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January 15, 2015 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nine Groups Sue NRC Over Failure to Obey 2012 Waste Ruling

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2014

Nine large environmental groups filed lawsuits in federal court Oct. 29 charging that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has violated earlier court findings.

The NRC has issued proposed rules that would allow high-level radioactive waste to pile up at reactor sites and would permit a generic environmental impact statement to be used in reactor license applications, regardless of the vast differences in size, type, location, population density and water use by separate reactors. The nine groups allege that the NRC’s proposed rules violate a 2012 federal court ruling that had reversed previous agency plans.

Filed in the District of Columbia, the earlier lawsuit resulted in halting US reactor licensing until the NRC finished a study of the impact of long-term storage of high-level reactor wastes at individual reactor sites. The government’s failure to site a centralized disposal site for the industry’s 141,000 metric tons of waste fuel means that reactor operators have to continue to store their extremely hot and radioactive wastes onsite for many decades.

Geoffrey Fettus, Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the plaintiffs, said, “The NRC disregarded the explicit direction of the DC Circuit [Court] to examine the environmental impacts of indefinite storage of [waste] fuel in the event there is no [permanent] repository. … Instead … the NRC created an expedient fiction that ‘nothing will ever change … and safe agency practices will persist forever, obviating the need for a [central] repository.’”

The lawsuit asks the court to order the NRC to do the work that the earlier decision required.

“Dr. Arjun Makhijani, an expert who analyzed the NRC rule for the nine groups, said, “Until the NRC has studied the … environmental impacts of [waste] fuel disposal, it should [not] allow the generation of more highly radioactive [waste] reactor fuel.”

Filed Under: Direct Action, Environment, Environmental Justice, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radioactive Waste

July 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Global Medics Call for Abolition, Say Nuclear Weapons’ Use “Makes Medical Assistance Impossible”

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2014

NAYARIT, Mexico — The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has again demanded that governments must never again use nuclear weapons and called for the elimination of the world’s nuclear arsenals. The medics’ declaration came at a meeting of civil society groups in Nayarit, Mexico Feb. 13, 2014.

The Movement issued its demand in view of growing world-wide awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear explosions.

The Red Cross/Red Crescent declaration reiterates a similar call made at an Oslo conference last year. Participants at both meetings emphasized that casualties and devastation in the aftermath of a nuclear attack would be so far-reaching that it would be impossible to provide adequate medical assistance.

The weapons’ health and environmental consequences result from the heat, blast and radiation unleashed by an explosion and the long distances over which these effects spread. Detonation of a nuclear warhead can destroy medical infrastructure and services, making the provision of aid and assistance all but impossible, as was the case in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The United States officially denies this view and claims, as it did before the UN’s International Court of Justice in 1996: “Nuclear weapons can be directed at a military target and can be used in a discriminate manner.”

In 2011, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement made an historic appeal when it first urged nuclear-armed states to never again use such weapons, regardless of their views on their legality, and to immediately negotiate the prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons through a legally binding international treaty.

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

July 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

UK Protestors Arrested Aboard Nuclear Sub

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2014

HELENSBURGH, Scotland — Two anti-nuclear weapons activists gained access and were arrested March 19 aboard Britain’s Royal Navy submarine HMS Ambush at its Faslane berth in the West of Scotland. Faslane houses the headquarters of the Royal Navy and Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons.

“I am amazed and disturbed by the accessibility of the UK’s top defense site. Up to 80 nuclear warheads are often stationed here, along with several nuclear reactors. We thought we could get in, but not that we would be arrested within meters of nuclear materials,” stated Heather Stewart, one of those arrested.

The HMS Ambush is one of three new Astute Class hunter-killer nuclear submarines that will replace the UK’s aging Trident fleet. Four more Astute subs are scheduled to be built and based at Faslane, and the three built so far have cost the British government over $1.6 billion each.

“Direct actions such as this are necessary, to reflect the overwhelming public support for scrapping Trident and to show that we won’t accept a Trident replacement or new nuclear submarines,” Stewart said. Their action was launched from the Faslane Peace Camp, which has provided a base for action outside the site for 31 years.

The US Navy also faces opposition to the replacement of its own Trident fleet — its 12 new nuclear submarines are expected to cost taxpayers $100 billion.

— Faslane Peace Camp press release, Mar. 21; Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, May 10, 2014

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

July 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Y-12 Plowshares Sabotage Convictions to be Appealed

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2014

On March 6 attorneys for the three Transform Now Plowshares activists who were sentenced to long prison terms in February announced that an appeal team was being assembled and moving forward. 

The disarmament action of July 2012 resulted in felony property damage and sabotage convictions for Sr. Megan Rice, 83, Greg Boertje-Obed, 58, and Michael Walli, 65, who were sentenced to 35 months, 62 months and 62 months in federal prison respectively. The three senior citizens humiliated the nuclear weapons establishment generally, and National Nuclear Security Agency in particular, by reaching the “Fort Knox of Uranium” building at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and painting slogans and hanging banners there after passing undetected through four fences. 

Transform Now Plowshares activists Michael Walli, Sr. Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed.

The federal appeal will confront the sabotage conviction. Attorney Bill Quiqley says the sabotage charge is “an attempt to intimidate the defendants and others from doing symbolic disarmament actions at other nuclear facilities.” 

Quigley, Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a professor of law at Loyola University, wrote to the three that the appeal will challenge the sabotage conviction “on the grounds that your open dedication to nuclear disarmament cannot be used as an element of ‘criminal intent.’” 

A reversal of the sabotage conviction would require the three to return to court to be re-sentenced. Such an appeal victory could also make the US government less likely to charge it against other peace activists. 

There is a risk that the government will choose to cross appeal and ask that the sentences be lengthened. 

Volunteer lawyers, including Quigley, Anna Lellelid, and members of the influential Orrick law firm in New York, are studying the May 2013 trial transcripts and preparing to enroll as counsel in the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The circuit takes cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. 

Filed Under: Direct Action, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

January 18, 2014 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Bothering “His Imperial Majesty” Over Fukushima

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2013-2014

Japanese street artist “281 Anti Nuke” sends a warning and creates awareness of Fukushima. Stickers like this one appear all around Tokyo.

TOKYO, Japan — Taro Yamamoto is a lawmaker in the Upper House of Japan’s government who happens to be actively anti-nuclear. He made news in October, when he did the unthinkable and approached Emperor Akihito at a garden party and handed him a letter describing his concerns over

Japanese children being exposed to radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster in food, water and soil. The letter also warned of the dangerous working conditions for temporary workers involved in cleanup operations. Yamamoto’s approach was seen in Japan as grossly impolite. Since World War II, when Akihito’s father, Emperor Hirohito renounced his “divinity,” the Emperor has performed only a symbolic and nongovernmental role. Yet many conservatives still consider the Emperor divine, so for a “commoner” to dare to approach him was newsworthy. Overlooked in much of the coverage was the letter’s content regarding radiation exposure of children. In his defense, Yamamoto said, “I just wanted the Emperor to know the reality.” 

— Japanese Times, Oct. 31, and the Guardian, Nov. 7, 2013

Filed Under: Direct Action, Fukushima, Nuclear Power, Radiation Exposure

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