Winter 2019-2020 Letter to Supporters

December 2019

Dear Friend of Nukewatch,

The winter’s cold and snow remind us that it takes donations to keep Nukewatch going year round. Please send a contribution to heat the office, plow the driveway, and keep the snow off of our 10,000-watt solar power array — and this is only the beginning.

I’m sure you noticed in the last that the Plowshares Land Trust, home to Nukewatch, was hit by 100 mph winds that did a lot of damage on July 19. As shocking as the downing of 1000 trees is, in our research and reporting for the Quarterly, Nukewatch keeps track of diverse communities that have been hit by far worse than straight-line winds:

• Failed decontamination efforts plague the Fukushima disaster response.
• Uranium mining contamination is continuing to poison Native Americans who are organizing to demand clean up and reparations.
• Climate disruption is threatening to disperse US radioactive waste from the Pacific Islands and the Greenland icecap.
• Environmental racism is targeting the desert Southwest with radioactive waste dumping.
• Nuclear war attack plans are still being rehearsed by the United States and NATO.
• Kings Bay Plowshares 7 disarmament activists face decades in prison for their symbolic protest, while the federal court system protects nuclear weapons.

Thanks to your support, Nukewatch is keeping tabs on the national and international scene by scouring the news, staying in close contact with sister organizations, and by joining events around the country:

–  Staff and volunteers and your financial gift helped send a disarmament delegation to Germany in July.

– Nukewatch attended the federal court trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares-7 in Brunswick, Georgia in October.

– We travelled to New York in June to participate in a national Strategic Planning Training for radioactive waste activists.

– Nukewatch joined the Strategic Planning meeting in September in Washington, DC.

– In November, Nukewatch joined the Grassroots Radioactive Waste Summit in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Your donations keep Nukewatch’s plans on track for another year of local, regional and international anti-war and anti-nuclear work:

– Providing much-needed, under-reported information in our Quarterly, Fact Sheets, Special Reports, and on our web site.

– Our May 2020 conference “Stop the New Nuclear Arms Race” in Maryville Tennessee, sponsored by Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nukewatch, and The Nuclear Resister. The conference is focused on promoting and expanding compliance with the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. You are invited! Please make plans to attend the gathering which will also be a celebration of Nukewatch’s, The Nuclear Resister’s, and the Plowshares movement’s 40^th anniversaries: 1980 to 2020!

– This July will see the fourth Nukewatch-sponsored US peace delegation to the International Week at the Peace Camp outside Germany’s Büchel Air Base, home to 20 US nuclear bombs. You’re invited to join this delegation as well!

These activities are only a small part of why Nukewatch needs your donation.

Phone and internet services allow us to conduct research, organize, answer inquiries, share information, and work with other groups to broaden the scope of understanding and action. Electricity bills keep our computers, copiers, printers, rechargers and efficient lights going. The Progressive Foundation, parent to Nukewatch, has to cover insurance premiums — some mandated by the state — as well as auto, property and injury insurance.

Printing and copying of educational materials, flyers and the Nukewatch Quarterly are a necessary part of our outreach. These costs grow every year. As the size of the Quarterly has increased from the original 4-page format, the price has doubled. At times we are able to print a 12-page issue, such as the one you received in September which doubles the cost. Nukewatch also purchases books, reports, news stories and reference materials as a part of our research library.

The price of postage takes a huge chunk of our funds as we mail and distribute thousands of Quarterly newsletters every year.

Office supplies such as paper, ink cartridges and resource materials take a fair portion of our budget.

Without your financial support, Nukewatch cannot follow through on our 40-year-long mission of alerting people to the wasteful, dangerous and unnecessary hazards of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

Your donation will help us keep at it. Please send a gift today.

Sincerely,

John LaForge, Co-director