An ON–THE–WATER RALLY to celebrate World Oceans Day and shine a light on the environmental impacts to Cape Cod Bay caused by Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.

Rally begins at noon outside the security buoys near Pilgrim Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Launch from wherever you’d like, but we will have two launch sites and safety stations set up in Plymouth with the help of the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Don’t have access to a boat? There will be ways for everyone to participate.

More information at www.capecodbaywatch.org/flotilla

CAPE COD, MA – The results are in and Cape Cod residents have spoken. Last night Falmouth, Yarmouth, Brewster, Orleans and Harwich voters passed a public advisory question to call on Governor Patrick to request the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uphold their mandate to close the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station because the public safety of Cape Cod cannot be assured. The success of this campaign had already been achieved in Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Chatham, Dennis, Mashpee, Bourne, and Sandwich. Barnstable will be the last Town to conclude the campaign when Barnstable voters speak at the ballot box this fall.

Last October, Massachusetts Emergency Management Director Kurt Schwartz informed Cape Cod residents if a nuclear accident occurred at Pilgrim they will be “in harm’s way” of a radioactive plume. Cape Codders would be relocated because their properties will be so contaminated with radiation and therefore uninhabitable. The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March, 2011 has displaced over 160,000 people from their homes indefinitely. Tom Setzer, an NRC official confirmed at an NRC open meeting last month in Plymouth a catastrophic nuclear accident just like Fukushima could happen at Pilgrim.

Cape Cod voters were clear by voting yes to close Pilgrim. Arlene Williamson, spokes person for Cape Downwinders stated “The risks of a nuclear accident increase every day the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station continues to operate”.

The 41 year old facility has experienced nine automatic shutdowns just this year for leaking valves, leaking pipes, pump failures, power outages and most recently last Monday a fire broke out when turbine auxiliary pumps failed.

Cape Downwinders co-founder Diane Turco, stated “The Pilgrim reactor is recognized by Cape Cod voters as an ongoing imminent threat to their health and safety”. The people of Cape Cod have spoken and now request Governor Patrick, as the Chief Public Safety Officer for the State of Massachusetts, to take action and call on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to close the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth.”

PLYMOUTH — Maybe it’s a matter of perspective. For Plymouth residents, the nuclear plant in their backyard is nothing new. But cross the Canal and the attitude changes. Sunday’s “Rally at the Reactor” took place in Plymouth but was a production of the Falmouth-based anti-nuclear group Cape Downwinders. And, when it was over, every one of the 10 protesters arrested that afternoon in Plymouth reside, at least part of the time, on Cape Cod.

Read more: PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER STATION: ‘Rally at the Reactor’ ends happily with 10 arrests – Plymouth, MA – Wicked Local

󰀽First Parish Unitarian Church, 222 Main Street, Kingston, MA

Chikako Nishiyama, from the village of Kawauchi in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, is making a trip to New England to offer her eye-witness report on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Kawauchi is about 15 miles southwest of the stricken Fukushima nuclear reactors. The 2,300 people who lived there were evacuated. A year later they were told it was safe to return, but most still stayed away, fearing radioactive contamination. Now two years later, there are still many who have not returned.

Chikako has been an outspoken and very courageous critic of TEPCO’s and the Japanese government’s whole handling of this disaster (not to mention their actions, or non-actions that allowed the disaster to happen in the first place). She most certainly has first-hand accounts, of her own travail as wells as of others of her village. Her son is a firefighter in his early twenties, assigned to go back to patrol the village before the evacuation order was lifted. He is still stationed in Kawauchi, and Chikako is quite concerned for his health.

Today, the official edict is that the village is now safe enough for people to return, but Chikako believes that this is a policy that sacrifices her village people’s lives. She will explain how a lot of money is at stake, and that her local government is choosing to maintain their interests over well-beings of people and the natural world. Her house still sits in Kawauchi, but she doesn’t intend to live there ever again. She is currently working to find locales in the western part of Japan where those who want to relocate can start new lives in a more sustainable and healthy environment.

Translating Chikako’s story will be Chiho Kaneko. Born in Japan’s Iwate Prefecture (about 150 miles north of the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors) and graduating from Hokkaido University with a degree in agronomy, Chiho moved to the U.S. in 1993 and became an interpreter/translator, visual artist, musician, and columnist for a Japanese daily newspaper. Her most recent trip to Japan was last fall, her fourth visit since the March 11, 2011 nuclear meltdowns.

Nishiyama will speak and answer questions starting at 6:30 pm. The event is free and open to all. Here is an event flyer to download and share:  󰀓ChikakoTalk-May19.pdf

󰀽Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, 600 Rocky Hill Road, Plymouth, MA

Concerned citizens from New England will gather at State Road and Edison Access Road in Plymouth to call for the closing of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Speakers include Senator Dan Wolf, poet Marge Piercy and former Fukushima area resident Chikako Nishiyama. Music will be provided by Tom Neilson, bard insurgent.

Scheduled between Motherʼs Day and Memorial Day, the rally will be an opportunity for all mothers to take a stand to protect their children, families, and community and to remember the tragedy of Fukushima and honor those in Japan and around the world who continue to suffer the consequences of a nuclear catastrophe. We have a responsibility to future generations to act responsibly today.

** Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has the same GE Mark l Boiling Water Reactor design as at Fukushima, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had determined to have a 90% chance of containment failure in a severe accident. The catastrophe happened as predicted.

** At an NRC open house in Plymouth on April 2, 2013, NRC Project Engineer Tom Setzer confirmed that an accident like Fukushima could happen in Plymouth.

** Pilgrim was relicensed last May over the objections of Governor Patrick, Attorney General Coakley, Congressman Keating, Congressman Markey, State Senator Murray, State Senator Wolf, and State
Representative Peake.

For directions and updates, visit: http://capedownwinders.org

Contacts:
Diane Turco – tturco@comcast.net (508) 432-1744
or Arlene Williamson – a.williamson99@comcast.net (774) 521-3347

󰀓Pandora’s False Promises: Busting the pro-nuclear agenda (PDF)

This report, in the form of handy bullet points but fully referenced throughout, is designed to serve as a central source for many of the facts about nuclear power that are either ignored, obscured or mis-represented by the nuclear deniers. The different sections cover, among many topics: climate change; the health impacts of Chernobyl and Fukushima; Germany’s nuclear exit and France’s dependence on it; the flaws and impracticabilities of the “new” reactor designs; and various misleading arguments made by the pro-nuclear propagandists, from base load energy to bananas. Press Release (PDF)

Summary

• Nuclear power, no matter the reactor design, cannot address climate change in time. In order to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil-fuel generation, another 1,000 to 1,500 new 1,000+ Megawatt reactors would need to come on line worldwide by 2050, a completely prohibitive proposition.
• So-called “Generation IV” reactor designs, including “fast” or “small modular reactors,” are the last gasp of a failing industry. Earlier versions of the fast breeder reactor were commercial failures and safety disasters. The ever soaring costs make nuclear power a financial quagmire for investors, and expensive new prototypes commercially unattractive.
• Proponents of the Integral Fast Reactor, such as those in Pandora’s Promise, overlook the exorbitant costs; proliferation risks; that it is decades away from deployment; that it would not so much consume radioactive waste as theoretically transmute it; and that its use of sodium as a coolant can lead to fires and explosions.
• The continued daily use of nuclear energy means continued risk of radiation exposure to surrounding populations. Ionizing radiation released by nuclear power plants, either routinely or in large amounts after an accident, causes cellular damage and mutations in DNA, which in turn can lead to cancers and other illnesses. Children are particularly vulnerable and their leukemia rates have been shown to rise the closer they live to an operating nuclear power reactor.
• Low-ball health predictions after nuclear accidents are not reliable. The 2005 IAEA/WHO Chernobyl report has been discredited for suppressing key data to justify low death predictions that do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. IAEA has a conflict of interest with a mandate to promote nuclear technology. Given the latency period of cancers caused by radiation exposure, it is too soon to predict the long-term health impacts of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, although some health effects are already being observed. The alleged “failure” of renewable energy sources to supplant coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas in the US is less a technological defect than a result of the enormous lobbying power of the traditional energy industries. In 2008, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) spent $2,360,000 lobbying Congress, their highest tally to date. This political barrier flies in the face of numerous studies that show wind and solar energy alone could produce orders of magnitude more electricity than currently used by US consumers and industry.
• The example of Germany — and numerous studies — demonstrate that both coal and nuclear can be phased out in favor of renewable energy. The German renewable energy sector already employs 380,000 people compared to 30,000 in the nuclear energy sector.
• The argument that only nuclear provides “carbon-free,” base load energy is out of date. Geothermal and offshore wind energy are capable of delivering reliable base load power with a smaller carbon footprint than nuclear energy. Energy efficiency is also an essential component in displacing nuclear and coal.
• Myths about the French nuclear program abound. Only 4% of the country’s high-level radioactive waste has been vitrified and stored. Given its 80% dependency on nuclear power, when droughts and heat waves force reactors to power down or close, France has no other options and is forced to import electricity. France has an enormous, unsolved waste problem with no repository; a huge extra expense due to its misadventure with fast breeder reactors; and a radiological legacy from its 210 abandoned uranium mines which continue to pollute the environment today.
• There is no such thing as a “pro-nuclear environmentalist.” Environmentalists do not support extractive, non-sustainable industries like nuclear energy, which poisons the environment; releases cancer-causing radioactive elements; creates radioactive waste deadly for thousands of years and, if there is an accident, can render vast areas permanent sacrifice zones.

Going without insurance is described as “going naked” in insurance industry lingo. Going without insurance for the worst hazards in the nuclear power industry is business as usual.

One need not look back very far to see the problem. In March 2011, the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, triggered by an earthquake followed by a tsunami that overwhelmed all of Japan’s safeguards, melted down three reactors, displaced 160,000 people and caused an estimated $250 billion in damages and other still-unfolding economic consequences.

Today, in the United States, we have 104 operating nuclear plants producing electricity. The owners, operators, and government regulators who oversee them say an event like Fukushima will not happen here. And even if it did, they insist, there is enough liability insurance in place to cover the damages. The actual amount of that insurance coverage: just $12.6 billion.

You don’t need an advanced degree in calculus or risk analysis to see that something doesn’t add up, and to start feeling a bit…naked. But when it comes to nuclear insurance, naked is the fashion designed for the American public. Read more of this →

The appeal, filed with the Plymouth Zoning Board of Appeals on April 25, 2013, asks the ZBA to revoke the permit because the long-term, outdoor, dry cask storage of nuclear waste is not a “permitted use” under the Plymouth zoning laws, and because such storage also is not what the zoning permit calls an “accessory use.” The appeal also asks the ZBA to require Entergy to obtain a special permit. Under the special permit process, the ZBA can set conditions that will insure that the nuclear waste dump is built and operated as safely as possible; the special permit process also allows for public input.

Meg Sheehan, spokesperson for EcoLaw, a group of volunteer lawyers representing the residents, said, “We support dry cask storage, but think the residents of the area are entitled to the safest, most secure storage facility that can be built. Entergy apparently did not give critical facts to the Plymouth Director of Inspectional Services. The real fact of the matter is that, without a special permit, Plymouth zoning does not allow long-term nuclear waste storage.”

Ms. Sheehan went on to point out that the 1967 special permit for Pilgrim did not allow either the construction or the long term operation of a nuclear waste storage facility. That special permit was limited to “a nuclear-powered generating plant and associated buildings, roads, and transmission facilities”; and in requesting the special permit Pilgrim’s original owner, Boston Edison, said “The project will not include a repair station or outside storage of supplies.”

“Coincidentally,” Mary Lampert of Pilgrim Watch commented, “in mid-April the NRC said that spent fuel storage cask structures and components were prematurely degrading from moisture and weathering, especially in marine environments, and pointed to the need for enhanced monitoring and adequate drainage. A Special Permit would allow the Town to have a ‘say’ to assure that these measures, and more, are done to better protect both the public’s and worker’s health and safety.”

“In the past,” said Ms. Sheehan, “Pilgrim’s owners have asked the ZBA for special permits when they wanted to make changes at Pilgrim. Why is Entergy now trying to avoid the special permit process and get away with doing the minimum possible? That’s not OK.”

The next step in the appeal process is for the Zoning Board to schedule a public hearing, which will be held in the next 2 to 3 months.

For more information and copy of appeal: http://www.ecolaw.biz/nuclear-power