows the judge’
The term ‘legal fiction’ calls into question the relationship between law, objectivity, and truth. On the one hand, law is the essential pillar of a functioning society. On the other, it is replete with anomalies both in conception and execution. To what extent can these perspectives be reconciled? High stakes are attached to this question.
Questioning claims of objectivity in the context of law.
Despite its routinely invoked status of objectivity, there are many grounds on which the law cannot be objective in any overarching sense. Judicial findings can be overturned on appeal (i.e. including in the absence of new evidence). This immediately indicates that the law, in common with other domains and disciplines, is subject to interpretation. ………
Conflicts of interest also pose challenges to the notion of objectivity in the context of law. In the case of Julian Assange, as DiEM25 and others have highlighted, conflict of interest would clearly seem to be operative. This is because financial links to the British military — including institutions and individuals exposed by WikiLeaks — by the husband of the Westminster chief magistrate who initially presided over the extradition case have been revealed. This chief magistrate refused to recuse herself and retained a supervisory role of oversight even in the face of this manifest conflict of interest. ……..
In the case of Julian Assange, the refrain that the law and its processes are ‘objective’ ensures that mounting critique of both the fact of his prosecution and the way in which the proceedings are conducted is not engaged with. It also serves to deflect attention from the fact that there is no precedent — i.e. in a profession which claims to respect it — for prosecution of Assange in the first place. ……..
In addition to the myth of the objectivity of law, it is important to engage with another entrenched myth — i.e. that the law is necessarily ‘apolitical’. In the case of Julian Assange, the political stakes are enormous. Continue reading →
Japan Times 9th Dec 2020, A ruling Friday by the Osaka District Court canceling central government
approval for the operation of two reactors at the Oi nuclear plant run by
Kansai Electric Power Co. (Kepco), saying its calculations for standards
involving earthquake safety were flawed, has stunned the nuclear power
industry. The decision, which is the first of its kind, is likely to be
appealed and could still be overturned. But the result has resurrected
fundamental questions about nuclear power safety and the future role of the
energy source.
“Sortir du nuclear” Network, Greenpeace France, CRILAN, Stop EPR Ni at Penly Ni Ailleurs December 7, 2020, The Committee for Reflection, Information and Anti-Nuclear Fight (CRILAN), Greenpeace France, the “Sortir du nuclear” Network, and the “STOP EPR neither in Penly nor elsewhere” collective are now filing an appeal with the Council State against the authorization for partial commissioning of the Flamanville EPR issued by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN).
For the past two months, EDF has been authorized to deliver nuclear fuel to the Flamanville site and to conduct tests with radioactive gases on the facilities, although the state of the site absolutely does not justify it. On October 26, the first transport of enriched uranium was carried out from Romans-sur-Isère to Flamanville. Pending the judgment of the appeal, a summary suspension has also been introduced today to prevent any new deliveries and to minimize contamination of facilities that may never come into service.
The numerous anomalies and security flaws affecting the EPR site make partial commissioning unjustifiable. Greenpeace France and Mediapart revealed on Sunday December 6 that thousands of pages of confidential documents relating to the site’s security are in circulation outside EDF and its subcontractors. The partial commissioning of the EPR poses unnecessary risks to workers, the public and the environment.
Moreover, EDF’s request for partial commissioning of the EPR dates from 2015. ASN had a maximum of two years to decide on this request, which it did not do. In this area, failure to reply from ASN equates to rejection and obliges EDF to submit a new request. This was not done: this is yet another demonstration of ASN’s lax attitude towards EDF.
Finally, the environmental impact of this partial commissioning has not been examined. However, European Union law requires, when a project has been the subject of an impact study when a first authorization is issued, that the question of its updating be asked for each of the authorizations issued subsequently. . Taken together, the setbacks of the EPR demonstrate EDF’s industrial inability to carry out this project. At a time when the French government is considering the construction of new EPRs, the proof has been made that this option would be a dangerous and costly impasse. If Emmanuel Macron, who is scheduled to visit the Framatome plant in Le Creusot tomorrow, says he needs nuclear power, the planet does not need it.
Japan court nixes approval of post-Fukushima nuclear safety steps, KYODO NEWS – Dec 4, 2020 ,
A Japanese court on Friday, for the first time, revoked the government’s approval of operating a nuclear plant under new safety regulations developed in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The Osaka District Court ruled in favor of about 130 plaintiffs who claimed that the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture are vulnerable to a major earthquake.
A Japanese court on Friday, for the first time, revoked the government’s approval of operating a nuclear plant under new safety regulations developed in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The Osaka District Court ruled in favor of about 130 plaintiffs who claimed that the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture are vulnerable to a major earthquake.
In the ruling, Presiding Judge Hajime Morikagi said the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s safety screening “has errors and flaws that should not be overlooked” as its estimates needed to factor in a potentially much larger earthquake around the plant…..
It is the first time a Japanese court has withdrawn government approval granted to a power company to operate a nuclear plant under the safety standards set in 2013 following the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant triggered by a major earthquake and ensuing tsunami.
While the two reactors in Oi in the central Japan prefecture have been idle due to regular inspections since earlier this year, the ruling will not take effect if the NRA appeals the decision.
But the ruling may have an impact on the operations of not only the nuclear plant on the Sea of Japan coast but also other reactors in the country that went back online under the new rules…….
SCANA, Dominion agree to pay $25 million civil fine in massive nuclear fraud case, The State, BY JOHN MONK, DECEMBER 03, 2020, COLUMBIA, SC
SCANA and its successor company, Dominion Energy, have reached an agreement to pay the federal Securities and Exchange Commission a $25 million civil fine in one of the state’s largest civil fraud cases, according to public court records filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
Under the proposed settlement, neither SCANA, a now-defunct company, nor Dominion Energy, its successor company, admit any fault in the multi-billion dollar business failure of one of the state’s largest construction projects ever – the effort to build two nuclear power plants in Fairfield County.
However, under the proposal, neither corporation can publicly claim it is innocent of any wrong-doing alleged in the SEC’s 87-page civil complaint, filed last February in U.S. District Court in Columbia.
In its February complaint, the SEC depicted the once-respected SCANA, whose shares had been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and its two top executives as carrying out a brazen con scheme for nearly three years to prop up the company’s stock and hide the truth about the impending collapse of the nuclear project.
The SEC alleged more than 35 separate instances of alleged lies and cover-ups by former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh and former SCANA executive vice president Stephen Byrne from the beginning of 2015 to August, 2017, just after SCANA announced it was abandoning the project after a total of $9 billion was spent.
The 35-plus alleged lies and deceptions by the two men fell in five separate categories over some 32 months: untruths to investors and analysts, cover-ups of crucial information, falsehoods to S.C. government oversight bodies, concealment of vital information to the federal SEC and deceitful video and other presentations to lawmakers and the news media, according to an analysis of the complaint by The State newspaper.
Court retracts NRA approval of safety measures at nuclear plant, Asahi Shimbun, By TAKASHI ENDO/ Staff Writer, December 4, 2020 OSAKA--A district court struck down central government approval of safety measures at the Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, effectively rejecting tougher safety screening guidelines used by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
The Osaka District Court on Dec. 4 sided with plaintiffs who argued that the safety guidelines underestimated the maximum possible movement generated by an earthquake around the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the plant, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co.
However, the lawsuit filed by about 130 residents who live in Fukui and six neighboring prefectures did not seek a temporary injunction, so the two reactors can continue operating until the ruling is finalized.
The tougher safety standards were adopted after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in 2011.
The lawsuit revolved around whether the basic earthquake ground motion figure used by Kansai Electric in its safety measures was appropriate.
Electric power companies that operate nuclear plants set their own basic earthquake ground motion figures. The NRA uses its screening guidelines to determine if the calculated figures are appropriate……..
The plaintiffs argued that this calculation method only produces an “average” for the quake scale, meaning that the safety measures are not based on the maximum strength of a possible earthquake in the area. …….
The court, however, accepted the plaintiffs’ case and ordered a retraction of the approval of the Oi plant’s safety measures.
The ruling was the fourth victory for resident plaintiffs seeking a temporary injunction or retraction of government approval. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13989665
United States Attorney Peter M. McCoy, Jr. said the decision will settle Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit which accused them of making false and misleading statements about the nuclear plant expansion. The proposed settlement, which remains subject to court approval, would require SCANA to pay a $25 million penalty and require SCANA and SCE&G to pay $112.5 million in disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, according to a release from McCoy’s office.
“Shareholders were deceived by SCANA and robbed of millions upon millions of dollars,” McCoy said. “I am hopeful that, along with the criminal charges brought forward by our office, this multimillion dollar civil fine and penalty shows that no person or organization is above the law.”
The SEC’s complaint filed in February 2020 alleged that SCANA, SCE&G, and two former senior executives misled investors by claiming that a project to build two nuclear units would qualify the company for more than $1 billion in tax credits when they knew the project was far behind schedule and therefore unlikely to qualify for the tax credits. The complaint alleged that the false statements and omissions boosted SCANA’s stock price and enabled it to raise rates on customers and sell more than $1 billion in bonds. In mid-2017, SCANA announced it was scrapping the project and, according to the complaint, investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars when the truth was revealed.
“The securities laws require public companies and their senior executives to speak truthfully in their statements to investors,” SEC Atlanta Regional Office Associate Director Justin Jeffries said. “This settlement holds SCANA and SCE&G accountable for their alleged fraud and reinforces that companies must not deceive investors.”
The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal court in South Carolina, charged SCANA, SCE&G, SCANA’s former CEO Kevin Marsh and former executive vice president Stephen Byrne with violations of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. The complaint charged SCANA, SCE&G and Marsh with reporting violations.
Without admitting or denying the allegations, SCANA and SCE&G agreed to a permanent injunction and to pay $112.5 million in disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, which will be deemed satisfied by SCANA and SCE&G’s settlement payments and related rate payer and shareholder litigation. SCANA also agreed to pay a $25 million penalty.
The litigation against Marsh and Byrne is still ongoing.
Torture of Julian Assange by Australian governments sends powerful message to whistleblowers, Michael West Media by Lissa Johnson | Nov 26, 2020
Australia has used a range of torture techniques against Julian Assange, writes Dr Lissa Johnson. Governments have isolated and demonised him; flatly rejected evidence of ill-treatment; refused to respond to specific allegations; and divested themselves of any responsibility. Leaders can’t, or won’t, accept the difference between psychological torture and ‘a legal matter’.
Julian Assange has set a number of firsts for Australia, including:
The first Walkley award winner whose journalism has attracted a possible 175 years in US prison.
The first journalist to be prosecuted as a spy by the US government, under its 1917 Espionage Act.
The first citizen of an ostensibly democratic state (Australia) whom a UN official has found to be the target of a campaign of collective persecution and mobbing by other so-called democratic states.
As the UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, observed:
In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.
As part of this mobbing and collective persecution, Assange is the first Australian journalist to be tortured for journalism in the UK.
On 9 May 2019, Professor Melzer visited Assange in Belmarsh prison, accompanied by two medical experts specialising in the assessment and documentation of torture. On 31 May, Melzer reported that they had found Assange to be suffering all symptoms typical of prolonged exposure to psychological torture.
On 1 November 2019, Melzer warned that, unless the UK government urgently changed course, it may soon end up costing his life.
What torture?
Julian Assange is being held in ‘Britain’s Guantanamo’, Belmarsh prison, a high-security facility designed for those charged with terrorism, murder and other violent offences. He has been held in solitary confinement for 22 to 23 hours a day.
He knows that US-aligned security contractors have written in emails that he will make a nice bride in prison, and needs his head dunked in a full toilet bowl at Gitmo. He knows he is headed for life in US supermax prisons,where prisoners are held in perpetual solitary and chains.
To heighten the torment, Assange has been prevented from preparing his defence against extradition in violation of his human rights as a defendant.
He has been granted negligible access to his lawyers and is prevented from researching his own defence. The only purpose is to render him helpless, intensifying his trauma.
A Message from the Australian Government
Assange’s experience sets an example to anyone thinking of airing the dirty secrets of those in power: the genuinely dirty secrets, such as wantonly slaughtering and torturing innocent people and covering it up.
Like all public torture, it sends a message to onlookers: this could happen to you.
And the message from the Australian government to any Australian journalists looking on? You’re on your own.
The US government is seeking to retrospectively apply its own Espionage Act to non-US citizens in foreign lands, while simultaneously withholding the free speech protections of its Constitution. The upshot would be that non-US citizens, and non-US journalists, would be vulnerable to prosecution wherever they may be, whenever the United States saw fit.
Should a host country oblige, that journalist’s only hope would be the protection of their own government. And the message from the Australian government? Not a chance.
A climate of consent
But can the government do anything to stop the torture of Assange in the UK? Or are its hands tied?
Australia ratified the Convention Against Torture in 1989. It therefore has a positive duty to take ‘effective legislative, administrative, judicial and other measures to prevent acts of torture’ of its citizens. According to the Federal Attorney-General’s website, however, that duty applies to ‘territories within Australia’s jurisdiction’.
So who is responsible for protecting Australian citizens from torture overseas?
Australian officials can raise concerns with their overseas counterparts when they are concerned about gross violations of citizens’ rights as happened in the cases of Melinda Taylor, James Ricketson, David Hicks and Peter Greste.
They could also make a submission to the Committee against Torture that a state is ‘not fulfilling its obligations under this Convention’.
n Assange’s case, however, the government has opted for ‘consent and acquiescence’ under Article 1 of the convention. Consent and acquiescence is listed alongside inflicting and instigating torture as part of the very definition of torture.
‘Standard’ fare
DFAT representatives say repeatedly that Assange’s treatment In the UK is perfectly normal. ‘Standard’. ‘No different’ from the treatment of other UK prisoners. Routine, in other words. Nothing to see here.
When reminded that Assange had been handcuffed 11 times, stripped naked twice and moved between five holding cells after the first day of his extradition hearing, a DFAT representative described this as ‘standard prison to court and court to prison procedure’.
What the official failed to explain is that treatment is only ‘standard’ and normal for prisoners charged with terrorism or other violent offences.
It is not remotely normal for journalists with no criminal history, and no history or risk of violence, to be detained under the most punitive conditions that UK law enforcement has to offer.
As an exercise in “consent and acquiescence” DFAT representatives performed their duties well.
Sanitising, normalising language minimises and trivialises abuse………….
‘Not our responsibility’ has been the Australian government’s refrain. Australian government officials ‘don’t provide running commentaries on legal matters before the courts in other parts of the world’, asserted the Foreign Minister.
Australia is ‘not a party to the legal proceedings in the United Kingdom’, stressed a DFAT official when asked why Australia had not intervened in Assange’s case during Senate Estimates. ‘We have no standing in the legal matter that is currently before the courts.’
Perhaps the Australian government doesn’t understand the seriousness of the abuses taking place in the UK. Perhaps ministers and their advisors are unaware of the difference between psychological torture and a ‘legal matter’. Psychological torture is, after all, not commonly well understood.
It is possible that the Australian government merely fails to grasp the gravity of ignoring Professor Melzer’s warnings. However, when the group Doctors for Assange wrote to the Australian government in December 2019, they detailed the medical and psychological basis of their concerns for Assange’s life and health…………..
New normal in Australia?
Assange is not the first person in Australia to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Australia’s abuse of asylum seekers and refugees has been found to violate the Convention Against Torture. Aboriginal Australians, among the most incarcerated groups on earth, have been dying in custody, buried under acquiescent consent, for decades, and historically for hundreds of years.
The Human Rights Measurement Index 2019 has given Australia a 5.5 out of 10 rating for ‘freedom from torture’, noting, ‘Torture is a serious problem in Australia … a large range of people [are] at particular risk of torture or ill-treatment, with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders at the top of the list’…….
Through sending a message to journalists worldwide by torturing Assange, the abusive licence deployed against other persecuted groups is being expanded to take in journalism. The targeting of journalists around the world matters because journalists cut across the acquiescence and consent, remove the deadbolt on the torture chamber door, turn down the music, and expose what is going on inside. Every persecuted and abused group or person needs them, to break the cycle of violence by breaking the silence.
We do torture here. It is our problem. In Julian Assange’s case, the biggest problem appears to be that torturing journalists is becoming the new normal in Australia.
The U.S Attorney’s office alleges Byrne and Marsh conspired with other SCANA executives to deceive state and federal government overseers, stock holders and power customers in order to keep funding coming in to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station.
The expansion project cost Santee-Cooper and the defunct South Carolina Electric & Gas over $9 billion before the two entities abandoned the project in July 2017.
In addition, Marsh agreed to waive indictment and arraignment and work with authorities to provide further information on the failed project.
Under the plea agreement, Marsh could be sentenced to serve 18 to 36 months in prison. Marsh has also agreed to pay $5 million in restitution.
GREENPEACE CHALLENGES FRENCH NUCLEAR AUTHORITYhttps://delano.lu/d/detail/news/greenpeace-challenges-french-nuclear-authority/212454, 18.11.2020 • CORDULA SCHNUER Environmental group Greenpeace has lodged an appeal with the French Council of State, claiming the country’s nuclear safety authority acted illegally by failing to assess environmental risks linked to extending the lifespan of nuclear power plants.
The nuclear safety authority (ASN) is in the process of evaluating whether power plants can continue operating past the 40-year lifespan initially programmed for their reactors.
“French nuclear power plants currently in operation were designed to operate for 40 years,” Greenpeace said in a statement on Wednesday. “Beyond that, nuclear reactors enter an ageing phase not foreseen by their engineers and unknown to the operator EDF, with increased risks for the environment and the population.”
The Council of State acts as the supreme court for administrative justice and Greenpeace hopes it will take into account a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union against Belgium.
The country in 2015 had decided to prolong the lifespan of reactors 1 and 2 at the Doel power plant but had to overturn the decision after the EU court in July 2019 faulted the operators for not carrying out an environmental risk assessment.
French energy provider EDF has already begun works to strengthen safety and security at the power plant, it says. But without an environmental risk assessment, Greenpeace said it could not be guaranteed that the works are sufficient. The activists have long campaigned for France to exit nuclear energy.
The legal challenge, if successful, could also benefit Luxembourg.
The reactors of the Cattenom plant–just across the border–went into service between 1986 and 1991, meaning they should be shut off between 2026 and 2031. But operator EDF has launched a procedure to extend Cattenom’s lifespan until at least 2035.
Luxembourg opposes delaying the power plant’s shutting down, even though it procures around 10% of the electricity in its grid from nuclear power and is an investor in EDF through its national pension fund.
BNL lawsuit and the impacts of national nuclear laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory “continues to show almost no regard for its neighbors…Is this any way for a government-funded agency to treat its neighbors?” Nation of Change, By Karl Grossman, November 20, 2020
After nearly 25 years, a lawsuit charging that radioactive discharges from Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York have caused cancers and other illnesses in people in nearby communities is moving forward—still slowly.
BNL after negotiations agreed to settlements of approximately $600,000 for the first two groups of plaintiffs, each with about 18 persons. However, last month a settlement was not agreed to involving the final group of 18 plaintiffs, and New York State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Farneti ordered that a trial be scheduled.
The class action lawsuit, begun in January 1996, charges that the “actions of the defendant were grossly, recklessly and wantonly negligent and were done with an utter disregard for the health, safety, well-being and rights of the plaintiffs.”
It accuses BNL of “failure to observe accepted relevant industry standards in the use, storage and disposal of hazardous and toxic substances” and says BNL itself had been “improperly located” by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission “on top of an underground aquifer which supplies drinking water to a large number of persons.”
Lead attorneys are A. Craig Purcell of Smithtown, Long Island who is a former president of the Suffolk County Bar Association, and Richard J. Lippes, whose Buffalo, New York law firm successfully represented residents of the Love Canal neighborhood near Niagara Falls, severely polluted by the Hooker Chemical Co.
The lawsuit’s title is Osarczuk, et. al, vs. Associated Universities. BarbaraOsarczuk had lived in North Shirley, just outside the BNL boundaries, for 28 years and attributed her thyroid and breast cancer to BNL.
Purcell complains that that BNL “delayed” movement of the lawsuit through the decades. “They appealed everything.” ………
A book on radioactive pollution from BNL causing health impacts to residents of Shirley was published in 2008. Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town was authored by Kelly McMasters of Hofstra University, who grew up in Shirley. The book was the basis of the 2012 TV documentary Atomic States of America.
As Professor McMasters has related in an interview: “I do believe there was a watershed moment in 1960, after the first radioactive leaks occurred, that the federal government or the scientists themselves should have realized that Shirley was the fastest growing town in the county, with a population that doubled within ten years, and that the middle of one of the largest sole-source drinking water aquifers in the country was not the best place for a nuclear laboratory.” http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2008/05/11/interview-kelly-mcmasters-welcome-to-shirley-a-memoir-from-an-atomic-town/
Julian Assange: Three myths destroyed by defence witness statements, Independent Australia, By Sara Chessa | 19 November 2020
Witness statements towards the journalistic integrity of Julian Assange have been heard in court, debunking various myths in the process. Sara Chessa reports from the UK.
THE EXTRADITION HEARING of Julian Assange closed last month in London’s Central Criminal Court, the world-famous “Old Bailey”. We will have to wait until 4 January next year for the decision of the Judge. However, the Court heard impressive and authoritative witness statements highlighting the importance of Assange’s journalistic work and years of smear campaigns carried out by those states which were embarrassed by the way WikiLeaks disclosures made civil society aware of war crimes and the reality of the public interest.
Reconstructing the events starting from these accounts means getting out of the chronic opinionism of our time and taking the first fundamental step to return to the concrete facts. Therefore, while we wait for Judge Vanessa Baraitser to announce her decision, let’s go through the main myths that have been debunked by the witness statements heard at the Old Bailey.
Debunked myth one: On the redaction of the classified documents
The subtle game of the prosecution has been to deny that the charges against Mr Assange are about the disclosure of information that the public had the right to know, such as the Collateral Murder video. They have rather claimed to have identified WikiLeaks fault in the failure to redact the secret papers in deleting names of people who gave information to the American military and intelligence services whose life could have been in danger after the release.
However, several WikiLeaks media partners were heard in Court testifying that strenuous steps had been taken by Wikileaks to redact any names before the release of documents.
John Goetz, the German journalist who collaborated with WikiLeaks on their reporting about the U.S. military Afghan and Iraq War logs before publication, testified under oath that the redaction initiative put in place by Assange was “robust” and had involved a huge investment by WikiLeaks, both financially and in human resources.
The Court also heard from one of the most celebrated whistleblowers in history, former U.S. Marines officer Daniel Ellsberg, best known for leaking to the New York Times in 1970 the huge tranche of U.S. Government documents on the Vietnam War – the “Pentagon Papers” – showing that the American Government had lied to the public from the very beginning of the conflict.
Ellsberg told the packed court that Assange’s approach was the exact opposite of that of a reckless publication. He also explained that the U.S. Government could have prevented sensitive names from being released merely by revealing those that raised concerns, so they could be redacted. They didn’t do this, Ellsberg suggested, so to leave open the possibility of future prosecution………..
Debunked myth two: On the Trump supporters desperately believing he was going to save AssangeIf before September hearings we could have said that only a complete ignorance of the case had led people to think of U.S. President Donald Trump as a “hope” for Assange, now, after listening to the witness statements, we have a complete dossier of facts proving how harshly the incumbent U.S. President is fighting against WikiLeaks and investigative journalism. ………..
Moreover, the naïve vision of Trump as Assange’s saviour does not match with the witness statement of Mark Feldstein, Professor in the Journalism Department of the University of Maryland.
He told the Court that the Trump Administration wanted a “head on a spike” to discourage future leaks.
Feldstein explained that in 2010 and 2011, the Obama Administration wanted to prosecute WikiLeaks. However, the Justice Department stated that this would have been unconstitutional and would have set a precedent that could lead to many other journalists being prosecuted, as Assange’s conduct was “too similar” to that of journalists in hundreds of different newspapers.
However, the Trump Administration decided to prosecute him anyway, leveraging the attempt by Assange to access classified documents. “It can’t be right that the only way journalists can get information is anonymously by post,” Feldstein said, concluding by highlighting that the nature of the accusation showed that the Trump Administration had journalism firmly in its sights.
Debunked myth three: On the fact that Assange prosecution will only destroy his lifeKey witnesses have been clear: Assange’s conviction would criminalise all journalists.
Trevor Timm, the founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told the court that there have been numerous attempts by the U.S. Government to use espionage charges against journalists and none have ever succeeded. His qualified opinion is that this prosecution would mean that any journalist in possession of confidential information could be arrested.
As he explained, if the charges against Assange were applied in 1970, the journalists who revealed the Watergate scandal under the Richard Nixon Administration – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein – could have been thrown in jail under this standard. Reconnecting the issue to the present, he said that if asking a source for classified information is espionage, then the secure “dropbox” systems used by more than 80 publications worldwide to encourage whistleblowers to send them information would also be illegal, since they “solicit classified information” — one of the charges against Assange.
Anti-Nuclear Pacifists Get Federal Prison Terms for Nonviolent Protest, Reader Supported News , By Elise Swain, The Intercept, 17 November 2The most dedicated peace activists you’ve never heard of are headed to federal prison amid a deadly pandemic. ach weekend, while New York City’s East Village packs into sidewalk tables for brunch, activist Carmen Trotta leads a vigil for ending the U.S.-backed war in Yemen in Tompkins Square Park. He only has a few more Saturday mornings before he must report to federal prison, along with fellow activists from Plowshares, the anti-nuclear, Christian pacifist movement. Despite a lethal pandemic ravaging prison populations, Trotta, Martha Hennessy, Clare Grady, and Patrick O’Neill are due to report to prison within the next few months for activism against a suspected nuclear weapons depot.
More than two years ago, Trotta and Hennessy, two of seven activists known as the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven, peacefully broke into the naval base in Brunswick, Georgia — risking their own lives to protest the suspected nuclear arsenal housed within. Armed only with vials of their own blood, hammers, GoPro cameras, spray paint, protest banners, and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s book, the activists symbolically attempted to disarm the nuclear weapons located on the Trident submarines at the base.
The nonviolent direct action took place on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Far out of the spotlight of major media coverage, all but one of the activists have quietly been sentenced in their faith-based battle with the U.S. government over the “immoral” possession of nuclear weapons. The activists were charged with three felonies — conspiracy, destruction of government property, depredation — and misdemeanor trespassing.
The sentencing — sending aging activists to federal prisons amid the coronavirus pandemic — fits squarely within the long history of the U.S. government throwing the book at people of conscience who dare to dissent. President Donald Trump’s acceleration of heavy-handed federal charges against protesters have drawn critical media attention.
Yet activists like those in the Plowshares community, whose protests garner less attention, are suffering at the hands of a bipartisan consensus on harsh crackdowns related to direct action against so-called defense policies. Under the rubric of national security, the persecutions of figures like Chelsea Manning, Daniel Everette Hale, or Reality Winner become polarized or fail to raise public ire, when they are noticed at all.
That was the case last week, when few took note of the latest Plowshares sentences. Trotta, 58; Hennessy, 65; along with Grady, 62, were sentenced by Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in individual virtual court sessions. Trotta got 14 months, Grady was given 12 months and one day, and Hennessy was sentenced to 10 months; all were ordered to pay restitution and were given years of supervised release. As cases of Covid-19 engulfed Georgia, the defendants reluctantly agreed to proceed with their sentencing without appearing in person. Only Mark Colville, 59, has yet to be sentenced. Colville refuses to travel to Georgia because of the coronavirus and will not give up his constitutional right to an in-person sentencing before the court. ………….. https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/66270-anti-nuclear-pacifists-get-federal-prison-terms-for-nonviolent-protest
Ohio Attorney General Sues To Stop New Charges For Nuclear Bailout https://radio.wosu.org/post/ohio-attorney-general-sues-stop-new-charges-nuclear-bailout#stream/0 By KAREN KASLER 16 Nov 20, •There are only a few weeks until Ohio’s controversial nuclear bailout law is set to add new charges to residents’ electric bills. With no repeal yet of HB6, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed a second lawsuit seeking to stop those rate increases.
Yost’s suit seeks to immediately stop the collection of $2.35 in monthly charges on all Ohio electric bills. Those charges would start January 1 and total $150 million a year statewide – with the money bound for Ohio’s two nuclear power plants, as well as coal and solar subsidies.
A lawsuit Yost filed in September sought to stop the money from going to Energy Harbor, the former FirstEnergy subsidiary that now owns the nuclear plants. However, even if the suit were successful, it would not prevent the charges from being collected in the first place.
The cities of Columbus and Cincinnati have filed a civil lawsuit to halt the bailout fee and strike down HB6, claiming that the law is an unconstitutional lending of state credit to a private enterprise.
There are currently four bills under consideration at the Ohio Statehouse that would repeal HB6. Three would seek a full repeal, while the fourth would eliminate the ratepayer subsidies but retain the law’s cuts to renewable energy standards and elimination of energy efficiency standards.
Federal investigators say HB6 became law as part of a $61 million bribery scheme involving Republican former House Speaker Larry Householder, four associates, the dark money group Generation Now, and a utility believed to be FirstEnergy. Two people have so far pleaded guilty to the racketeering charges.
While FirstEnergy is not charged yet in the federal case and has defended itself against any allegations of misconduct, several executives – including CEO Chuck Jones – have been fired for violating company policy.
ach weekend, while New York City’s East Village packs into sidewalk tables for brunch, activist Carmen Trotta leads a vigil for ending the U.S.-backed war in Yemen in Tompkins Square Park. He only has a few more Saturday mornings before he must report to federal prison, along with fellow activists from Plowshares, the anti-nuclear, Christian pacifist movement. Despite a lethal pandemic ravaging prison populations, Trotta, Martha Hennessy, Clare Grady, and Patrick O’Neill are due to report to prison within the next few months for activism against a suspected nuclear weapons depot.
nuclear-news 