Environment
A unanimous Los Angeles City Council has demanded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct extended investigations before any restart at the San Onofre atomic power plant.
The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.
Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.
On April 23, LA's eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to "make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit" until it conducts a "prudent, transparent and precautionary" investigation. The city wants "ample opportunity" for public comment and confirmation that "mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions" have been completed to guarantee the public safety.
The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.
Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.
On April 23, LA's eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to "make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit" until it conducts a "prudent, transparent and precautionary" investigation. The city wants "ample opportunity" for public comment and confirmation that "mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions" have been completed to guarantee the public safety.
The FBI and the state Inspector General’s office are investigating mineral rights lease flipping and falsification of public records in Noble County. Environmentalists claim this is a precursor to massive fracking planned in the rural Ohio area.
One family affected by this are the Bonds. They charge that state officials are harassing them and covering up the theft of gas and mineral leases at the behest of Ohio Governor John Kasich and his quest unleash the forces of fracking on rural Ohio.
The investigation focuses on Form 7, a public record that is filed with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to identify who actually owns the mineral rights under the surface land. Each Form 7 is supposed to be accompanied by a mineral lease recorded at the County Recorder’s office.
One family affected by this are the Bonds. They charge that state officials are harassing them and covering up the theft of gas and mineral leases at the behest of Ohio Governor John Kasich and his quest unleash the forces of fracking on rural Ohio.
The investigation focuses on Form 7, a public record that is filed with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to identify who actually owns the mineral rights under the surface land. Each Form 7 is supposed to be accompanied by a mineral lease recorded at the County Recorder’s office.
The bitter battle over two stricken southern California reactors has taken a shocking seismic hit.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ignored critical questions from two powerful members of Congress just as the Government Accountability Office has seriously questioned emergency planning at the San Onofre nuclear plant.
At a cost of some $770 million, Southern California Edison and its partners installed faulty steam generators at San Onofre Units 2 and 3 that have failed and leaked.
Those reactors have been been shut since January, 2012 (similar defects doomed Unit 1 in 1992).
They've generated zero electricity, but SCE and its partners have billed ratepayers over a billion dollars for them.
SCE wants San Onofre reopened by June 1. The idea is to experiment with Unit 2 at 70% of full power for five months, despite widespread concerns that the defective generators will fail again.
That would require a license amendment, about which the NRC staff has asked Edison 32 key preliminary questions. But there’s been no official, adjudicated public hearing on Edison’s response.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ignored critical questions from two powerful members of Congress just as the Government Accountability Office has seriously questioned emergency planning at the San Onofre nuclear plant.
At a cost of some $770 million, Southern California Edison and its partners installed faulty steam generators at San Onofre Units 2 and 3 that have failed and leaked.
Those reactors have been been shut since January, 2012 (similar defects doomed Unit 1 in 1992).
They've generated zero electricity, but SCE and its partners have billed ratepayers over a billion dollars for them.
SCE wants San Onofre reopened by June 1. The idea is to experiment with Unit 2 at 70% of full power for five months, despite widespread concerns that the defective generators will fail again.
That would require a license amendment, about which the NRC staff has asked Edison 32 key preliminary questions. But there’s been no official, adjudicated public hearing on Edison’s response.
About 97% of climate scientists have endorsed or substantiated that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere have increased at an accelerating rate over the last few decades or more along with a rising temperatures. The research on which these findings are based comes from evidence that has been systematically gathered and analyzed by numerous independent teams of researchers from countries around the world.
Academies of science from many nations identify and give legitimacy to studies that meet the most rigorous criteria. And there are international scientific organizations that scrutinize thousands of peer-reviewed studies and choose for examples of the best science only the studies that meet the high standards of scientific method and analysis. Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia provides a comprehensive overview of national and international organizations and the positions that have taken in its pages on “Scientific Opinion on Climate Change.
Academies of science from many nations identify and give legitimacy to studies that meet the most rigorous criteria. And there are international scientific organizations that scrutinize thousands of peer-reviewed studies and choose for examples of the best science only the studies that meet the high standards of scientific method and analysis. Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia provides a comprehensive overview of national and international organizations and the positions that have taken in its pages on “Scientific Opinion on Climate Change.
“UNCONVENTIONAL SHALE DRILLING: A FACT-BASED HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC AND POLICY DISCUSSION; WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE DON’T KNOW, WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW BEFORE MOVING FORWARD”
Grand Rapids, Ohio, March 27, 2013 - On April 5 and 6, 2013, a group of scientists, doctors, attorneys, researchers, environmental advocates and policy experts will assemble in Warren, Ohio to present and discuss the impacts of unconventional shale drilling, also called “fracking.” This conference is one of the first in the state to study and discuss facts, concerns and evolving science related to this new industry in Ohio. The conference will be held at the Wean Foundation, 147 West Market Street, Warren, Ohio.
The conference keynote speaker is Deborah Rogers of Energy Policy Forum in Dallas, Texas. (http://energypolicyforum.org/). Ms. Rogers will share her expert background in finance and banking and present: “Shale and Wall Street: Was the Decline in Natural Gas Prices Orchestrated?”
Grand Rapids, Ohio, March 27, 2013 - On April 5 and 6, 2013, a group of scientists, doctors, attorneys, researchers, environmental advocates and policy experts will assemble in Warren, Ohio to present and discuss the impacts of unconventional shale drilling, also called “fracking.” This conference is one of the first in the state to study and discuss facts, concerns and evolving science related to this new industry in Ohio. The conference will be held at the Wean Foundation, 147 West Market Street, Warren, Ohio.
The conference keynote speaker is Deborah Rogers of Energy Policy Forum in Dallas, Texas. (http://energypolicyforum.org/). Ms. Rogers will share her expert background in finance and banking and present: “Shale and Wall Street: Was the Decline in Natural Gas Prices Orchestrated?”
Thyroid abnormalities have now been confirmed among tens of thousands of children downwind from Fukushima. They are the first clear sign of an unfolding radioactive tragedy that demands this industry be buried forever.
Two years after Fukushima exploded, three still-smoldering reactors remind us that the nuclear power industry repeatedly told the world this could never happen.
And 72 years after the nuclear weapons industry began creating them, untold quantities of deadly wastes still leak at Hanford and at commercial reactor sites around the world, with no solution in sight.
Radiation can be slow to cause cancer, taking decades to kill.
But children can suffer quickly. Their cells grow faster than adults'. Their smaller bodies are more vulnerable. With the embryo and fetus, there can never be a "safe" dose of radiation. NO dose of radiation is too small to have a human impact.
Two years after Fukushima exploded, three still-smoldering reactors remind us that the nuclear power industry repeatedly told the world this could never happen.
And 72 years after the nuclear weapons industry began creating them, untold quantities of deadly wastes still leak at Hanford and at commercial reactor sites around the world, with no solution in sight.
Radiation can be slow to cause cancer, taking decades to kill.
But children can suffer quickly. Their cells grow faster than adults'. Their smaller bodies are more vulnerable. With the embryo and fetus, there can never be a "safe" dose of radiation. NO dose of radiation is too small to have a human impact.
There it stood, 500 feet of insult and injury. And then it crashed to the ground.
The weather tower at the proposed Montague double-reactor complex was meant to test wind direction in case of an accident. In early 1974, the project was estimated at $1.35 billion, as much as double the entire assessed value of all the real estate in this rural Connecticut Valley town, 90 miles west of Boston.
Then---39 years ago this week---Sam Lovejoy knocked it down.
Lovejoy lived at the old Liberation News Service farm, four miles from the site. Montague's population of about 7500 included a growing number of "hippie communes." As documented in Ray Mungo's FAMOUS LONG AGO, this one was born of a radical news service that had been infiltrated by the FBI, promoting a legendary split that led the founding faction to flee to rural Massachusetts.
And thus J. Edgar Hoover---may he spin in his grave over this one---became an inadvertent godfather to the movement against nuclear power.
The weather tower at the proposed Montague double-reactor complex was meant to test wind direction in case of an accident. In early 1974, the project was estimated at $1.35 billion, as much as double the entire assessed value of all the real estate in this rural Connecticut Valley town, 90 miles west of Boston.
Then---39 years ago this week---Sam Lovejoy knocked it down.
Lovejoy lived at the old Liberation News Service farm, four miles from the site. Montague's population of about 7500 included a growing number of "hippie communes." As documented in Ray Mungo's FAMOUS LONG AGO, this one was born of a radical news service that had been infiltrated by the FBI, promoting a legendary split that led the founding faction to flee to rural Massachusetts.
And thus J. Edgar Hoover---may he spin in his grave over this one---became an inadvertent godfather to the movement against nuclear power.
New Matamoras OH – Ohio residents and allies from numerous environmental groups including Earth First! have disrupted operations at Greenhunter Water's hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” waste storage site along the Ohio River in Washington County. Nate Ebert, a 33-year-old Athens County resident and member of Appalachia Resist!, ascended a 30 foot pole anchored to a brine truck in the process of unloading frack waste, preventing all trucks carrying frack waste from entering the site.
Over one hundred supporters gathered at the facility, protesting Greenhunter’s plans to increase capacity for toxic frack waste dumping in Ohio. Greenhunter is seeking approval from the Coast Guard to ship frack waste across the Ohio River via barge at a rate of up to half a million gallons per load. The Ohio River is a drinking source for more than 5 million people, including residents of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Test results from multiple frack waste samples reveal high levels of benzene, toluene, arsenic, barium, and radium, among other carcinogenic and radioactive chemicals.
According to NBCi.com, at least 10 people were arrested.
Over one hundred supporters gathered at the facility, protesting Greenhunter’s plans to increase capacity for toxic frack waste dumping in Ohio. Greenhunter is seeking approval from the Coast Guard to ship frack waste across the Ohio River via barge at a rate of up to half a million gallons per load. The Ohio River is a drinking source for more than 5 million people, including residents of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Test results from multiple frack waste samples reveal high levels of benzene, toluene, arsenic, barium, and radium, among other carcinogenic and radioactive chemicals.
According to NBCi.com, at least 10 people were arrested.
After more than a year of negotiations, the Sierra Club and Franklin County have reached an agreement to settle the Club’s claims that Franklin County is violating the federal Clean Water Act.
In June of 2011, the Sierra Club filed a sixty-day notice of intent to sue Franklin County and seventeen townships in federal court for illegal discharges from private sewage systems within Franklin County. Failing septic tanks and aerators are responsible for this contamination. The discharges have been contaminating Franklin County waterways with human and other waste, posing an environmental and public health threat.
The Sierra Club believes the agreed upon measures will form an important beginning in improving the health of Franklin County’s waterways and its residents. Although this settlement won’t completely eliminate the problem of contamination from home sewage treatment systems, it is certainly an improvement and will go a long way toward establishing a county program to eliminate sewage pollution from our waterways.
In June of 2011, the Sierra Club filed a sixty-day notice of intent to sue Franklin County and seventeen townships in federal court for illegal discharges from private sewage systems within Franklin County. Failing septic tanks and aerators are responsible for this contamination. The discharges have been contaminating Franklin County waterways with human and other waste, posing an environmental and public health threat.
The Sierra Club believes the agreed upon measures will form an important beginning in improving the health of Franklin County’s waterways and its residents. Although this settlement won’t completely eliminate the problem of contamination from home sewage treatment systems, it is certainly an improvement and will go a long way toward establishing a county program to eliminate sewage pollution from our waterways.
Two more atomic dominoes have hit the deck.
At least a half-dozen more teeter on the brink, which would take the US reactor count under 100.
But can we bury them before the next Fukushima erupts?
And will we still laugh when Fox "News" says there's more sun in Germany than California?
Wisconsin's fully licensed Kewaunee reactor will now shut because it can't compete in the marketplace.
Florida's Crystal River will die because its owners poked holes in the containment during a botched repair job.
UBS and other financial experts say Entergy is bleeding cash at Vermont Yankee. After blacking out the SuperBowl, Entergy has no problem stiffing a state that has sued to shut its only reactor.
But in the face being crushed by renewables and gas, the money men may finally pull the plug.
The same could happen to New York's Fitzpatrick and Ginna reactors, as well as the two at Indian Point, which need water permits and more from an increasingly hostile state. New Jersey's Oyster Creek, slammed by Hurricane Sandy, and Nebraska's Ft. Calhoun, recently flooded, are also on the brink.
At least a half-dozen more teeter on the brink, which would take the US reactor count under 100.
But can we bury them before the next Fukushima erupts?
And will we still laugh when Fox "News" says there's more sun in Germany than California?
Wisconsin's fully licensed Kewaunee reactor will now shut because it can't compete in the marketplace.
Florida's Crystal River will die because its owners poked holes in the containment during a botched repair job.
UBS and other financial experts say Entergy is bleeding cash at Vermont Yankee. After blacking out the SuperBowl, Entergy has no problem stiffing a state that has sued to shut its only reactor.
But in the face being crushed by renewables and gas, the money men may finally pull the plug.
The same could happen to New York's Fitzpatrick and Ginna reactors, as well as the two at Indian Point, which need water permits and more from an increasingly hostile state. New Jersey's Oyster Creek, slammed by Hurricane Sandy, and Nebraska's Ft. Calhoun, recently flooded, are also on the brink.