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In USA, A National Campaign Emerges to Prevent Nuclear War

Preventing Nuclear War: A National Campaign Emerges https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/04/preventing-nuclear-war-national-campaign-emerges

Nationally this effort is bringing together social, environmental and economic justice communities recognizing that their concerns are all connected and that there is no greater insult, impact or effect to each of these than nuclear war, by Robert Dodge

A national collaborative grassroots coalition to abolish nuclear weapons is rapidly emerging in this country. The effort called “Back from the Brink: A Call to Prevent Nuclear War” started last fall after the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by 122 nations with the U.S. and other nuclear nations boycotting. The campaign endorses the Treaty and important protective policies such as ending the President’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack, renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first, taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, and canceling U.S. plans to replace its entire nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons. This Call was crafted by dozens of organizations including Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Soka Gakkai International.

Nationally this effort is bringing together social, environmental and economic justice communities recognizing that their concerns are all connected and that there is no greater insult, impact or effect to each of these than nuclear war. Our families, children and communities have a right to exist in a world free of this threat.

The driving force for this movement has been the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons and the recognition that there is no meaningful medical or humanitarian response to nuclear war. It is fitting that in August, 73 years after the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9th, 1945 respectively that significant progress was made in the U.S toward the elimination of these weapons.

Following the U.S. Council of Mayors’ unanimous adoption of the Resolution at their annual June meeting in Boston where it was sponsored by Mayor Franklin Cownie of Des Moines, Iowa, the Los Angeles and Baltimore City Councils unanimously adopted the Resolution on August 8 and 6th respectively. Eleven other cities around the nation as well as over 150 faith organizations, NGOs, and thousands of individuals have done so as well.

Taking the national lead, the California Legislature passed Assemblywoman Monique Limón’s AJR 33  in the State Assembly on August 20th and Senate on August 28th. This measure from the nation’s largest state and 6th largest global economy, urges our federal leaders and our nation to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, to make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of our national security policy, and to spearhead a global effort to prevent nuclear war. The Call itself empowers everyone from individual citizens to organizations, communities and states to take action in the international movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

The rest of the world is speaking out for nuclear disarmament as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is being ratified. Once ratified by 50 nation states, it will ban nuclear weapons, just as every other weapon of mass destruction including chemical and biological weapons have been banned. Open for signature since last September, presently there are 60 nations that have signed the Treaty and 14 nations who have ratified it, the latest being New Zealand who ratified in July.

We the people of the U.S. must join this international effort. As the only nuclear nation to have used these immoral weapons and one who maintains ~45% of the 14,400 global weapons, we have a moral and legal responsibility as a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to work for the complete abolition of these weapons.

Nuclear war must never be fought and cannot be won. The only way to prevent this is by the complete abolition of these weapons. The existence of these weapons and the threat they pose is a threat that does not have to be. This is a threat invented by man and is a threat that man can eliminate. It is not a threat that will magically go away or that “they” will take care of. It is a threat that we the people must demand be eliminated. In a functional democracy, it is imperative that all citizens make their voices heard.

September 4, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

French and German anti nuclear campaigners block uranium transport

Reporterre 1st Sept 2018  [Machine Translation] Since the morning of Saturday, September 1, several anti-nuclear Franco-German militants block a uranium transport.

They climbed a bridge 140 m high near Koblenz, Germany, blocking the railway on the Moselle, informs us the group Contratom Deutschland. The blocked train carries ” Yellow Cake ” from Namibia ; it left Hamburg on Thursday for the Orano uranium conversion plant in Narbonne Malvesi, in the south of France.
In Narbonne, uranium is transformed into UF4 and then used, after several transformations and enrichment, in nuclear power plants around the world. According to Orano, the Narbonne plant processes 25% of the world’s uranium.

“If we want to get out of the nuclear industry, ” says Cécile, a French climber living in Germany who takes part in the action, ” we must stop these transports and prevent them from reaching the Orano factory in
Narbonne Malvési, the gateway to European nuclear energy.

Germany, a net exporter of electricity, unlike political discourse, does not come out quite nuclear. The transports supplying the nuclear facilities continue and the Framatome Nuclear Fuel Plant in Lingen (Lower Saxony) and Urenco’s uranium enrichment plant in Gronau (North Westphalia) continue to operate. That’s why we want to stop nuclear transport. ”

https://reporterre.net/Un-train-d-uranium-a-destination-de-Narbonne-bloque-en-Allemagne

September 3, 2018 Posted by | Germany, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Call for immediate removal of nuclear waste from San Onofre area

Environmental Group Wants Immediate Removal of Nuclear Waste From San Onofre Area,  https://www.theinertia.com/environment/an-environmental-group-is-pushing-for-the-transport-of-nuclear-waste-away-from-san-o-stat/   Dylan Heyden, 30 Aug 18, 

The ever-evolving situation at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station and its nuclear waste problem has become a hot-button issue for residents of San Clemente, Oceanside, and beyond. It’s immensely complex, but allow me, if you will, to oversimplify.

Spent nuclear fuel goes through a years-long cooling process in pools before it can be moved to dry storage where it further cools until it is safe for transport to long-term storage. “Long-term” storage facility, though, is a misnomer. It’s essentially the permanent resting place for nuclear waste stored in extremely thick metal canisters. The problem at San Onofre and many decommissioned nuclear generation stations across the country, though, is there is no long-term storage facility. Or rather, one was planned for an area called Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but in 2011 the Feds pulled the plug. As a result, short-term solutions have become defacto long-term solutions, which is where we are today at San Onofre.

Back in February, Southern California Edison and contractors involved in the SONGS decommissioning process began transferring spent nuclear fuel from pools to dry storage – or dry cask storage. Tens of thick metal canisters of spent nuclear fuel have since been stored on site adjacent to the generators beneath a concrete pad called the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI).

When I toured the facility back in May (more on that later), SoCal Edison employees were adamant that public safety was of the utmost importance, and that these thick metal casks were not “buried in the sand” but rather safely stored in concrete for the interim. Employees also emphasized that Southern California Edison’s goal is to move the spent fuel as expeditiously and safely as possible. “Don’t forget, our families go in the ocean nearby, too,” many said.

But Congressional gridlock and an inability to designate a feasible long-term storage site means what was once thought to be a safer short-term solution (dry storage is passive and doesn’t require energy to cool as in cooling pools) may need re-thinking.

That’s why a group of activists, called the Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles recently launched a letter-writing campaign urging the California State Lands Commission to authorize the local transfer of spent nuclear fuel to an area further east in Camp Pendleton.

“3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego is currently in the process of being buried on the beach, just 100 feet from the ocean and a mere few feet above the water table,” their website reads. “Send in a comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and demand a better solution: the nuclear waste should be moved off the beach to a new, above-ground concrete-reinforced temporary storage facility located further east in Camp Pendleton—where it can be protected from sea level rise and potential terrorist attack.”

A sub-group of PSRLA called the Committee to Bridge the Gap has created a petition page, urging concerned citizens to put their name on a letter voicing their discontent.

According to their website, the group claims this revised plan has garnered the support of former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chief Greg Jaczko, U.S. government advisor on nuclear waste Tom English, and retired Navy Admiral Len Herring.

The campaign explains that the failure to even consider the idea of moving the fuel east of the primary ISFSI site is a serious oversight on the part of those involved in the decommissioning process.

The letter PSRLA is urging residents to sign implores the State Lands Commission to step in. “As public servants and members of the CSLC you have a moral duty to protect our safety. Please do not take that responsibility lightly,” it says.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Aboriginal group’s unwavering struggle against uranium mining in Western Australia

Fighting for life in the “place of death”https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/08/27/fighting-for-life-in-the-place-of-death/ August 27, 2018 by beyondnuclearinternationa

Traditional owners won’t give up 40-year opposition to Yeelirrie uranium mine,  By Linda Pentz Gunter

In the local Aboriginal language, the name Yeelirrie means to weep or mourn. It is referred to as a “place of death.” Yeelirrie is on Tjiwarl Native Title lands in Western Australia, where it has long been faithfully protected by Aboriginal traditional owners. The Seven Sisters Dreaming songline is there. It is home to many important cultural sites. And for 40 years, due to resolute indigenous opposition, and thousands of community submissions of protest, it had been spared plans by the Canadian mining company, Cameco, to plunder it for uranium.

The earth guardians know that such a desecration would cause the extinction of multiple species of subterranean fauna. It would release death. It would destroy Yeelirrie.

Now the fate of those tiny creatures hangs in the balance, their future in the hands of three brave women, backed by environmental organizations, after the outgoing Western Australian government decided to allow the Yeelirrie uranium mine project to go forward.

That decision was made in January 2017, despite the fact that, in August 2016, the Western Australia Environmental Protection Agency (WAEPA) had recommended that the Yeelirrie project be rejected. 

The Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA), which is engaged in contesting the uranium mining permit for Yeelirrie, said the WAEPA had rejected the Yeelirrie mine plan “on the grounds that the project is inconsistent with three of the objectives of the Environmental Protection Act — the Precautionary Principle, the Principle of conservation of biological diversity, and the Principle of intergenerational equity. The EPA decision was based on the overwhelming evidence that the project would make several species of subterranean fauna extinct.”

But former Minister for Environment, Albert Jacob, threw all that aside to approve the Yeelirrie mine in the waning days of Western Australia’s Liberal government, now replaced by Labor, which came in on a mandate to end uranium mining that it now may not be able to enforce.

In February 2018, CCWA and three members of the Tjiwarl community initiated proceedings in the Western Australia Supreme Court in an attempt to invalidate the approval decision made by Jacob. The case was dismissed by the court, a decision said CCWA executive director, Piers Verstegen, that shows that “our environmental laws are deeply inadequate,” and “confines species to extinction with the stroke of a pen.”

However, while the decision was a set-back, Verstegen said, “it’s absolutely not the end of the road for Yeelirrie or the other uranium mines that are being strongly contested here in Western Australia.”

Accordingly, CCWA and the three Tjiwarl women — Shirley Wonyabong, Elizabeth Wonyabong, and Vicky Abdullah (pictured left to right above the headline) vow to fight on, and have begun proceedings in the WA Court of Appeal to review the Supreme Court decision.

“I grew up here, my ancestors were Traditional Owners of country, and I don’t want a toxic legacy here for my grandchildren,” Abdullah told Western Australia Today in an August 2017 article.

“We have no choice but to defend our country, our culture, and the environment from the threat of uranium mining — not just for us but for everyone.”

Yeelirrie is one of four uranium mines proposed for Western Australia. The other three are Vimy’s Mulga Rock project, Toro Energy’s Wiluna project, and Cameco’s and Mitsubishi’s Kintyre project. Each of them is home to precious species, but Yeelirrie got special attention from the WAEPA because the proposed mine there would cause actual extinctions of 11 species, mostly tiny underground creatures that few people ever see.

According to a new animated short film, produced by the Western Australia Nuclear-Free Alliance, all four of these proposed mines could irreparably damage wildlife, habitat and the health of the landscape and the people and animals who depend on it. The film highlights Yeelirrie, but also describes the other three proposed uranium mines and the threats they pose.

At Mulga Rock, in the Queen Victoria Desert, the site is home to the Sandhill Dunnart, the Marsupial Mole, the Mulgara and the Rainbow Bee Eater, according to the film.

Wiluna, a unique desert lake system, could see uranium mining across two salt lakes that would leave 50 million tonnes of radioactive mine waste on the shores of Lake Way, which is prone to flooding.

The Kintyre uranium deposit was excluded from the protection of the Karlamilyi National Park within which it sits so that uranium could be mined there. It is a fragile desert ecosystem where 28 threatened species would be put at risk, including the Northern Quoll, Greater Bilby, Crest Tailed Mulgara, Marsupial Mole and Rock Wallaby.

At Yeelirrie, says the CCWA, “Cameco plans to construct a 9km open mine pit and uranium processing plant. The project would destroy 2,421 hectares of native vegetation and generate 36 million tonnes of radioactive mine waste to be stored in open pits.”

The mine would likely operate for 22 years and use 8.7 million litres of water a day. 

Under Australian laws, ‘nuclear actions’ like the Yeelirrie proposal also require approval by the Federal Environment Minister. CCWA and Nuclear-Free Western Australia, have launched a campaign directed at Federal Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, calling for a halt to the Yeelirrie mine, given the immense risk it poses to “unique subterranean fauna that have been found nowhere else on the planet.” They point out that the Minister has the opportunity to “protect these unique species from becoming extinct.

“Species have a right to life no matter how great or small,” they wrote. “One extinction can massively disrupt an entire ecosystem. No one should have the right to knowingly eliminate an entire species from our planet forever.”

August 29, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, Uranium | Leave a comment

UK Protest rally against nuclear power station mud dump

Hundreds protest against nuclear power station mud dump, BBC News 27 August 2018 

Hundreds of campaigners have gathered outside the Senedd over plans to move mud dredged from alongside a new nuclear power plant to near Cardiff.

Developers want to dump 300,000 tonnes of mud off Cardiff Bay from Somerset’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power site.

Protesters want more tests before the move can happen and the licence granted by Natural Resources Wales revoked……….campaigners claim it could be contaminated by discharges from the old Hinkley Point A and B and argue the mud has not been adequately tested……..

Labour AM Mike Hedges said the mud samples and data should be made available to “external” experts while David Melding, a Conservative, said he was “satisfied that [the samples] do meet the standards as set by international law”. ….https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45322712

August 29, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Nevada residents strongly opposing proposed Yucca Mountain dump scheme

As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, his State Agency for Nuclear Project’s executive director, Robert Halstead, and other Silver State officials, have recommitted to yet another round of resistance in 2019 to the high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at them since the enactment of the “Screw Nevada bill” of 1987.
With election day 2018 a couple months away, Nevada’s U.S. Senate candidates, Dean Heller (Republican incumbent) and Jacky Rosen (Democratic challenger, currently a U.S. House member from southern Nevada), vie to prove they are the most opposed — and most effectively opposed — to Yucca, in a state where the vast majority of voters oppose the dump. As Judy Treichel of the environmental non-profit Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force wrote in an op-ed to the Las Vegas Suna year and a half ago, “Nevada is the Battle Born state and after 30 years we still say ‘No.'”
 Ian Zabarte Principal Man of the Western Bands of Shoshone Indians, and secretary of the Native Community Action Council (NCAC), has achieved hard won legal standing, in opposition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of the Yucca dump, in the biggest proceeding in the agency’s history. (NCAC has also been appointed to the NRC’s Yucca Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel.) The 1863 “peace and friendship” Treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by the U.S. government with the Western Shoshone, is clear evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy lacks title to the land and water at the site, so cannot legally proceed with construction and operation of the $100 billion+ dump.
 More than a thousand environmental, and environmental justice, organizations across the U.S., including Beyond Nuclear, have joined the “we do NOT consent!” coalition opposed to the Yucca dump over the past 32 years. Please take action to help block this environmental injustice, targeted at a scientifically unsuitable site, by urging your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators, to oppose H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018, and any other legislation that would speed the dump’s opening, increase how much waste could be buried there, launch unprecedented numbers of Mobile Chernobyl shipments through most states, etc. You can phone your Congress Members’ D.C. offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. To learn more, see our Yucca Mountain website section.

August 24, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Peace activists are an aging group – but their cause is very much a matter for now!

Peace activists are aging — but all those nuclear weapons RIGHT OVER THERE are just as threatening as ever August 23, 2018 With so many social justice issues to consider, most of today’s young  activists are taking a pass on the peace train.  Seattle Times, By Ron Judd

 Pacific NW magazine writer ADE LAUW WOULD LIKE to upset you. Maybe even ruin part of your day or, better yet, question your very existence.

None of this is born of surliness. She simply has assigned herself a civic duty (remember those?): to make the rest of us look unimaginably destructive nuclear weapons in the eye. Or, failing that, at least glance at them over our shoulders, where surprising numbers of nukes have long lurked, right on Puget Sound.

At age 20, the University of Washington senior already has enough experience in anti-nuclear activism to accept the reality: Most local people, natives or newbies, are willfully ignorant about the massive stockpile of nukes — a number sufficient to wipe out a good portion of the planet — sleeping in their midst every day.

Lauw thus leaves herself open to the charge of being Not Much Fun at Parties, one of which she recently dampened by asking celebrants whether they knew about the still-lingering radiation effects of U.S. weapons-testing in Micronesia, nearly seven decades ago.

“People were like, ‘Are you drunk?’ ” she recalls.

Sober as a judge. And frustrated. Her university peers, she points out, are far from alone in paying as little attention as is humanly possible to the unpleasant subject of nukes, which, since the Cold War that gave birth to them, have become broadly accepted as a safe/sane part of America’s military deterrence. Even many Americans old enough to remember the big bomb’s coming-out party tend to think of them as a relic of their own dusty, duck-and-cover past.

THE BACKSTORY: The story behind “Peace activists are aging — but all those nuclear weapons RIGHT OVER THERE are just as threatening as ever”………

All is fair on the road to nuclear awareness. Sugiyama says she does see progress among her generation, but much of that has been fueled by fear induced by Trump’s open talk of nuking U.S. foes.

“More people are afraid of nuclear weapons now,” she says.

At age 20, the University of Washington senior already has enough experience in anti-nuclear activism to accept the reality: Most local people, natives or newbies, are willfully ignorant about the massive stockpile of nukes — a number sufficient to wipe out a good portion of the planet — sleeping in their midst every day.

Lauw thus leaves herself open to the charge of being Not Much Fun at Parties, one of which she recently dampened by asking celebrants whether they knew about the still-lingering radiation effects of U.S. weapons-testing in Micronesia, nearly seven decades ago.

“People were like, ‘Are you drunk?’ ” she recalls.

Sober as a judge. And frustrated. Her university peers, she points out, are far from alone in paying as little attention as is humanly possible to the unpleasant subject of nukes, which, since the Cold War that gave birth to them, have become broadly accepted as a safe/sane part of America’s military deterrence. Even many Americans old enough to remember the big bomb’s coming-out party tend to think of them as a relic of their own dusty, duck-and-cover past.

Human nature being what it is, it’s easy to look away. And most of us do.

The average Puget Sound resident probably spends more time worrying about proper accounting procedures in the occasional Seattle’s Best Burger poll than freaking out about the massive concentration of nuclear warheads sitting 20 miles from downtown Seattle, as the radiation flies.

THAT’S THE FRUSTRATION — and motivation — lurking within a shrunken-but-persistent local peace movement, which blossomed in the late 1970s and early 1980s with large-scale Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Actionprotests of the arrival of the first Ohio-class nuclear-missile submarines at the Naval Base Kitsap ….

THE BIGGEST WEAPON in the quiver of local anti-nuke evangelists, ironically, might be Donald J. Trump. Most local peace activists agree that the president’s bellicose threat of the use of nuclear weapons against foes such as North Korea and Iran has been a shot of cold water to the face of a slumbering public.

But the presence of Trump’s finger on the button, in an “outdated and dangerous” Cold War missile-launch system, also pushes the world closer to a nuclear confrontation, Adams says.

Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review earlier this year was a “dangerous departure” from the recent bipartisan tradition of pushing disarmament, and advocates the development of more “low-yield” devices that critics say enhance the chances of a nuclear exchange, Adams adds………….Ron Judd is a Pacific NW magazine staff writer. Reach him at rjudd@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8280. On Twitter: @roncjudd.   https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/peace-activists-are-aging-but-all-those-nuclear-weapons-right-over-there-are-just-as-threatening-as-ever/

August 24, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Canadian govt is urged to stop producing nuclear waste until we can dispose of it

August 22, 2018 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Australian Aboriginal group win injunction to halt vote on nuclear waste dumping

 

South Australian Aboriginal group wins injunction to halt nuclear ballot http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-16/aboriginal-group-wins-injunction-to-halt-nuclear-ballot/10129292, By Claire Campbell  

A community vote on the proposed nuclear waste dump on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has been delayed after an Aboriginal group won a court injunction.

Key points:

  • The Federal Government has shortlisted Kimba for Australia’s future nuclear waste dump
  • The Barngarla Aboriginal people have won an injunction to halt a community vote
  • The Supreme Court will hear the case next Thursday

The Barngarla people, the traditional owners of much of the Eyre Peninsula, applied for an injunction to halt the vote in South Australia’s Supreme Court, arguing it contravened the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

Lawyers for the Aboriginal group argued the District Council of Kimba did not have the power to conduct the postal ballot, which was due to begin on Monday.

The Federal Government has shortlisted two sites near Kimba as possible locations for a low-level radioactive waste storage facility, along with four other sites around Australia

The lawyer representing the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation, Daniel O’Gorman SC, told the court his clients had no issue with the vote going ahead, they just wanted to be included in it.

“That’s all they want, they just want to be included, they don’t want to be treated any differently because their rights are Aboriginal rights,” he said.

The court heard the majority of the 211 native title holders lived outside the boundary of the Kimba District Council and that excluding them from the vote had the effect “of nullifying or impairing their rights”.

But Michael Burnett, representing the District Council of Kimba, told the court its power to conduct the postal vote came from the Local Government Act.

He said the council wanted to conduct the vote in a fair manner and decided the fairest manner was to comply with “the statutory procedure that applies in the case of elections”.

“It’s not a vote that has direct consequences … it’s part of a range of consultations that will be taken into account,” he said.

Mr Burnett said there were direct consultations taking place with native title holders about the proposed sites, a claim which Mr O’Gorman rejected.

“They’re getting two bites of the cherry and therein lies the exclusion, [the native title holders are] only getting one,” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr Burnett questioned why the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation had waited until August to seek an injunction when they had known about the vote since May.

But Mr O’Gorman said the corporation had written to the District Council of Kimba on six occasions seeking to be included in the postal vote and council had only made its final decision on July 27.

The vote of around 800 residents who live in Kimba will be delayed until after a full court hearing next Thursday.

August 17, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Rally in Ontario town against nuclear waste dumping

Hornepayne residents rally against nuclear waste storage https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/hornepayne-nuclear-waste-1.4783656  Tuesday’s rally includes march, guest speakers, Aug 14, 2018 

People in Hornepayne will show their opposition to the possibility that the town will be chosen as a site to store nuclear waste.

Hornepayne is one of five Ontario communities being considered by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to host an underground storage facility for nuclear waste.

But rally organizer Alison Morrison doesn’t think the benefits outweigh the risks.

Morrison said the three potential sites around Hornepayne are well outside of the community, and wouldn’t contribute to the tax base. She also has concerns over the project’s impact on tourism, and notes there isn’t any housing available in Hornepayne for those working at a nuclear waste storage site.

“I’m not seeing how we’re going to get economic benefit from this industry coming here,” she said. “There might be a little bit, but is it worth the risks of nuclear, and all the negative connotations?”  No decision about whether or not Hornepayne will host a storage site has been made.

The NWMO website states preliminary site assessments are taking place in the Hornepayne area. The agency’s current plans say those assessments could be complete by about 2022, but the project will only move forward if the communities themselves are interested.

Tuesday’s rally begins at 3 p.m. at Rock’s Hunt Camp, at Highway 631 South and Airport Road.

After that, a march will take place, ending at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 194, where an address by Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility will take place.

August 15, 2018 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Tens of thousands rally for removal of US base off Okinawa

 https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-rally-for-removal-of-us-base-off-okinawa-20180812-p4zx0r.html, By Mari Yamaguchi 12 August 2018 —  Tokyo:  Tens of thousands of protesters in Okinawa vowed to stop the planned relocation of a U.S military base, saying they want it off the southern Japanese island entirely.

August 13, 2018 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Arrests of USA activists protesting against nuclear weapons

Arrests at nuclear sites mark 73rd anniversary of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki http://www.nukeresister.org/2018/08/07/arrests-at-nuclear-sites-mark-73rd-anniversary-of-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/  from the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Activists honor Catholic archbishop, who was a prophetic voice for peace, on anniversary of atomic bombingby Leonard Eiger Silverdale, Washington: Activists blockaded the West Coast nuclear submarine base that would likely carry out a nuclear strike against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) should President Donald Trump give the order.

Activists with Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action held a vigil at the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor Main Gate beginning on the evening of August 5th and continuing into the morning of August 6th, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Approximately sixty activists were present at the morning vigil, and twelve participated in a nonviolent direct action in which participants blockaded the base at the peak of the morning shift change by carrying a banner onto the roadway of the main entrance gate.

The banner read, “Trident is the Auschwitz of Puget Sound – Raymond Hunthausen.”

The activists stopped traffic entering the base for ten minutes before being removed from the roadway by Washington State Patrol Officers, cited for being in the roadway illegally, and released on the scene.

The twelve activists cited are Phil Davis, Bremerton, WA; Susan Delaney, Bothell, WA; Lisa Johnson, Silverdale, WA; Mack Johnson, Silverdale, WA; Ann Kittredge, Quilcene, WA; James Knight, Altadena, CA; Brenda McMillan, Port Townsend, WA; Elizabeth Murray, Poulsbo, WA; George Rodkey, Tacoma, WA; Ryan Scott Rosenboom, Bothell, WA; Michael Siptroth, Belfair, WA; and Jade Takushi.

Raymond Hunthausen, retired archbishop of Seattle, died on July 22nd at age 96. Frank Fromherz, author of the the soon to be released book, “A Disarming Spirit: The Life of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen,” said of Hunthausen:

“It was in the early 1980s that Archbishop Hunthausen denounced the Trident nuclear submarine fleet harbored in his archdiocese, famously calling it ‘the Auschwitz of Puget Sound.’ His opposition inspired Catholics worldwide, but gained him powerful opponents in the U.S. government during the era of President Reagan’s military buildup. Catholic peace activist Jim Douglass, a native of British Columbia, introduced Archbishop Hunthausen to the practice of contemplative nonviolent direct action.”

Douglass once described his longtime friend as ‘a holy prophet of nonviolence in the nuclear age.’ In what would become a truly historic address on June 12, 1981 at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Hunthausen spoke these prophetic words: ‘Our security as people of faith lies not in demonic weapons, which threaten all life on earth. Our security is in a loving, caring God. We must dismantle our weapons of terror and place our reliance on God.’”

Eight of the US Navy’s fourteen Trident ballistic missile submarines are based at the Bangor Trident base, which is just 20 miles west of Seattle. It is home to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the US. The W76 and W88 warheads at Bangor are equal respectively to 100 kilotons and 455 kilotons of TNT in destructive force (the bomb dropped on Hirosima was between 13 and 18 kilotons). The Trident bases at Bangor and Kings Bay, Georgia, when combined, represent just over half of all warheads deployed by the United States.

While the US has been calling for the complete denuclearization of North Korea, it continues to modernize and upgrade its nuclear weapons and delivery systems, among them the Trident system. It has declared, along with some other nuclear weapon states, that it will never sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also known as the Ban Treaty.

Monday morning’s action was the culmination of a weekend commemorating the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. Activities included keynote presentations by former CIA officer and peace activist Ray McGovern, and Backbone Campaign executive director Bill Moyer. Activists at Ground Zero Center also welcomed participants of the Interfaith Peace Walk and held a waterborne protest, “Boats by Bangor,” on Hood Canal by the Bangor base waterfront where Trident submarines are prepared for their patrols.

The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was founded in 1977. The center is on 3.8 acres adjoining the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington. We offer the opportunity to explore the roots of violence and injustice in our world and to experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. We resist all nuclear weapons, especially the Trident ballistic missile system.

August 11, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Religion and ethics, USA | 2 Comments

Volunteer activists credited with getting compensation for former nuclear workers

   https://triblive.com/local/valleynewsdispatch/13956792-74/volunteer-activists-credited-with-getting-compensation-for-former-nuclear-workers MARY ANN THOMAS  | Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018 

The volunteer efforts of a Hyde Park environmental activist and a retired Washington Township engineer helped about 300 former nuclear workers in the region collect $80 million from the federal government for cancers likely caused by their jobs.

A federal entitlement program that was enacted in 2000, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program pays $150,000 tax-free, plus medical benefits, to workers who became ill, because of their work for the government or contractors for nuclear weapons and Cold War-related work. The illnesses covered include being diagnosed with one of 22 types of cancers.

Among the workers who’ve benefited from the program include former employees of Alcoa in New Kensington, Westinghouse Nuclear Fuels Division in Cheswick and the Westinghouse Atomic Power Development plant in East Pittsburgh

But that program fell short for workers from the former Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. because many of the workers or their families couldn’t find the required medical records and the company couldn’t come up with the required documentation.

Zero worker claims approved

In September of 2002, none of the 115 claims filed by workers were approved for the former Nuclear and Material and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Apollo and Parks Township. Historically, roughly about half of the claimants for the program in Pennsylvania worked at NUMEC, which produced nuclear fuel for submarines and other government projects. The plants, which have been razed, operated from the late 1950s until 2004.

A number of NUMEC workers had cancers recognized by the Energy Employees program for being caused by overexposure to radiation.

After learning of their plight, the Tribune Review’s Valley News Dispatch asked a Washington D.C. nonprofit in 2002 to review NUMEC’s health records and documentation from Patty Ameno, a Hyde Park environmental activist.

The Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group for worker health and safety in the nuclear weapons industry, reviewed the newspaper’s information and secured more records through a Freedom of Information Act request to the federal government.

The preliminary review found that some NUMEC workers were exposed to radiation levels hundreds of times greater than the health standards in place at the time.

NUMEC exposures included: Workers at the Apollo plant’s incinerator from 1966 to 1967 received between eight to 40 times the lung burden for a 50-year committed dose. Personnel, who had already been exposed to excessive concentrations of radiation, received additional exposures to airborne plutonium in the mid-1960s. The government authority then, the Atomic Energy Commission, attributed the additional contamination to the company’s inadequate evaluations of airborne contaminants in restricted areas.

Going to Illinois

Ameno spearheaded a successful petition for NUMEC workers to receive a special designation, known as a “special cohort,” for workers to be automatically accepted into the program if they met certain criteria such as being diagnosed with one of 22 cancers and working for the company for at least 250 days.

She traveled to Naperville, Ill., in October of 2007 to testify before the President’s Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. Also traveling to to testify was Tom Haley of Washington Township, a former NUMEC engineer and Richard Parler, another NUMEC worker.

“NUMEC was continually defiant in adhering to laws, regulations, directives, professional standards and worker health and safety standards and therefore habitually violated them,” Ameno said in her testimony.

Looking back, Ameno said, “It’s been a long road. I hope in the scheme of things that it has allowed some semblance of comfort and vindication for the family of those former workers.”

Ameno credits her arsenal of company confidential documents that showing many of the worker exposures. Workers gave Ameno the documents over the years and a series of lawsuits, which she spearheaded against NUMEC and its successors, yielded even more documents.

Those lawsuits settled for $92 million against NUMEC’s successors, the Atlantic Richfield Co., and Babcock & Wilcox for wrongful death, personal injury and property damage from the nuclear plants’ emissions. The companies have always maintained that the plant operations didn’t cause the cancers or other damages.

Haley’s testimony included tales of potentially high worker exposures that weren’t reported by the company. The situation was sometimes made worse by the workers themselves, he added, when they knowingly compromised their urine tests so they could continue to work in the plant.

Haley and Ameno were happy to include the workers in the NUMEC administration for the compensation program, where Haley testified there were nuclear materials present and worked with in the building’s basement.

“I am very pleased to see our efforts have helped so many of my fellow, former workers,” said Haley, “and their families to bear the pain, stress and cost of such a terrible disease, not to mention the loss of their loved ones.”

The Advisory Board granted NUMEC workers the special status, becoming only the fourth such work site in the country at that time. Since then, former NUMEC workers have accounted for the lion’s share of federal benefits paid through the compensation program — $60 million.

Thedecision to grant NUMEC workers special status was based on Ameno’s and other’s presentation on the lack of company records to conduct accurate dose reconstruction for workers and evidence demonstrating that some workers may have “accumulated substantial chronic exposures through episodic intakes of radionucleotides, combined with external exposures to gamma, beta, and neutron radiation.”

Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary Ann at 724-226-4691, mthomas@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MaThomas_Trib.

August 10, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Over 120 organisations working to get rid of New York’s subsidies to nuclear power

More than 120 groups push NY to lift broad nuclear subsidies. by Associated Press & CNYCentral , August 7th 2018 ALBANY, N.Y. — Some 130 environmental groups are taking aim at New York’s nuclear subsidies.

The coalition, led by the Alliance for a Green Economy, wrote to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday urging him to overhaul the subsidies so New Yorkers who would prefer cleaner forms of energy can opt out. Groups including Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and Food and Water Watch signed on to the letter.

Under a two-year-old policy, New York utility customers pay extra each month to support aging upstate nuclear plants. The subsidy could raise as much as $7.6 billion over several years.

The James A. Fitzpatrick nuclear plant in Scriba, in Oswego County, was in danger of closing in 2016 just before the state announced it would subsidize the plants.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry toured the plant with Rep. John Katko last week, where the issue of subsidies came up. Katko said he disagrees with Cuomo at times but applauded his effort to keep the FitzPatrick plant open.

…. Critics say consumers shouldn’t have to support a hazardous industry when cleaner sources of power exist. https://cnycentral.com/news/local/more-than-120-groups-push-ny-to-lift-broad-nuclear-subsidies

August 8, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Major Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemorations at U.S. Warhead Facilities Across the USA

Major Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemorations at U.S. Warhead Facilities Across the Nation Protest Trump’s Risky Nuclear Posture and Budget; Advocate Disarmament http://www.huntingtonnews.net/158411, August 5, 2018 –

Thousands of peace advocates, Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors), religious leaders, scientists, economists, attorneys, doctors and nurses, nuclear analysts, former war planners and others across the country are coming together to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this August 6 through 9 at key sites in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

Major commemorations, rallies, protests, many including nonviolent direct action, will place at the Livermore Lab in CA, the Y-12 Plant in TN, the Los Alamos Lab in NM, the Kansas City Plant in MO, the Rocky Flats Plant in CO, the Pantex Plant in TX, in Santa Barbara, CA near Vandenberg’s ICBM launch site, and in GA near the Savannah River Site, along with other locations around the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

These diverse events are sponsored by members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a network of three-dozen groups located downstream and downwind of U.S. nuclear weapons sites. These Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemorations are united by their reflection on the past, and, uniquely, by their focus on the present and future with a resolute determination to change U.S. nuclear weapons policy at the very locations that are linchpins in producing a costly, destabilizing new stockpile of U.S. nuclear warheads, bombs and delivery vehicles.

“Here in Tennessee, as in other locations across the country, I see daily evidence of a dangerous, escalating global nuclear arms race,” noted Ralph Hutchison, the longtime coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “This is epitomized by government plans for a new Uranium Processing Facility to produce H-bomb components at Y-12, including for new-design weapons.”

“U.S. plans to ‘modernize’ the arsenal are also underway in California at the Livermore Lab,” stated Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs’ executive director. “Livermore’s new Long-Range Stand Off warhead design geared toward ‘first use’ and its rapid re-start of an ‘interoperable’ warhead design previously delayed by the Obama Administration reveal two facets of this new arms race,” Kelley continued. “In contrast to the cold war, which was largely about sheer numbers, the new arms race and its dangers stem from novel military capabilities now being placed into nuclear weapons.”

“The Trump Administration has put the U.S. on a trajectory to spend nearly $2,000,000,000,000 [trillion] over the coming thirty years on new nukes and bomb plants to build them, when inflation and the new concepts in this year’s Nuclear Posture Review and fiscal 2019 budget request are considered, said Joni Arends, the director for Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in NM.

Around the world, pressure for the U.S. to show leadership toward the abolition of nuclear weapons is growing. Pope Francis has repeatedly pressed the moral argument against nuclear weapons, inveighing not only against their use but also against their possession. Moreover, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by 122 states parties at the United Nations one year ago.

Already, fourteen have completed their ratification procedures for the Treaty, which will fully enter into force when 50 states parties have ratified it. The Treaty establishes new law and a new norm, outlawing nuclear weapons development, testing, possession, use, transfer and/or any offer of assistance in a prohibited activity.   “The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons shows us another future is possible,” said Rick Wayman, Deputy Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the ANA Board of Directors.  “The Treaty and the aspirations of millions of people for a nuclear weapons free future give me hope on this important anniversary of the first use of a nuclear bomb in war,” he continued. “We must listen to those in the U.S. and around the world who have been impacted by nuclear weapons. These weapons must be eliminated so that no one suffers the same fate ever again.”

Actions this week at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities will highlight the mounting international calls for nuclear abolition, with U.S. organizers lending their deep and often unique “on the ground” knowledge from the gates and fence lines of the facilities involved in creating new and modified U.S. nuclear weapons. “This anniversary should be a time to reflect on the absolute horror of a nuclear detonation,” mused Ann Suellentrop of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Kansas City, “yet the new Kansas City Plant is churning out components to extend U.S. nuclear weapons 70 years into the future. The imperative to change that future is what motivates me to organize a peace fast at the gates of the Plant.”

Key events at U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites include:   • Y-12 – remembrance, rally and nonviolent direct action, peace fast and lanterns. (www.orepa.org) • Livermore Lab – peace camp, Aug. 6 rally, march, nonviolent direct action. (www.trivalleycares.org) • Los Alamos Lab – commemoration and vigil, August 4, Ashley Pond, Los Alamos. (jarends@nuclearactive.org or scott@nukewatch.org)  • Kansas City Plant – vigil and peace fast. (www.psr.org/chapters/kansas/) • Savannah River Site – Aug. 9 seeds of peace observance, Carter Center Rose Garden, Atlanta, GA. (www.nonukesyall.org) • Rocky Flats Plant – peace quilt, film, labyrinth mourning walk. (judithmohling76@gmail.com) • Pantex Plant – Hiroshima exhibit, panel discussion. (www.peacefarm.us) • Santa Barbara – commemoration to remember victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all innocent victims of war. (www.wagingpeace.org)

August 6, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

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