Beyond Nuclear Bulletin

News from Beyond Nuclear April 24, 2008

Top Stories

Hall of Nuclear Shame: “She caused thousands of residents, workers and first responders to suffer injury and, in some cases, death, due to unnecessary exposure to toxins released by the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.” So said a justifiably angered New York representative, Jerrold Nadler, in the Washington Post, after an appeals court this week reversed a lower court decision that had held former Environmental Protection Agency director, Christine Todd Whitman, liable for twice assuring New York City residents in the days after the World Trade Center attacks that the air was safe to breathe. This is the same Todd Whitman who co-anchors the pro-nuclear, industry-funded propaganda front group currently touting nuclear energy around the globe. Her co-booster is none other than industry darling, Patrick Moore, whose claim that he co-founded Greenpeace has been soundly debunked by the actual founders who noted that Moore applied to join the first Greenpeace sailing that departed two years after the organization was founded. (The actual founders were a group of Quakers and journalists). Moore’s “environmental” track record over the past 16 years includes advocacy on behalf of the logging and chemical industries and genetically modified foods and a host of other anti-environmental causes. Our View: Patrick Moore is frequently cited by the news media as an “environmentalist.” Last time we looked, the definition of an environmentalist was not a paid booster for the nuclear, chemical, clear-cut logging and GM foods industries. It’s time to set the record straight on this and Moore’s well-worn claim that he “co-founded” Greenpeace and expose his phony environmental credentials. As for Todd Whitman, the fact that she was given immunity from liability for putting New Yorkers in harm’s way because she is a federal official exposes the extraordinary moral double-standard between government and ordinary citizens. What You Can Do: Whenever the news media describes Moore or Todd Whitman as an “environmentalist” call them out on it. Write letters to the editors and call in to radio and television shows. Send them the source material found on the two Web sites we list below. If Moore or Todd Whitman show up in your community, be sure to show up yourself to challenge them on their so-called environmentalist credentials. Ask the tough questions. And check out other paid nuclear apologists on these Web sites: Source Watch and nuclearspin.org.

Still Time to Oppose Bombplex: Thanks to a hard-won extension, it is still possible to submit comments to the U.S. Department of Energy on its proposed "Complex Transformation" (a.k.a. Bombplex 2030) nuclear weapons infrastructure modernization plans. The new deadline is April 30th. Over 85,000 public comments, almost all critical and calling for nuclear weapons abolition and radioactive contamination cleanup, have already been submitted, a record on these issues. For guidance on content and submission of comments, visit the Complex Transformation page on the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Web site.

Chernobyl Remembered: As we remember – on April 26th – the world’s worst nuclear accident, it’s important also to recognize that the victims of that accident are still being born today and that quantifying those who died, will die, or who will live forever maimed by the accident is virtually impossible. Sadly, exposure to radiation can be passed down – genetically – to children born after the accident. Many now languish in poorly-resourced orphanages. Some of the faces of Chernobyl have been captured by the award-winning photographer, Gabriela Bulisova. You can view a selection of her pictures on our Web site at: www.beyondnuclear.org as we remember just what kind of catastrophic damage nuclear power can effect.

Please donate to Beyond Nuclear. Won’t you please consider becoming a monthly recurring donor? You can set up your profile and monthly giving here. All gifts are tax-deductible. Or you can mail a check to: Beyond Nuclear at NPRI, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400, Takoma Park, MD 20912.

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Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. Beyond Nuclear staff can be reached at: 301.270.2209. Or view our Web site at: www.beyondnuclear.org

Nuclear-Plant Analyses Ordered

Signaling that aging nuclear-power plants may face greater scrutiny, U.S. regulators have told utilities to more rigorously analyze metal fatigue at several sites, including two opposed by environmentalists.

The heightened scrutiny comes as a slew of older plants, dating to the late 1960s and early 1970s, seek operating-license renewals from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has extended the licenses of four dozen nuclear-power reactors since 2000. It is considering requests for nearly a dozen more, including Exelon Corp.'s Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey and Entergy Corp.'s Vermont Yankee plant, which have been targeted by environmentalists.

Wall Street Journal

Utah nuclear waste company ramps up campaign contributions

A Utah disposal company seeking federal permission to import more than 20,000 tons of nuclear waste from Italy has raised its campaign contributions to lawmakers by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. is aggressively donating to members of key energy committees in Congress as it increasingly seeks lucrative federal contracts and legislation beneficial to the nuclear power industry.

Associated Press

Hearings to address TMI license

If you're concerned about how the region's environment could be affected by 20 more years of nuclear power generation at Three Mile Island, federal regulators would like to hear it.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold two hearings May 1 to take comment on environmental concerns.

The hearings are part of a detailed NRC review of AmerGen Energy Co.'s petition to extend its operating license for the Unit 1 reactor at TMI to 2034.

The Patriot News

NRC Seeks Public Input On Environmental Impact Statement For Three Mile Island 1 License Renewal Application

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will conduct a pair of public meetings on Thursday, May 1, to solicit public comments on possible environmental impacts of a proposed 20-year license extension for the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear power plant. AmerGen Energy Co., LLC, which owns and operates the Middletown (Dauphin County), Pa., facility, submitted a license renewal application for the facility to the NRC in January of this year.

The first session will begin at 1:30 p.m. at the Elks Theatre, at 4 W. Emaus St. in Middletown. A second session, which will follow the same format as the first meeting, will get under way at 7 p.m. at the Londonderry Elementary School, at 260 Schoolhouse Road, Middletown. An NRC “open house” will be held 1 hour prior to the start of each meeting to provide interested members of the public with an opportunity to talk informally with agency staff. However, formal comments must be expressed during the transcribed meetings.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Despite ruling, NUMEC woes endure

After a seven-year tussle with the federal government, the Department of Labor finally is cutting a $150,000 check to Skip McGuire of Parks Township for harmful exposures to radiation in the workplace.

McGuire, 77, is ailing: He had his right kidney removed, three heart attacks, lost his bladder and prostate to cancer and has had a defibrillator and a pacemaker installed.

"I'm still in one piece yet," he says.

Last year, former workers of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. in Apollo were awarded special status with the government, entitling them to compensation for death, illness and injury caused by exposure to radiation and chemicals in the Apollo NUMEC plant, which created uranium fuel pellets for Navy nuclear reactors.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

NRC keeps us in the dark

Last week, when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported a security violation at Three Mile Island, a spokesman for the agency described the preliminary findings as "greater than very low safety significance."

That, of course, is a semantic gyration that seems to be endemic to government, or at least government how it's run these days.

Parsing the phrase, you can rest assured that the unnamed violation was not of "very low safety significance." Other than that, who knows? Was it a slight annoyance? Was it something that should cause grave concern? Was it head-for-the-hills-the-world's-going-to-end alarming?

York Daily Record