Nukewatch

Working for a nuclear-free future since 1979

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UN Working Group Calls for Negotiations in  Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons Treaty Ban

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2016
By Kelly Lundeen

In a historic move, the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on nuclear disarmament recommended that the General Assembly mandate negotiations on a nuclear weapons ban treaty. After 127 states committed to the Humanitarian Pledge adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 15, 2015, the OEWG began meeting and declared the recommendation on August 19, 2016. The ban would be a legally-binding international law imposing “prohibitions against possession, use, development, production, stockpiling and transfer, as well as measures for elimination.” While no one expects the US and other nuclear-armed states to ratify the treaty, the law would increase critical international pressure and severely stigmatize any continued possession or threatened use of the weapons.

Many of the nations that took part in the meetings that led to the recommendation argue that there is a legal gap in international law to reach total elimination of nuclear weapons. While one of the fundamental purposes of the United Nations is nuclear disarmament, little progress has been made by means of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or the independent treaties between the US and Russia. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), with partner organizations in 98 countries, has led the civilian push for a treaty ban. The groups believe that endless failure on disarmament is not an option. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War said the goal of a ban is “more effective measures to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Reacting to the OEWG’s recommendation Anita E. Friedt, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, defended what she called “progress” made by the US toward a nuclear-free world. However, current efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons have been led by states with vested interests in retaining them—the nuclear powers and their corporate backers who profit from maintenance of the status quo. This contradiction is demonstrated by the trillion-dollar program proposed by the United States to upgrade its nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years.

Ms. Friedt claimed, “We know that nuclear disarmament can only be achieved through an approach that takes into account the views and the security interests of all states. That is why we reject the final report …[which fails] to take account of the international security environment and will neither lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons nor uphold the principle of undiminished security for all. So, together let us reject division and instead agree that we share a common goal and recommit to the roadmap we are on, one that has proven results.”

If US policy-makers truly took “into account the views and the security interests of all states,” nuclear weapons would have been abolished long ago.

Actual elimination will be slow in coming. Depending on the results of the negotiations, the US and other nuclear-armed states will begin to feel increased global pressure to reduce their arsenals. But even when the US has become party to a weapons ban treaty, it is reluctant to stop its support for the military industry. The Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force in 1997, yet, according to CNN and the Centers for Disease Control, the US possesses 3,000 tons of chemical warfare materiel—roughly three times the amount held by Syria. The Convention on Cluster Munitions went into force in 2010. While the US did not adopt this treaty, as of Sept. 1, 2016 these weapons are no longer being produced here. Criticism over the use of US-made cluster munitions by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, and refusal by international financial institutions to include them in investments, has led Textron Systems to announce that it will stop manufacturing them. Textron’s action shows that the stigmatization advocated by treaty ban proponents does have an impact.

Opposition to a nuclear weapons ban will continue from the weapons industry, nuclear-armed states and those states who consider themselves “protected” by nuclear-armed states. The next step toward the ban treaty is for the First Committee of the UN to issue a mandate in its October meeting to commence negotiations in 2017. If enough public pressure can be brought to bear, an overwhelming majority of UN member states is likely to prevail with a ban that truly “takes into account the views and the security interests of all states.”

—Foreign Policy, Aug. 31; US Department of State, Aug. 29; Report of the Open-ended Working Group, Aug. 19; and PAX Netherlands, June 16, 2016; CNN Oct. 14, and Centers for Disease Control, May 9, 2014

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Federal Nuclear Waste Site Search Team Lampooned at Minnesota Hearing

Energy Department’s “Consent-Based” Plan Slammed
Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2016
 By Kelly Lundeen

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota—On July 21, the Department of Energy (DOE) held the last of eight hearings it dubbed “Consent-Based Siting” sessions regarding its plans for disposing of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste from commercial reactors. For over 60 years, the roughly 60,000 tons of this waste has been accumulating at reactor sites, and the DOE is again publicly collecting input on how to choose a disposal site. Using its so-called “consent-based” initiative, the DOE is compiling comments regarding a framework for the process of finding a community that would accept decades of dangerous shipments and bury or store the waste. The DOE received less than a warm welcome at the Minneapolis Hilton.

Nukewatch staff member Kelly Lundeen plays the role of Potential Waste Host Community during the “Radioactive Green Eggs and Ham” action at the July DOE hearing in Minneapolis.

Nukewatch attended, along with supporters and allies that politely lambasted the DOE staff and its paid participants. Anti-nuclear activists traveled from as far away as Texas (Sustainable Economic and Energy Development Coalition), Illinois (Nuclear Energy Info. Service), Delaware (Green Delaware), and Nevada (NV Nuclear Waste Task Force), as well as Minnesota (North American Water Office, Women Against Military Madness, Legalectric, Friends of Coldwater).

Nuclear waste specialist Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear called the initiative “an elaborate fishing expedition conducted to test the strength of public opposition.”

Mary Olson, from Nuclear Information & Resource Service was critical of the DOE’s process too, and wrote Nukewatch in an email: “Individuals in the Department of Energy, who were part of the short-lived Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, believe that during the commission’s term there were ‘volunteer’ sites for waste storage that came forward (Waste Control Specialists in Texas is one), and they decided to engage in what they believe is a consent-based waste storage siting process now, even though a change in federal law will be required to actually move the waste. The meetings were held to provide a public-participation component to this law-less act.”

The DOE’s meetings have been condemned for many reasons, among them:

  • Bailing out the nuclear industry—Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the DOE took responsibility for finding a storage site, and it committed to taking ownership of the waste as soon as it left the site of the utilities producing it. The act gave nuclear utilities free reign to produce radioactive waste for decades without having to worry about the cost of disposal or accidents. The nuclear industry wants this waste removed from its premises before more accidents happen. Since the DOE has yet to find a permanent disposal site, the utilities have successfully sued the DOE for missing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act deadline and forcing their continued onsite storage! This corporate welfare is one more way the government props up the industry. The industry’s desire to get rid of the waste is what is driving the process for choosing a disposal site before there is sufficient thought given to a permanent geologic repository or a long term solution.
  • Involving pro-nuclear lobby at all levels—While the nuclear industry is behind the push for moving waste reactor fuel out of the hands of the companies that produced it, the nuclear industry is also in front of this push! The pro-nuclear lobby group Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) was on the panel of speakers for the DOE meeting. Nukewatch recently exposed this group’s leverage over the government when pro-nuclear industry legislation to eliminate pre-conditions on new reactor construction passed in Wisconsin (See Summer 2016 Quarterly).
  • DOE’s growing credibility gap—When an institution as trustworthy as the DOE is asking for “consent” about something, there is cause for suspicion. The violation of the Treaty of Ruby Valley in attempting to build the high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain despite strong objections from the Western Shoshone First Nation, the pressure put on the Skull Valley Band of Goshute in Utah to house a high-level waste storage site, and the failure to meet cleanup requirements of the Tri-Party Agreement at the Hanford Reservation in Washington are only a few reasons for the great credibility gap the DOE has created for itself.
  • Ignoring previous public input—The collection of another volume of public comments gives the impression that the authorities have not heard from the public. On the contrary, the DOE has mountains of expert and public opinion on the question of waste disposal from hundreds of individuals and groups, collected for decades, much of it shelved and ill-considered if not ignored. For example, over 200 safe energy organizations representing all 50 states have signed onto and urged implementation of Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS) principles—developed by Dr. Arjun Makhajani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research—for improving reactor-site waste storage facilities.
  • Leaving “Consent-based” undefined—It is necessary to have an agreed-upon definition of “consent” for the DOE process to be consensual, but according to Dave Kraft of Nuclear Energy Information Service in Chicago, reports that DOE officials have said that consensus may mean different things at different times and at different places. Carol Overland of Legalectric in Red Wing, Minnesota spoke at the meeting about “affirmative consent” in the context of violent assault, replacing the word “sexual” with “nuclear.” She said: “Consent cannot be given when a person is incapacitated … Incapacitation may be caused … if monetary consideration is received and not publicly disclosed. Consent cannot be given when it is the result of any coercion, intimidation, force or threat of harm. When consent is withdrawn, or can no longer be given, nuclear activity must stop.” Also, when speaking of consent, we must ask from whom it is being sought. The DOE is not seeking consent from communities along waste transport routes; and it is impossible to obtain consent from the thousands of future generations that will be affected.
  • Ignoring the WCS application—Of the eight consent-based siting public meetings held around the US, none were anywhere near the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in west Texas, the only place that has submitted an application to accept the waste. Nor was it acknowledged by the DOE that entertaining such applications from private companies completely bypasses DOE’s own process of consent-based siting.
Radioactive Eggs and Ham

With DOE’s dog and pony show set for stage, Nukewatch decided that an appropriate role would be to add our own circus act; “Radioactive Eggs and Ham,” a parody of Dr. Seuss’s 1960 children’s book Green Eggs and Ham, riddled with radioactive references was written by me for Nukewatch specially for this meeting. The Q & A dialogue was read by two characters, the DOE and the Potential Waste Host Community. The DOE was played by Nukewatch member Roger Cuthbertson and Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) Board Member Carol Walker. The Potential Waste Host Community was played by Nukewatch members Elena Hight, Austin Sims and me.

When it came time for John Kotek, the DOE’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, to speak, Roger, portraying the DOE, stole the stage proclaiming:

“I am the DOE. The DOE am I.”

One of the representatives from the DOE stood up to try to quiet Roger, but then from the other side of the room the Potential Waste Host Community responded: “That DOE. That DOE. / I don’t like nuclear energy.”

The DOE representative flailed his arms, discouraged, and sat down.

Roger, portraying the DOE character, continued, “Do you like radioactive waste?”

The Potential Waste Host Community answered, “I do not like radioactive waste.”

Mr. Kotek was still trying to speak and follow the prepared agenda, but even with the microphone he did not drown out the parody.

Roger’s DOE character insisted, “Would you like it here or there?”

The Potential Waste Host Community answered, “I would not like it here or there. / I would not like it anywhere. / Stop making radioactive waste. / I do not like it anyplace.”

Several people tried to prevent the disruption and one even said, “Is there anybody here who has the authority to remove these people?”

No one did. Eventually the Acting Assistant Secretary backed away and surrendered the microphone as we took over the meeting for another three minutes.

After hearing several suggested waste sites made by the DOE character in the skit, the Potential Waste Host Community countered, “I could not, would not, in a borehole. / It is not safe, or under control. / I will not take it on a train. / You should not drive it through the rain. / Not on a truck! Not next to me! / Not through my yard! You let me be! / I do not like it in Arizona. / I do not like it in Minnesota. / I will not take it in Massachusetts. / I will not take it to Yucca Mountain. / I do not like it here or there. / I do not like it anywhere! / Stop making radioactive waste! / I do not like it anyplace.”

Finally the DOE character asked, “You do not like it, so you say. / What shall we do to save the day?”

The Potential Waste Host Community concluded, “Stop making radioactive waste! / Don’t transport it all over the place. / Keep it on site / and save the human race!”

The tone for the remainder of the meeting had been set. Ridiculous claims made by the DOE were met with booing from the audience. During the Q & A period, 11 of 13 questions were critical of the DOE. When it came time for public comment, the denunciations were even more scathing thanks to a well-prepared, well-informed group of speakers that has been working against nukes for decades.

The federal process of seeking waste disposal sites is driven by the nuclear industry whose legal and financial liability will be lifted when its wastes are transferred to federal agencies. The DOE also needs to appear responsive to concerned citizens and has learned this lesson the hard way after facing opposition to the Yucca Mountain site and to earlier waste dump proposals. Now it feels it is necessary to build the image that it is seeking public input at an early stage in the process, and to use benign-sounding terms like “consent.” These moves mean that control of the country’s nuclear future has shifted slightly in the right direction. We will need to maintain public pressure to make sure that nuclear power becomes our nuclear past.

See the entire 57-page Public Meeting transcript including Nukewatch’s disruptive parody (pp. 7-9) and Carol Overland’s comments (p. 49) and read all of “Radioactive Eggs and Ham” to use in your community at www.nukewatchinfo.org.

 

 

 

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Taking Lead from Nukewatch, More Experts Calling for Abolition of Land-based Nuclear-Armed Missiles

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2016
By John LaForge

In “End the First-Use Policy for Nuclear Weapons,” in the August 15, 2016 New York Times, General James Cartwright and Bruce Blaire argue that US presidents should no longer allow “their senior commanders to plan for the first use of nuclear weapons,” and the writers called for the complete elimination of US land-based missiles (the Minuteman IIIs) and of all 180 US nuclear weapons deployed in Europe (the B61s)—urging President Obama to start getting rid of them now. The two disarmament actions have been promoted by Nukewatch staff, members, volunteers and supporters for decades.

General Cartwright is a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former commander of the US Strategic Command. Blaire, a former Minuteman missile launch officer, is a research scholar at Princeton.

A week earlier the Times said in its lead editorial, “Some defense experts, like former Defense Secretary William Perry have argued that the land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles are no longer needed. In other words, the time has come to think seriously about whether that leg of the traditional air-sea-land nuclear triad should be gradually retired.”

Nukewatch’s newest book—Nuclear Heartland, Revied: A Guide to the 450 Land-based Missiles of the United States—includes a surprising chronicle of other high-level experts and former military commanders who have called for abolishing the Minuteman IIIs.

Here are excerpts from the Op-Ed:

Adopting a policy of no-first use of nuclear weapons “would reduce costs by gutting the rationale for retaining the large arsenal of land-based strategic [Minuteman III] missiles in silos across the Midwest and the tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. Those [weapons] are mainly for first-use; they are a risky option for second-use because they are highly vulnerable to enemy attack. Eliminating these weapons entirely would be the best option.

“Phasing out land-based missiles … would save about $100 billion over the next three decades. President Obama could begin the phase-out of land-based missiles before he left office by instructing the Department of Defense to remove 450 weapons from the operationally deployed category and transfer them to long-term storage…. These missiles are surplus weapons no longer needed for deterrence.

“A no-first-use policy would also reduce the risks of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. By scrapping the vulnerable land-based missile force, any need for launching on warning disappears.”

Help increase the strength and volume of the abolition movement by ordering a copy of Nuclear Heartland now, and stock your local library. 

 

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 Canadian Whistleblowers, Public and Environment: Unprotected Canadian Nuclear Industry: Protected

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2016
By Kelly Lundeen

You have regulatory staff that are aware of increased risks, suppressing other risks, and failing to report them to the public, and failing to put conditions on reactor operators. All of these contributed to Fukushima and we’re seeing it at the CNSC [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission]. — Shawn-Patrick Stensil

Senior Energy Strategist at Greenpeace Canada, Shawn-Patrick Stensil, was one of five to receive a missive from an anonymous group of whistleblowers people May. The authors of the letter that brought up hazardous procedural and technical matters appear to be insiders at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The letter was also sent to two CNSC commissioners and the president Michael Binder who have not only dismissed it, but publicly mocked its authors and muzzled Stensil.

The letters have been the subject of CNSC meetings. On August 17 the allegations in the letter were repudiated by a CNSC strategic advisor who instead upheld the regulatory enforcement and character of the Commission. Binder belittled the authors’ adeptness and when other staff made disparaging comments toward the authors, he responded, “So if you’re correct, we’re into a conspiracy theory.” At another hearing Binder turned off the microphone when Stensil attempted to address issues raised in the letter. Stensil had been invited to speak by the CNSC, as he has for the last 15 years. The National Observer asked the Commission why he was not allowed to speak; the response was that it didn’t want public input.

Given the gravity of the issues and the public mandate of the CNSC to govern nuclear utilities and preserve public safety, mocking and muzzling unfavorable news are inappropriate and exactly what the authors expected when they wrote, “we are not confident in whistleblower protection.” The letter alleges that a Fukushima-sized disaster could be prevented by following guidelines and completing adequate reviews of reactor licenses. Five case studies were given as evidence that decisions about nuclear plants’ operational fitness were made by the Commission without adequate information. In one case, environmental assessments completed for the Darlington, Ontario nuclear reactor were not released prior to a refurbishment review, because it wasn’t required. In another review of the same reactor, the seismic hazard was underestimated by a factor of two. Unfortunately under CNSC president Binder, appointed by Canada’s former Prime Minister Harper, the direction of the CNSC has been to cut costs and support the industry, leaving the public vulnerable and leaving safety to chance.

—National Observer, Aug. 18 & July 19; Ottawa Citizen, July 18, 2016

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(Why) I Am an Anarchist

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2016
Through the Prism of Nonviolence
By John Heid

“All our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”
— Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker

“Our experience today is the strange one of empty political institutions in which no one has any confidence any more, of a system of government which functions only in the interests of a political class, and at the same time of the almost infinite growth of power, authority and social control which makes any one of our democracies a more authoritarian mechanism than the Napoleonic state.”
—Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity

“The task at hand is not to abandon or deconstruct civil society but to establish our civilization on a foundation of justice.”
—Jim Corbett, Sanctuary For All Life

The business-sized, lime green envelopes began appearing in the neighborhood in August. Two landed in our mailbox. The contents were identified in bold print: “Official Ballot Material Enclosed.” It’s election time, with its implied summons to perform the quintessential civic duty, voting. Refusing is branded unpatriotic or anarchistic, or both, and once again the door opens for that lively discussion I have not had since the last presidential election. The topic: anarchism. This single word stops other conversations in a crowded room. While electoral politics is just the tip of the iceberg in a serious conversation about anarchism, the election is still someplace to start.

Why does the mere mention of anarchism cause a Pavlovian response of disgust, even righteous anger? I often hear: “Well, that’s pure violence, mayhem and madness. You just want to smash the state.” Historian Howard Zinn once asked: “How did the social philosophy of anarchism become such a dirty word?” Why does this issue of voting, or rather nonvoting, let alone anarchism, rile our friends and family?

Catholic Worker co-founder and lifelong anarchist Dorothy Day observed: “How strange it is that the anarchists I have met have been the most disciplined of men (sic), lawful and orderly, while those who insist that discipline and order must prevail are those who, out of plain contrariness, would refuse to obey and are the ones most unable to regulate themselves.”

In the opening chapter of Anarchism and Christianity the French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul wrote: “By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence. Hence I cannot accept either nihilists or anarchists who choose violence as a means of action.”

Institutionalized violence is the primary tool of the state. The military-corporate-academic complex is the terra firma of democratic republics. In the US, no major party from ultra-conservative Republicans to liberal Greens has a nonviolent platform. Not one of them significantly addresses the military budget, let alone nuclear weapons, drone warfare, forced occupation of other states, etc. Not only are such matters left off the ballot, they’re not even on the table. State violence is non-negotiable. There is no “Bernie fix,” nor is there a Green Party fix. All matters of social import take their place in the shadow of US militarism. Civil rights activist Diane Nash once said, “If violence truly brought about social change, by now we’d be living in a utopia.”

Anarchism envisions another way to build community, ensure security, and exercise liberty. In other words, anarchists seek a civil society worthy of the concept, not one regulated by violence and man-made laws that compel people to act justly out of fear. We’re talking about “building a new world in the shell of the old”—a favorite phrase of Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker. This construction is two-fold. Challenging and dismantling the old, tried and failed means of “might-makes-right” by means of non-cooperation with the “tyrannical forces of State and Church”—as Catholic Worker and anarchist Ammon Hennacy wrote—and simultaneously engaging in civil initiative. These two practices operate in tandem.

Civil initiative was most notably practiced here during the Sanctuary movement of the 1980s. US citizens, who believed that no one should be denied the basic rights that constitute a civil society, took direct, personal responsibility for refugees fleeing violence in Central America. Often risking arrest, Sanctuary anarchists worked at feeding, clothing, sheltering and transporting the refugees to safe havens. According to Sanctuary activist Jim Corbett, civil initiative “must be societal rather than organizational, nonviolent rather than injurious, truthful rather than deceitful,… substantive rather than symbolic, volunteer-based rather than professional, and based on community powers rather than government powers.” These concepts are the heart of civil society.

Even though an ideal anarchist society may never be fully actualized, we can put our energy toward an anarchist movement as a social model. While challenging the status quo of domination enforced with its military/corporate apparatus, we can work together to create non-hierarchical, non-authoritarian, grass roots bodies which respond to the needs of civil society. Personal responsibility is fundamental. We cannot delegate our responsibilities as human beings and members of society to bureaucracies and institutions, state or church. This is not to say that these institutions do not have a role in the current complexion of our society. They absolutely do. Still, their presence is no substitute for personal, civilian responsibility.

When your only tool is a ballot, then all issues look like a big bucks lottery. On November 8, election day, I will vote with my feet, like I do most days. Civil responsibility is not a one-night stand. My day may include resupplying water stations along remote Arizona desert trails for refugee sisters and brothers walking north, or gathering discarded produce and dry goods for redistribution to families in need, or attending some consensus-based organizational meeting. My civic voice is not muted by my absence at the polling station. Hardly!

Anarchism challenges me to dig deep and think outside the ballot box, and then put my feet to the tasks at hand. At the end of the day, my motivation is best articulated by Dorothy Day. “What we would like to do is change the world.”

—John Heid lives and works at the Casa Mariposa Community in Tucson, Arizona. 

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