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Kings Bay Plowshares 7 Update: Federal Court Considers Defense Motions

Fall Quarterly 2018

Editor’s note: This update by defense attorney Bill Quigley has been edited for space for our print version. 

The Kings Bay Plowshares participants from left: Clare Grady, Patrick O’Neill, Elizabeth McAlister, Fr. Steve Kelly SJ, Martha Hennessy, Mark Colville, and Carmen Trotta.

Early on the morning of April 4, 2018, seven nuclear abolitionists were arrested inside the Kings Bay Naval Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia. Kings Bay is the Atlantic homeport for six Trident nuclear ballistic missile submarines. The “Kings Bay Plowshares 7” were indicted on four felony charges: Conspiracy, Destruction of property on a naval station, Depredation of government property, and Trespass.

All seven were held without bail for six weeks. As of September, Liz McAlister and Fr. Steve Kelly remain in jail at the Brunswick County Detention Facility. Liz has decided not to bail out at this time, but will wait to see if the severely restrictive bail requirements can be reduced. Steve was not given the option of bail, because he has a pending case in Washington State for a protest at the Trident submarine base. Martha Hennessy, Patrick O’Neill, and Carmen Trotta raised bail and were released May 24. Clare Grady made bail July 11, and Mark Colville was released in Sept. The five all have to wear ankle bracelets and are confined to their homes.

On Aug. 2, 2018, the activists appeared before US Magistrate Stan Baker in federal court in Brunswick, Georgia to argue that all charges against them be dropped. They set out six reasons why the charges should be dismissed, and detailed arguments are available at kingsbayplowshares7.org.

The first argument is that Trident nuclear weapons are illegal under US domestic law. The weapons on one of the several Kings Bay submarines have destructive power 2,500 times greater than the US atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Any use or threat of use violates US criminal law prohibiting war crimes, violates the laws of war, and violates the legal requirements of the US Naval, Air Force and Army service manuals.

The Kings Bay Trident submarine’s missiles cannot possibly be targeted to destroy only military targets, so any launch will destroy tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians within minutes—and millions more in the nuclear winter aftermath.

Second, these weapons of mass destruction are illegal under US/international law. The US constitution specifically incorporates international treaty law into US law and international treaties prohibit the use of weapons which will kill civilians. The Navy’s  Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations also requires command authorities to follow international law.

Third, the property protecting these illegal weapons, which was damaged in the symbolic disarmament, is not deserving of legal protection. Much like the pesticides used to murder millions under the Nazis, these weapons’ only use is illegal and immoral and the fences which protect them are likewise illegal.

Fourth, the fact that government chooses only to prosecute those who seek to disarm nuclear weapons while turning a blind eye to presidential threats to use these illegal weapons demonstrates this prosecution is selective and vindictive.

Fifth, because the government charged people with two counts of felony damage to property and conspiracy to damage property, some of these charges must be dismissed because they allow the government to criminalise the same conduct several ways.

Sixth, the prosecution violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act under which the government cannot interfere with religious faith or practices unless it shows compelling interest in doing so and proves that it has chosen the least restrictive way of doing it. Defendants pointed out that the government charged them to the maximum extent of the law when they could have sued them civilly or taken less punitive action.

The hearing also discussed discovery requests by the defendants and the government about how much it actually cost the military to replace the lock on the fence, repair the fence and clean and repaint the places on the base where defendants wrote biblical and peace statements. The Magistrate also heard objections to the electronic monitoring shackles which each of the people not in jail are required to wear 24/7.

—Bill Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans

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California Sets a Trend, Tells Congress: Ratify Ban Treaty, ‘No First Use’

On the Bright Side

Fall Quarterly 2018

The print version of this article has been corrected here to include the actual nuclear weapons infrastructure rebuild cost of $1.7 trillion. Thank you Vic Hummert!

On August 28, 2018 California’s State Senate adopted both Assembly Joint Resolutions 30 and 33. AJR 30 urges Congress to pass legislation restricting the US President’s power to launch a nuclear attack or to okay the first use of nuclear weapons without any consultation. AJR 33 calls for ratification of the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by 122 countries at the United Nations in 2017. Both measures previously passed the State Assembly.

California is the first state to pass a bill like AJR 30 which specifically supports legislation introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. and Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., and the action is expected to embolden cities and other states to pass similar measures.

AJR 33 describes the catastrophic health and environmental consequences of detonating nuclear weapons, and calls on the US to undertake a series of key nuclear disarmament measures, such as signing and ratifying the new Ban Treaty, renouncing first use of nuclear weapons, ending the “alert status” for nuclear launch systems, and cancelling the planned 30-year, $1.7 trillion nuclear weapons infrastructure rebuild.

California’s action helps assure that nuclear disarmament remains part of the national discussion. Support similar campaigning underway in your state.

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So Long to Japan’s “Breeder” of Radioactive Waste

Opponents of nuclear power rally outside Monju fast breeder reactor. Getty Images
Fall Quarterly 2018
By Kelly Lundeen & John LaForge

The Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor in central Japan is the latest to join the long line of failed attempts to prove breeder technology. Even though Monju has been largely shutdown since a bad accident in 1995, proponents of the “sodium cooled” technology still promised miracles like perpetual power generated by producing more reactor fuel than was used. Monju limped along in cold shutdown after the accident, until 2018 when Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority put the final nail in its coffin and approved a plan for decommissioning—just like similar dead-end projects in the US, UK, Germany and France. One headline in Nikkei Asian Review read, “Japan to shut troubled ‘dream’ nuclear reactor: The decades-old plant cost almost $10 billion and hardly ever operated.” It operated only 250 days in the 14 years since its 1994 start up.

Japan expects to spend over $3.5 billion to decommission the giant machines which it estimates will take 30 years, (four years just to remove its 530 fuel rods) and engineers estimate the process will create 26,700 tons of radioactive waste. There is no process yet designated for removal of the 760 tons of radioactive liquid sodium coolant. The operators still have no licensed and approved destination for the high-level waste fuel rods, beyond placing them in an onsite cooling pool.

The theory behind breeder reactors was to produce more fuel than they use. Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors like Monju were to use plutonium fuel rods to produce more plutonium. Most breeder experiments, such as Monju, are cooled by liquid sodium, the “liquid metal,” an extremely dangerous chemical that ignites on contact with air and explodes on contact with water. The designers aspired to create a “plutonium economy” to make nuclear power viable long after the supply of uranium was depleted. Another breeder pipe dream was that the reactors would reduce the volume of solid radioactive waste by extracting plutonium from waste uranium fuel rods and turning it into fuel. The Achilles heel in this plan is its generation of huge volumes of liquid high-level waste.

Even after 60 years and tens of billions of dollars invested, not a single breeder reactor experiment has succeeded. “Despite its theoretical attractiveness in converting non-fissile into fissile material, the breeder reactor has turned out to be a far tougher technology than thermal reactors. Unfortunately the dream of breeder reactors has remained a theory. The magic of fuel multiplication has not yet been realized on any meaningful scale.” This assessment, written nearly 20 years ago by Arjun Makhijani and Scott Saleska in The Nuclear Power Deception, has been confirmed over and over again. Nevertheless, Russia, India and China continue to invest in the concept.

—The Mainichi, Aug. 30, 2018; Nikkei Asian Review, Apr. 6, 2018; Japan Times, Dec. 6, 2017

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Walkatjurra Walkabout to Ban Uranium Mines in Western Australia

On the Bright Side
Fall Quarterly 2018
Kado Muir, at left, of the Western Australia Nuclear-Free Alliance joined the walkabout. Photo by the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

In the state of Western Australia a group that reached over 50 at times left Wiluna by foot led by Wangkatja Indigenous elders of the Goldfields region. For the eighth year in a row the Walkatjurra Walkabout hiked through four areas threatened with uranium mines to amplify the voice of indigenous traditionals and local organizations that have struggled for decades to remain nuclear-free.

In 2017, a state ban on uranium mining was declared by the government of Western Australia except for four proposals at Kintyre, Yeelirrie, Wiluna and Mulga Rock. The strength of local anti-mining movements has set back all four mining plans, none of which have received final approval. While there is no uranium mining in Western Australia, the walkers want it banned completely before any of the proposals are developed. The 155-miles walk ended in Leonora Sept. 3. Along the way walkers met with communities that could be impacted by the mines and shared stories from their struggles. “The Walkatjurra Walkabout is a pilgrimage across Wangkatja country in the spirit of our ancestors, so together, we as present custodians, can protect our land and our culture for future generations. My people have resisted destructive mining on our land and our sacred sites for forty years,” said Kado Muir, one of the walkers.

—To support or join the Walkabout next year see: walkingforcountry.com

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The Climate’s Already Too Hot for Nuclear Power

Fall Quarterly 2018
The single nuclear reactor Ft. Calhoun station near Omaha, Nebraska was inundated by Missouri River flooding in June 2011. Missouri floodwaters also threatened the Cooper reactor in Brownville, Nebraska, which narrowly escaped a shutdown. Ft. Calhoun was permanently closed in 2016, but still “stores” 600,000 to 800,000 pounds (300 to 400 tons) of high level radioactive waste fuel in the floodplain.
By John LaForge, Nukewatch

With the summer’s record high temp’s all over the world, Andy Rowell asked this pointed question in Oil Change International: “For the last decade the nuclear industry has been telling us it is the solution to climate change. But if their reactors can’t work in our rapidly warming world, are we just building a whole new generation of expensive white elephants?”

Indeed, Reuters reported Aug. 4 that Electricity de France (EDF) in Paris shut down four nuclear reactors at three sites due to the heat summer wave. EDF, the mostly government-owned utility, ordered the shut downs because the scorching summer heat that slammed Europe drastically raised temperatures in the Rhone and Rhine Rivers. Temperatures reached 98.6°F in the Rhone valley, home to 14 reactors. Highs in Spain and Portugal in early August hovered around 104°F and reached 116.6°F.

The warming of seawater caused by Europe’s heat wave forced Finland’s two Loviisa reactors, about 65 miles outside Helsinki, to reduce power in July, just as it did before, in 2010 and 2011, Reuters reported.

The July 2006 heat wave also forced European reactor operators to reduce or halt production due to dramatic increases in the temperature of river waters. The Guardian reported back then that Spain shut down its reactor on the River Ebro. Reactor operators in Germany also cut output then, and several German and French units were allowed to temporarily violate temperature limits on the hot water the reactors return to rivers.

Nuclear reactors exacerbate global warming

In 2003, temperatures in French rivers reached record highs that also forced the temporary powering down of four reactors. France’s nuclear oversight authority then gave some reactor operators permission to return the river water at temperatures not normally allowed, a move that critics said would endanger fish and add to global warming.

Meanwhile, rising sea levels threaten to shutter one-out-of-four of the world’s 460 power reactors currently built on coastlines. John Vidal reports in the Aug. 21 edition of Hakai magazine that experts have warned that even newly built seawalls may not provide sufficient protection. Vidal interviewed Pete Roche, a former adviser to the UK government and Greenpeace, who pointed out that the seawall at the $25-billion “Hinkley Point C” nuclear station being built in southwest England “does not adequately take into account sea-level rise due to climate change.”

“In fact,” Vidal reports, research by Ensia — a nonprofit environmental magazine published at the University of Minnesota — suggests that “at least 100 US, European, and Asian nuclear power stations built just a few meters above sea level could be threatened by serious flooding caused by accelerating sea-level rise and more frequent storm surges.”

The two St. Lucie reactors in Florida are among the US coastal nuclear sites considered most vulnerable to storm surges. While no US reactors have been “in imminent danger of a meltdown because of a storm surge,” Vidal notes, there have been many close calls. “Three US reactors were temporarily shut down because of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and a fourth, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, was put on alert when water levels rose dramatically, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

But the NRC is not concerned about storm surges. In August 2017, as Hurricane Harvey pummeled east Texas, environmental groups called for the immediate shutdown of the two South Texas Project reactors near Bay City. Instead, the twin, 42-year-old behemoths were kept running at full capacity throughout the disaster, the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the United States.

 

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