FUSE USA has a website!

FUSE USA has a placement page on the web:
http://www.fuseusa.org

Please give this address to anyone wishing to donate $$$ to our efforts or get in touch with our organization.

All of Rockland County is within 17 miles of Indian Point

Susan Shapiro, FUSE USA, writes on RockNet:

I agree that changes in our neighborhood affect us, but it is short sighted to think that if there is a radiological event at Indian Point you won't be affected, especially if you are living with in 10 -20 -50 miles.

All of Rockland County is within 17 miles of Indian Point, the peak FATALITY ZONE.

The truth is that the thyroid cancer rates in Rockland County are 50% higher then the rest of the state. The only way you can get thryoid cancer is from exposure to radiation. The areas of Stony Point, Haverstraw and West Haverstraw are the highest.

The reality is if , God forbid, there is an accident at Indian Point, you will be much more affected than if next door to you they build a million houses, because no one has insurance against a radiological events, check out our home owners insurance.... read the fine print. That's right the insurance companies decided a long time ago the risk was just too great to insure. So if something happens, and we are all evacuated (not just for a few days, but forever) and we'd still have to pay our mortgages, and quite possible lose our health.

Our government has cap nuclear plant liabilty to 200 million dollar, even though estimates for an nuclear accident are approx $313 billion.An accident or terrorist attack at Indian Point would affect every single person in Rockland County. Our health, our homes and lives would be changed forever and this area would become uninhabitable for thousands of years.

(Read Rockland County's 17th District Congressman Eliot Engel's views on Indian Point)

New York Post Page 6 low-blow at Riverkeeper

Today's Page 6 wrote:

[[ Environmentalists at Riverkeeper have major egg on their faces. The watchdog group, which keeps an eye on Hudson River polluters, tried to fax a one-page press release to news outlets the other week, but a "technical glitch" had them sending 150 pages of unread able gobbledygook, which wasted reams of paper. "As an environmental organization, we were horrified," read a mass apology that wasted even more paper. ]]

That's too easy... How about last week when we were standing outside News Corp to deliver a letter from Helen Caldicott to Rupert Murdoch, and nobody, but nobody from the New York Post would bother to come down and accept it in person... we had to walk around the back, deliver it at the service window, while getting yelled at, intimidated and threatened with bodily harm by their security force!

The "only" reason they're making a story out of this silly fax business, is they KNOW were gaining on them, that sooner or later, they're going to have to mention Indian Point on Page 6, cause that's all 7th Avenue is talking about at this point... how a bunch of renegate green fashionistas have roped in the industry into grand opposition to relicensing...

It's a bitch hey, Richard, when a story gets so hot, management won't let you touch it, you have to resort to such low-blow tactics? Boo! Yeah, that's right... Richard... Boo... you'll know what that means soon enough... you won't resist it!

Write Page 6, let them know how ridiculous this swipe is, only camouflage for deeper woes.

Paula Froelich: pfroelich@nypost.com
Bill Hoffmann: bhoffmann@nypost.com
Richard Johnson: richard.johnson@nypost.com

Harvey Wasserman's Mourns The Passing of Dr. Gofman

Published on Friday, September 7, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

The Genius Doctor Who Diagnosed Nuke Power’s Deadly Disease
by Harvey Wasserman

The nuke power industry now wants $50 billion and more in loan guarantees to build new atomic reactors. As it strong-arms Congress, the warnings of the great Dr. John Gofman, who passed away last week at 88, loom ever larger.

One of history’s most respected and revered medical and nuclear pioneers, Gofman’s research showed as early as 1969 that “normal” radioactive reactor emissions could kill 32,000 Americans per year.

At the time, Gofman was the chief medical researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission. He told the AEC that reactor emissions must be radically reduced. The AEC demanded he change his findings, then forced him out when he refused.

Since then, reactor backers have ceaselessly and erroneously attacked Gofman and his findings. But they could hardly have picked a more brilliant, committed opponent. Gofman was both relentless and uncorrupted. His findings should have doomed from the start an industry he called “insane.”

In addition to being a world-class nuclear chemist, Dr. John William Gofman was one of history’s most important heart specialists. His pioneer research helped define our modern understanding about cholesterol, distinguishing “good” fatty acids from bad. Gofman’s astonishing medical discoveries remain at the core of today’s common wisdom about diet and heart disease.

For that work alone, Gofman was a towering figure. Throughout his life, he was friend and peer to Nobel Laureates such as Linus Pauling and George Wald.

But Gofman was also a nuclear chemist. As part of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs, his pioneer work helped lead to the discoveries of plutonium and certain isotopes of uranium.

Yet his career suffered from an inconvenient truth: when he discovered that atomic power plants kill people in large numbers, he refused to shut up about it.

As a full professor at the University of California, Gofman’s combined medical and nuclear credentials made him an obvious choice to manage health research for the Atomic Energy Commission, which both regulated and promoted the young nuclear power industry. When public questions were raised about the health impacts of radioactive reactor emissions, Gofman was dispatched to prove the industry safe.

But his findings showed that reactors are serious killers. So even Gofman’s towering resume could not protect him from the wrath of an industry determined to build all the power plants it could. He and co-researcher Arthur Tamplin were driven from their jobs.

When their POISONED POWER detailed the killing potential of atomic energy, Gofman and Tamplin were attacked mercilessly by an industry with immense investments to protect. The experience showed that no matter how impeccable their credentials, and no matter how thorough their research, any scientists whose findings might indicate problems with atomic power would be automatically “discredited” by industry flacks to who did no comparable research.

Even at his passing, the tired attacks on Gofman’s findings have resurfaced.

But his research remains the gold standard on the health impacts of radiation. And as a gentle but firm advocate, mentor and friend, his integrity was matched only by his willingness to step outside traditional boundaries for what he believed.

One of Gofman’s most powerful and influential moments came in 1974, when he agreed to defend a civil disobedient named Sam Lovejoy in the small town of Montague, Massachusetts. A member of a communal organic farm, Lovejoy had manually knocked over a 500-foot weather tower erected as a precursor to the building of a large twin reactor complex.

Gofman agreed to testify in Lovejoy’s defense, arguing that building two nuke reactors constituted a lethal threat to the health and safety of the community. In a monumental moment for the rise of the anti-nuclear movement, Lovejoy was acquitted.

Gofman’s pivotal pronouncements appear in the award-winning LOVEJOY’S NUCLEAR WAR (http://www.gmpfilms.com), which has been shown all over the world. As a pivotal struggle over a “bailout in advance” for new reactor construction rages in Congress, Gofman’s words resonate with a renewed critical importance:

“The decision to build nuclear power plants,” he said, “may very well be, for the first time, a decision that can result in the desecration of the Earth with respect for life for all future generations.

“Why do we want to put every city and hamlet of the United States at risk by building a thousand of these plants? We can get the power from sunshine, very easily and economically.

“When we’re talking about a mass of a hundred tons or so of material, melting 5,000 degrees Farenheit, with water around, with hydrogen being generated and burning explosively, melting through concrete into soil, when someone tells me that we’re sure it isn’t going to go far away, I say that I’ve heard various forms of insanity, but hardly this form.

“Even if this hazard of a meltdown were securely answered, it doesn’t alter for one second my opposition to nuclear power, because I’m concerned about the fact that whether it melts down or doesn’t melt down, you ‘ve created an astronomical amount of radioactive garbage which you must contain and isolate better than 99.99 percent perfectly, in peace and war, with human error and human malice, guerilla activity, psychotics, malfunction of equipment do you believe that there’s anything you’d like to guarantee will be done 99.99 percent perfectly for a hundred thousand years?

After fifty years of proven failure, the nuke power industry is demanding still more taxpayer handouts to create still more of this waste.

The great and good Dr. John W. Gofman warned us all against this insanity. His words and spirit remain at the core of what must be done to save this planet.

Harvey Wasserman is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and Senior Editor of http://www.solartopia.org and http://www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. For a fuller account of the amazing life of Dr. John Gofman, see http://www.beyondnuclear.org.

© 2007 The Free Press

Mitzi Bowman Laments The Economist

Mitzi Bowman wrote this in reply to reading the current The Economist magazine issue dedicated to new nukes.

Note how they all ignore the fact that the entire nuclear fuel cycle depends at every stage of uranium extraction, processing, fabrication, construction and maintenance, on carbon-based energy - mostly coal - until the reactor fissions, adding heat to water and air in order to turn a turbine and make electricity.

Then, at every stage, radioactive, chemical and heavy metal wastes are created which must be dealt with. Gasoline and diesel transportation between each stage of production also adds to global warming.

Indeed, nuclear technology IS a global warming technology. Oh, and I forgot to mention the military connection ie nuclear weapons production and testing and radioactive weapons as well. Of course who knows the price tag on the human and societal impact?

Well, stop worrying and love global warming. Think of the new oil resources to be found in the north and south pole areas as the ice melts. King CONG's corporations (Coal, Oil, Nuclear and Gas) must be looking forward to renewed sources for profit, their tongues hanging out in anticipation.

Mitzi Bowman, Coordinator
Don't Waste Connecticut (or the world)
97 Longhill Terrace
New Haven, CT 06515
(203) 389-2067
upthesun@cshore.com

Thoughts on Lovelock!

From:
Dave Kraft
neis@neis.org

Hi All --I get frustrated with this selective hero-worship coat-tailing that the industry trots out regarding Lovelock -- especially Lovelock.

Einstein it may be recalled deserves high praise for relativity (among other things); but he got it totally wrong about quantum theory. He was a lousy spouse and parent in his first marriage, and even had erasers on his pencils!

Lovelock it should be recalled was the one who advised the British government that, while yes, CFCs can chew up ozone, the government should give the okay to use them because they would have a negligible effect on the atmosphere and ozone layer. ooops.

Every scientist has his/her brain-farts. And the good ones would be the first to say, "Judge my ideas on the data and the arguments, not on my previous reputation or achievements." That's the difference between science and marketing.

--Dave Kraft, NEIS--

(comments posted to no-new-nukes-yall list serv)

Can you be Green & Pro-Nuke?

Robert Prol on the RockNet list asked the question:

"Is it a requirement to be against the nuclear power plant in order to be considered an environmentalist?"

I posted this reply below to the list, here it is again on Green Nuclear Butterfly, for good measure!

~ Yes!

Now's the time to remove this threat from the Hudson river...

FUSE USA has the experts, the whistleblowers, the inside track, this plant is a disaster waiting to happen.

At one NRC meeting a few weeks ago, which hundreds of union workers attend to strong arm and intimidate, one of them came to me in confidence, to say that the only reason he worked at the plant, was because his sister was terrified something might happen, and that if it did, he'd be right there, would be able to call her on his cell phone, tell her to get out of town...

That's what you have in your back yard... a time bomb. Don't wait till the rest of the world tells you we told you so... Indian Point is a complete rust bucket.

Please support FUSE USA and the work we are doing.

We have a chance right now because of the relicensing period to mothball and dismantle this horror. Imagine how beautiful the view would be from the Monteverde Inn if Indian Point wasn't there anymore!

When I asked the Yoga center there how they could medidate with such a monstrosity behind them, they said: "People come here to relax, not think about negative environmental issues."

You are all being lied to about the consequences of constant exposure to leaks released from this plant! The still birth rate around Indian Point is 25% higher the National average... Go ask the doctors at the Peekskill hospital, who are terrified to speak out because Entergy afforded them their emergency wing!

LED bulbs in mass production would cost less than either fluorescent or incandescent... it's been calculated that if we switch all lighting to LEDs, which is now preferred by interior designers for aesthetic reasons, we could reduce our electrical consumption by as much as 60%.

Isn't that a more worthwhile effort?

Rem

http://www.rockthereactors.com

The photo is from a great new UK rock band which you can find here:
http://www.myspace.com/wfanfc

Sierra Club Indian Point Talk - Sep 11 - Nyack, NY

From:
pkurtz3@optonline.net
via: [RockNet]

Please Forward!

Indian Point: Re-licensing, Leaks, & Global Warming

Sierra Club of Rockland County presents talk by Maureen Ritter & Susan Shapiro of Rockland FUSE (Friends United for Sustainable Energy), followed by Q & A discussion.

When: September 11, 2007- Tuesday, 7 PM
Where: Nyack Library Meeting Room

Indian Point's owner, Entergy, has just applied to re-license the nuclear power plant for an additional twenty years. Yet, the plant has already leaked Strontium 90 into the groundwater and the Hudson River from corroded pipes.

What's the inside story on the leaks?
What's the process of re-licensing all about?
Is nuclear power a safe, environmentally sound answer to global warming?
What alternatives are there?

For more info, contact:

Peggy :: pkurtz3@optonline.net
or
Steve :: safran41@gmail.com

For all list information and functions, see:
http://npogroups.org/lists/info/rocknet

Indian Point Scoping Meeting September 19

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to explain the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) portion of the relicensing process and to accept comments from the public, both oral and written, on what should be included in EIS that the NRC must prepare for Indian Point.

This will be done at a scoping meeting to be held Wednesday, September 19 at The Colonial Terrace in Cortlandt Manor.

There will be two identical sessions from 1:30-4:30pm and from 7-10pm.

Each will be preceded by an informal open house one hour prior to the session. The public will have the opportunity to tell the NRC what they’re concerned about in terms of Indian Point’s impacts on the environment such as the spent fuel leaks, once-through cooling impacts on fish populations, public health impacts, etc.

The NRC must consider these comments and formally respond to them in the draft EIS, due to come out in approximately one year.

People may register to attend the meeting or present oral comments at the meetings by contacting NRC’s Senior Project Manager Mr. Bo Pham at (800) 368-5642 x 8450 or by emailing indianpointeis@nrc.gov no later than September 10.

Members of the public can also register to speak at the meetings within 15 minutes before each session. The Colonial Terrace is located at 119 Oregon Road in Cortlandt Manor, NY. (914) 737-0400