83-year-old environmentalist Kay Drey will not give up on quest for cleanup of St Louis’ nuclear waste area
Messenger: Activist won’t back down in quest to rid St. Louis of nuclear waste By Tony Messenger St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jun 17, 2016 “…….For decades now, 83-year-old environmentalist Kay Drey has been on a quest: Get the federal government to excavate and move the waste. It’s a story that can get more complicated the deeper you dig. It involves multiple federal agencies, dense reports on various radiological elements and their “daughter products,” half-lives, warring special interest groups, lawsuits and, ultimately, a dispute over who will pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to clean it up or otherwise protect the citizens who live near the landfill.
But Drey has a way of simplifying things.
“It’s in the Missouri River flood plain,” she says of the nuclear waste. “I can’t think of a worse location. The Missouri River floods all the time. We cannot leave it there.”
That was the basic theme of the first of two reports she gave me. It’s 14 pages of testimony she submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources 10 years ago. In painstaking detail, Drey outlines what is known of the waste, how it might affect groundwater and the potential for disaster if the Missouri River were to reclaim its floodplain now protected by the Earth City levee.
She quotes two old Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports, one from 1982 and the other from 1988, that outline how “hot” the waste is in West Lake and call for some sort of “remedial action.” She quotes one of the foremost flooding experts in the region, Bob Criss from Washington University, who said, “This is the wrong place to store hazardous material. It does not belong in a flood plain.”
Nobody who read Drey’s words from a decade ago would have been surprised by the release this week of a secret EPA report that reached similar conclusions.
The report, internal findings by EPA scientists that had been kept secret since 2013, concluded that it was feasible to remove the nuclear waste from West Lake. The scientists also found that doing so would reduce long-term risks.
Money.
The EPA has long wanted to simply put a cap over the waste and leave it there, at a cost of $40 million or so. It’s much less expensive than having the Army Corps of Engineers unearth the waste and dispose of it elsewhere, which might cost 10 times as much. Putting a cap in place is the preferred option of Republic Services, the company that currently owns the landfill.
Drey doesn’t care about the cost. She doesn’t care about how long cleaning up the waste would take. And she doesn’t want Republic to pay, either.
“The government put it there,” she said. “The government needs to clean it up. If we can keep making bombs, we can find the money to clean up the waste from the 1940s.”
The U.S. Senate passed a bill this year to carry out Drey’s preferred solution — have the Corps of Engineers take over the project and clean it up. But the measure appears to be dead in the House. Here’s what lawmakers need to know about Drey:
She’s not giving up…… “We need to get both houses of Congress to say they’re going to clean it up,” Drey says. “It just can’t stay there.” http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-activist-won-t-back-down-in-quest-to-rid/article_3da42a06-a587-53cc-bd86-e3844af3d6e1.html
At UK’s Burghfield nuclear weapons factory – a rolling anti-nuclear blockade
Rolling blockade at Burghfield nuclear weapons factory, Red Pepper, Theo Simon writes from one of the longest continuous blockades of a nuclear weapons base 16 June 2016 When I joined the anti-nuclear blockaders lying with arms in lock-on tubes across a Berkshire lane, none of us imagined how the day would play out. After a leisurely start that caught the waiting cops off guard, we’d arrived at the Burghfield nuclear weapons factory near Reading to kick-off a rolling month of blockades the Trident Ploughshares campaign had planned for June.
After a few hours successfully blocking access to the MOD site, rather than doing what the cops expected and leaving, we consolidated our forces and stayed through the night with our lock-ons extended across the gate. Reinforced with new arrivals, we slept through to a second day, and began the longest continuous blockade of a nuclear weapons base ever, with construction traffic turned back and building-work for the warhead factory set back by a week as a result! And there were only 20 of us.
Back in the day when nuclear warheads were the only form of mass destruction on the horizon, terror of nuclear war with Russia mobilized thousands, and protests at nuclear bases could draw upon hundreds of people. Today a new generation of humanity faces many apparently more imminent threats – so many, played out in so many variations on our screens, we’re understandably confused and numb to the very real peril we are in. The most powerful popular argument against Trident seems to be how much it will cost – not the unspeakable obscenity of preparing for mass murder, or the urgent need for disarmament if we are to avoid extinction this century.
Secure Nuclear Waste Coalition formed to call public to action on San Onofre nuclear waste danger
New group wants action on nuclear waste storage at San Onofre, Orange County Register, eritchie@ocregister.com June 8, 2016 LAGUNA BEACH – Earthquakes, tsunamis or terrorism.
That’s what a newly created group of scientists, medical experts, activists and elected officials from Orange and San Diego counties say pose ominous threats to the more than 10 million people living within a 50-mile radius of the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
“If one of those events happen, the amount of radiation could be 89 times more than what was released at Chernobyl,” said Rita Conn, a spokeswoman for the newly created Secure Nuclear Waste Coalition and chairwoman of Let Laguna Vote, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to government transparency.
On Wednesday, Conn kicked off a Secure Nuclear Waste Coalition educational forum and called the public to action.
Members of the group include Mayor Pam Patterson from San Juan Capistrano; Nina Babiarz of Nuclear Waste Transportation; Charles Langley, executive director of the Public Watchdogs; Robert Pope, a geologist; and Dr. William Honigman.
Panelists told more than 200 people inside a packed Laguna Beach City Council chambers that plans by Southern California Edison to temporarily bury millions of pounds of nuclear waste 42 yards from the ocean at San Onofre State Beach must be stopped.
The experts testified about the dangers the public faces by potential exposure to radiation or radiation leaks. They questioned the lack of security at the shuttered plant. They discussed the potential for it to become a terrorist target.
“There is an obscene level of unpreparedness,” Honigman said. “How do we deal with radiation exposure on a massive level?”
They advocated that Edison move the spent nuclear fuel rods to a temporary storage site in West Texas or New Mexico – an idea being explored by lawmakers and regulators.
They criticized the California Coastal Commission’s approval of a “concrete monolith” to house spent fuel in temporary, dry-cask storage at the site. The contained radioactive material is expected to remain in place until 2049.
“Edison must not be allowed to store the highly radioactive fuel rods in the ‘experimental’ … thin-walled stainless steel canisters that have never been used in the damp marine environment, have no proven track record, no means to support transport and no means to inspect for radiological leaks,” Conn said.
The California Coastal Commission last year approved plans for the temporary burial of the San Onofre nuclear waste – which has been stored in liquid tanks – after political paralysis prevented the federal government from coming up with a permanent burial solution for the nation’s nuclear waste……..http://www.ocregister.com/articles/waste-718742-nuclear-san.html
Strong protest call for shutdown of Indian Point nuclear station
Protesters call for shutdown of Indian Point, lohud Thomas C. Zambito, The Journal News June 9, 2016 Judy Allen listened as a federal safety official detailed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s conclusion that Indian Point could shut down in time if a gas pipeline under construction nearby ruptured.
And she wasn’t buying it.
“You no longer have any credibility,” Allen, of Putnam Valley, told a panel of NRC officials who gathered in Tarrytown on Wednesday to deliver their annual assessment of Indian Point’s safety record.
“You have become a lapdog for (Indian Point owner) Entergy,” she added. “Putting a 42-inch gas pipeline next to Indian Point is pure insanity. I wish I had enough money in my piggybank to sue you.”
There was little common ground to be found Wednesday night when competing sides in the debate over Indian Point’s future stepped up to the microphone at the DoubleTree Hotel and weighed in on the NRC’s decision to give the nuclear power plant a passing grade in its annual safety assessment…….
decision by federal safety regulators to approve a plan by Spectra Energy to expand a natural gas pipeline that runs north from Pennsylvania to New England, touching several communities bordering Indian Point.
The decision has led to regular protests in the towns along the pipeline route. Last month, two protesters were arrested after they locked themselves inside an environmentally-friendly shipping container positioned outside a construction site in Peekskill……..
The hearing comes at a critical time for Indian Point.
On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo renewed his call for the plant’s shutdown.
“Indian Point is the nuclear power plant that is the closest to the most densely populated area on the globe,” Cuomo told reporters in Poughkeepsie on Monday. “It has had a series of mishaps. We know we can find replacement power. Why you would allow Indian Point to continue to operate defies common sense, planning and basic sanity.”
Cuomo is pushing the state Public Service Commission to get behind a clean-energy plan that would force the state to rely on renewables like solar and wind power for 50 percent of its electricity over the next 15 years.
Cuomo is also pushing a slate of financial incentives for three upstate nuclear power plants struggling to make money in an economically-depressed part of the state. But the incentives wouldn’t apply to Indian Point…….http://www.lohud.com/story/tech/science/environment/2016/06/08/protesters-call-shutdown-indian-point/85613178/
Community group to fight San Onofre nuclear waste plan
Group forms to fight San Onofre nuclear waste plan, San Diego Union Tribune By Jeff McDonald June 2, 2016 Residents of San Diego and Orange counties concerned about the longterm storage of radioactive waste on the coast between Oceanside and San Clemente have organized a new coalition aimed at forcing the removal of tons of spent nuclear fuel.
The group, calling itself Secure Nuclear Waste, is comprised of lawyers, activists, a scientist, an elected official and an emergency-room physician. It is hosting a community meeting at Laguna Beach City Hall next Wednesday evening.
“The deadly radioactive waste is toxic to humans for millions of years,” the group said in a news release criticizing a California Coastal Commission storage permit approved in October. “If nothing is done, the waste could be buried on the beach as early as May 2017 for up to 300 years.”
Secure Nuclear Waste said it organized as a counter to the Community Engagement Panel, a group of volunteers convened by plant owner Southern California Edison to meet regularly and discuss decommissioning of the failed San Onofre nuclear plant.
Members of Secure Nuclear Waste include San Diego consumer attorneys Michael Aguirre and Maria Severson. It also includes Charles Langley of the consumer group Public Watchdog, geologist Robert Pope and transportation consultant Nina Babiarz.
San Juan Capistrano Mayor Pam Patterson, who serves on the Community Engagement Panel due to her elected office, also joined Secure Nuclear Waste. She said the official group is not independent and not forceful enough opposing onsite spent-fuel storage at San Onofre.
“People on the Community Engagement Panel have been hand-picked because they are candy-coating the situation,” Patterson said. “The community needs to understand what’s going on is not in anybody’s best interest. It’s scary what they are doing.”
The Coastal Commission permit, now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Aguirre & Severson law firm, allows Edison to store 1,600 tons of spent fuel in underground canisters just north of the shuttered nuclear reactors.
The spent fuel historically has been stored in above-ground cooling ponds but Edison is in the process of transferring the waste into steel-lined casks. More than 100 of the 45-ton canisters will then be buried in a massive tomb embedded in the beach.
Critics say the plan does not allow for monitoring the canisters for future degradation or leaks and presents a health threat to the millions of people who live and travel through the region. They say regulators should do a better job mitigating the longterm threat.
“It is an outrage that taxpayers are funding politically appointed bureaucrats at state agencies to create a deadly toxic waste landfill next to an interstate highway and the Los Angeles-San Diego coastal rail corridor,” said Babiarz, the transportation consultant and coalition member. “Our two counties have united to fight this threat to public safety.”……
The first Secure Nuclear Waste meeting convenes Wednesday, June 8 at 6 p.m. at Laguna Beach City Hall, 505 Forest Ave.
The Community Engagement Panel next meets June 22, when a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expert will discuss so-called consolidated interim storage, the practice or temporarily storing radioactive waste on site until a more permanent federal site is identified. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jun/02/secure-nuclear-waste/
“Just Mums” have become a powerful lobbying force for action on radioactive wastes.
Just moms” have become a surprisingly powerful force, successfully lobbying the state health department to challenge some of the federal government’s findings that downplayed the site’s risks,
Just Moms continue to rally the public to demand tests from the state. The women also took trips, uninvited, to the state offices and asked for meetings so they explain why they believed the nuclear waste posed a threat. The aggressive community lobbying appeared to pay off: the state health department agreed to test the site for evidence that the radioactive waste has spread, and late last year, the Missouri State Attorney general finally released the findings. Among the disturbing conclusions: possible radioactive waste has in fact been found “off site” in the nearby foliage. What’s more, groundwater wells outside the perimeter of the landfill were found to be contaminated with carcinogens like benzene in “high concentrations,” the state said
Community reacts to STL County’s emergency plan for looming #WestLakeLandfill disaster
Community reacts to STL County’s emergency plan for looming #WestLakeLandfill disaster Two Stay-at-Home Moms Are Waging War Against the Feds Over Illegal Toxic Waste Broadly, by Amy Martyn JUN 1 2016 https://twitter.com/justmomsstl
What do you do when there’s 10,000 barrels of illegally dumped uranium two miles away from your home and the government tells you not to worry about it?
Dawn Chapman and her family are stuck in an absurd and depressing situation: Less than two miles from the Chapmans’ neighborhood in Bridgeton, Missouri, sits a landfill where radioactive uranium was illegally dumped by a government contractor forty years ago. Since the Environmental Protection Agency is not required to warn people of such things, most people in the area—including many elected officials—knew nothing about the dump for decades.
“It would be great to be able to leave this area, but we couldn’t honestly sell our house right now, ” Chapman says. “Even ethically, with what’s going on, I wouldn’t want to sell my house to another family.”
Karen Nickel learned about the dump site during a town hall with the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps have successfully removed illegally dumped nuclear waste from other sites across the nation but because this particular site, West Lake Landfill, is under the control of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Corps does not have the authority or funding to conduct a clean-up here. Nickel and other mothers are fearful about what health problem such close proximity to radioactive waste could cause their children. “A lot of their children are coming forward with cancers and such, a couple of my daughter’s friends have brain tumors,” Nickel says……
In the past four years, the “Just moms” have become a surprisingly powerful force, successfully lobbying the state health department to challenge some of the federal government’s findings that downplayed the site’s risks, revealing possible inconsistencies in public statements made by the EPA, and pissing off both the EPA and landfill operator Republic Services. Ed Smith, the policy director for the non-profit Missouri Coalition for the Environment is an admirer of the women. “There’s a lot those moms have done that wouldn’t have been done otherwise,” he says.
The first major success for Just Moms came when Karen and Dawn sniffed a foul odor in their neighborhood. The landfill owners told them that it was due to a “smoldering event,” created by underground gasses that can ignite some of the landfill garbage. The landfill, the moms were told, was in it’s third year of a sustained underground trash smolder, something that’s common among underground landfills—but landfills are typically not next to tons of uranium. Nevertheless, officials assured the moms that a limestone wall between the uranium and the trash would keep the fire from reaching the toxic materials. There were two landfills, the operators insisted: one for nuclear waste, one for trash……….
Chapman and Nickel countered the paid lobbyists with their own attack. For one week in 2014, they focused their sites on United States Congressman Roy Blunt, their federal representative who had previously been publicly silent about the landfill. From their Facebook page:
“EVERY DAY from 8am-4pm please call his WASHINGTON DC office. Make it a part of your daily routine!!!!,” the moms urged supporters in an online post. “Emails are good, but 2,000 phone calls everyday will make a bigger impact!!!”
The effort worked……..
Just Moms continue to rally the public to demand tests from the state. The women also took trips, uninvited, to the state offices and asked for meetings so they explain why they believed the nuclear waste posed a threat. The aggressive community lobbying appeared to pay off: the state health department agreed to test the site for evidence that the radioactive waste has spread, and late last year, the Missouri State Attorney general finally released the findings. Among the disturbing conclusions: possible radioactive waste has in fact been found “off site” in the nearby foliage. What’s more, groundwater wells outside the perimeter of the landfill were found to be contaminated with carcinogens like benzene in “high concentrations,” the state said…….. https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/two-stay-at-home-moms-are-waging-war-against-the-feds-over-illegal-toxic-waste
Nuclear concerns hold back Apple data centre plans in Ireland
Alice MacGregor Tue 31 May 2016 Apple is being questioned over its site selection for a new Irish data centre, with opponents arguing that the proposed €850 million (approx. £648 million) server farm would be located too close to nuclear facilities in Wales and Cumbria.
Oscar Gonzalez, Apple’s head of data centre site selection, came against arguments from a group including engineer Allan Daly at an oral hearing last week. Daly raised the issue that Apple requires that new centres be at least 320km from any nuclear facility in the UK – and was concerned that the proposed Irish site would not meet this specification……..https://thestack.com/data-centre/2016/05/31/nuclear-concerns-hold-back-apple-data-centre-plans-in-ireland/
An approach to combatting the nuclear shills
How to take on the nuclear shills: here’s one approach. Green World, Michael Mariotte April 25, 2016“………The nuclear industry and electric utilities have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few years in efforts to both convince legislators that climate action isn’t necessary in the first place, but that if it is, then nuclear power is clean, “emissions-free” energy.
Advocates of genuinely clean energy don’t, of course, have those kinds of resources. But it costs nothing to reach this very targeted audience with a message that both exposes the lies of the nuclear industry and the illusion that nuclear is clean energy and makes the case for renewables, efficiency, and a 21st century electric system.
Go ahead, try this at home! Take on your own local nuclear advocates and turn their own words against them. It’s fun and you may be surprised: perhaps you’ll even begin to force these powerful, non-expert legislators to raise questions and face the notion that someone has been misleading them–and it isn’t us. https://safeenergy.org/2016/04/25/how-to-take-on-the-nuclear-shills/
Protestors demand shut-down of radiation leaky Florida Nuclear Station
Demonstrators Demand Nuclear Plant Shut Down After Radiation Leaks May 14, 2016 MIAMI (CBSMiami) — Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside of a Florida Power & Light facility concerning leaks at the nuclear power plant at Turkey Point.It took place Saturday morning at 4200 W. Flagler Street and comes after the company announced that customers will shell out an estimated $50 million this year alone for the cleanup of hypersaline water coming from the plant.
Environmental advocates are worried that theleaking wastewater containing radioactive isotopes is a threat to drinking water from the Biscayne aquifer.
They want the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station shut down.
“When our bay goes acidified, when our fish start dying, which they already are, and when are habitat goes away because of this wonderful Turkey Point plant that we have, which is a reactor that came online in 1972, an outdated reactor, it’s time to retire,” said protester Albert Gomez.
Others believe FPL is hiding something.
They’re not coming clean with what’s really going on at Turkey Point and their deceptive behavior on the solar initiatives. They sabotaged the citizen’s solar initiative and they got this scam solar amendment on the ballot in November. It’s a fake,” said Steve Malagodi, president of 350 South Florida, a group dedicated to climate change issues…….http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/demonstrators-demand-nuclear-plant-shut-down-after-leaks/
Indigenous residents of Yellowknif, Canada, send Terrestrial Energy nuclear salesmen packing
‘Go home!’ N.W.T. residents tell Ontario nuclear power advocate, Presentation met with hostile responses Thursday night in Yellowknife By Mitch Wiles, CBC News May 13, 2016 A Thursday evening forum in Yellowknife about bringing nuclear energy to Canada’s North quickly turned hostile, with local aboriginal people telling one presenter to “Go home!”
Robin Rickman of Oakville, Ont.-based Terrestrial Energy attempted to present a new design of a nuclear reactor to a packed room of N.W.T. residents interested in lowering the cost of energy, but he was repeatedly shouted down.
“Where are the chiefs?” yelled Dehcho region resident Roxanne Landry. “You are not welcome on Dene land!”……
Frame Lake MLA Kevin O’Reilly was at the presentation and says too many questions were left unanswered. “There are still lots of issues of what do you do with the waste,” he said. “It’s nowhere near a feasibility stage. None of these facilities have been built anywhere. I don’t know where the financing would come from. Lots of problems.”
O’Reilly said he doubted whether the project could be safely regulated.That concern was echoed by Landry. She pointed to the contaminated Giant Mine site, just outside of Yellowknife, as a hard lesson in putting too much trust in the industry or regulators……..http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/go-home-nwt-resident-ontario-nuclear-power-advocate-1.3581509
Governments and individuals can prevent banks from investing in nuclear weapons
Governments are talking about divestment, and it’s something you can do too.
If you have a bank account, find out if your bank invests in nuclear weapon producing companies. You can either look at our website and see if your bank is listed, or you can ask your bank directly. We found that a few people, asking the same bank about questionable investments, was enough to get that bank to adopt a policy preventing them from having any relationship with nuclear weapon producing companies.
Nuclear Weapons Are Scary — But We Can Do Something About Them, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susi-snyder/nuclear-weapons-are-scary_b_9947542.html The World Post, Susi Snyder Nuclear Disarmament Programme Manager for Pax in the Netherlands 05/13/2016 Nuclear weapons are scary. The risk of use by accident, intention or terror. The climate consequences. The fact that they are designed and built to vaporize thousands of people with the push of a button. Scary. Fortunately, there is something we can do.
We know that nuclear weapons are scary, but we must be much louder in defining them as unacceptable, as illegitimate. By following the money, we can cut it off, and while this isn’t the only thing necessary to make nuclear weapons extinct, it will help.
That’s why we made Don’t Bank on the Bomb. Because we want to do something about nuclear weapons. Investments are not neutral. Financing and investing are active choices, based on a clear assessment of a company and its plans. Any financial service delivered to a company by a financial institution or other investor gives a tacit approval of their activities. To make nuclear weapons, you need money. Governments pay for a lot of things, but the companies most heavily involved in producing key components for nuclear warheads need additional investment — from banks, pension funds, and insurance companies — to sustain the working capital they need to maintain and modernize nuclear bombs.
We can steer these companies in a new direction. We can influence their decision making, by making sure our own investments don’t go anywhere near nuclear weapon producing companies. Continue reading
Police clear Finland’s anti-nuclear plant protest camp
30 Apr 16, Police have cleared protesters from the site of a proposed nuclear power plant at Pyhäjoki on the north-west coast after demonstrations took a violent turn on Thursday….http://yle.fi/uutiset/police_clear_anti-nuclear_plant_protest_camp/8849910
Finnish-Russian nuclear site broken into by protestors
Apr 26, 2016 Protesters break into Finnish-Russian nuclear site, Reuters, Anti-nuclear protesters broke in to a construction site on Tuesday for a nuclear reactor to be supplied by Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom, choosing the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster for their demonstration…….
with anyone with that kind of history,” Venla Simonen from the Stop Fennovoima protest group told Reuters by telephone…….The Chernobyl disaster increased radiation levels in Finland, putting nuclear Finnish plant projects on ice for a decade.
This latest project has raised concerns and resistance from many Finns as the plant is set to forge deeper energy ties between EU state Finland and its former ruler Russia despite East-West tensions over the Ukraine crisis.
Rosatom has a 34 percent stake in the 7 billion euro ($7.9 billion) project. It will supply the reactor and also handle the project’s financing.
Fennovoima struggled to find local investors to fulfill an ownership condition set by the Finnish government, but utility Fortum last year signed up in a surprise move, prompting questions of political pressure from both countries involved…….http://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-fennovoima-protests-idUSKCN0XN1TH
Lawyer Hiroyuki Kawai continues his lifelong fight to stop the nuclear industry
Lawyer continues 20-year campaign against nuclear power, Japan Today, By YURI KAGEYAMA and MARI YAMAGUCHI
NATIONAL APR. 08, 2016 TOKYO —
Lawyer Hiroyuki Kawai stands out in Japan, a nation dominated by somber dark suits: When not in a courtroom, he often wears colorful shirts and crystal-covered animal pins. He is a Noh dancer, a tenor and, of late, a filmmaker. His motorbike is a Harley.
Some of it is just for fun, but much of the flamboyance is meant to draw attention to his cause: shutting down all nuclear plants in Japan. His more than two-decade-long legal battle is gaining momentum after the multiple meltdowns in Fukushima five years ago led to all plants being idled for safety checks.
In March, Kawai helped set up an organization to support Fukushima residents whose children have developed thyroid cancer since the 2011 disaster — 166 among 380,000 people 18 years and under who were tested, including suspected cases. That’s up to 50 times higher than on average, according to Toshihide Tsuda, a professor at Okayama University.
The Japanese government denies any link, saying the increase reflects more rigorous screening. Thyroid cancer, rare among children at two or three in a million, soared after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Also last month, Kawai’s team won a court injunction to stop two nuclear reactors in western Japan that had recently restarted. The district court cited concerns about safety, emergency planning and environmental contamination. One of the reactors was shut down shortly after its restart because of glitches. Both had met stricter standards upgraded after the 2011 disaster.
Kawai’s team is pursuing damage compensation for those evacuated from Fukushima, and criminal charges against former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima plant. His ultimate goal is to banish nuclear power.
“If another nuclear accident ever happens in Japan, everything will be destroyed — turning upside down our politics, our economy, our education, our culture, our love, our law,” Kawai told The Associated Press, sitting at a desk overflowing with files and papers in his Tokyo office.
Born in 1944 in Manchuria, northeastern China, Kawaii has built a reputation as a champion of humanitarian causes, helping out Japanese abandoned as children in China after World War II, and Filipinos of Japanese descent in the Philippines. His compassion is driven partly by his own experience: A baby brother died of starvation during his family’s perilous journey back to Japan.
After graduating from prestigious Tokyo University, Kawai represented major corporations as a lawyer during the “bubble era” of the 1980s. In the mid-1990s he began taking on lawsuits against nuclear power.
Until 2011, he was fighting a losing battle………
“I think he is fantastic,” said Yurika Ayukawa, a professor of policy at Chiba University of Commerce. She attended at a recent screening where Kawai spoke and surprised the crowd by breaking into a song on Iitate, one of rural Fukushima’s most radiated areas.
Radiation is a sensitive issue in Japan, the only country to suffer atomic bomb attacks, and the Fukushima thyroid cancer patients and their families mostly have kept silent, fearing a social backlash. They face pressure from the hospital treating their children not to speak to media or to question the official view that the illnesses are unrelated to radiation.
Two of the patients’ families appeared recently with Kawai before reporters, although in a video-call with their faces not shown. They said they felt doubtful, afraid and isolated. Kawai believes they are entitled to compensation, though they have not yet filed a lawsuit.
George Fujita, an attorney who specializes in environmental issues, says Kawai is Japan’s top lawyer on nuclear lawsuits.
“It’s unusual for judges to watch a whole movie entered as evidence. It’s because the people are putting pressure on the courts,” he said.
Kawai admits that at times he been tempted to give up.
“I should never walk away. I must fight it out,” he said………..Online site for Kawai’s movie: http://www.nihontogenpatsu.com/english http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/lawyer-continues-20-year-campaign-against-nuclear-power
Big Tokyo protest against Japanese govt’s nuclear plans
Over 30K people protest Japanese PM’s plan to restart nuclear reactors (VIDEO) Rt.com : 26 Mar, 2016 Over 30,000 people turned up for demonstrations in Tokyo to protest a plan being promoted by Japan’s prime minister to restart a number of nuclear power plants. On March 11, Japan marked the five-year anniversary of the devastating Fukushima disaster.
Ruptly footage captured people waving flags, carrying banners, and holding up placards while marching through popular Yoyogi Park on Friday. The activists say that restarting the nuclear reactors will create safety risks. Some banners read “To the Absence of a Nuclear Power Plant Future,” local media reported……..https://www.rt.com/news/337325-anti-nuclear-rally-tokyo/
1 This Month
26 September – International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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