Patrick Moore shills at Rockland Business Association's annual meeting

Nuclear power advocate calls for Indian Point relicensing
By LAURA INCALCATERRA AND GREG CLARY

THE JOURNAL NEWS
(November 9, 2007)

BLAUVELT - A Greenpeace founder who now advocates for nuclear energy addressed about 100 people yesterday during the Rockland Business Association's annual meeting.

Patrick Moore used the opportunity to call for the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plants. He said an increasing number of countries were turning to nuclear energy and that the United States should as well.

Moore said nuclear power plants were safe and, unlike coal-burning plants, did not produce carbon dioxide and other forms of air pollution. He said politicians who advocated shutting down Indian Point used the issue to gain support and that many environmentalists used scare tactics in their efforts to close them.

He also asserted that the anti-nuclear movement was all but dead and that most opposition nowadays was seen in California and the Northeast.

"There is a very strong majority of support for nuclear in the future of the energy mix in the U.S.," Moore said.

Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns and operates Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, has applied for license extensions for both. If granted, the renewals would allow the plants to operate until 2033 and 2035, respectively.

The original 40-year license for Indian Point 2 will expire in 2013. Indian Point 3's will expire in 2015.

Some community activists have raised concerns, which led Rockland and Westchester counties to go to court to try to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change its relicensing criteria.

The NRC does not consider such factors as population density and the ability to conduct an effective emergency evacuation as part of its relicensing process.

Among those opposing the relicensing is Tarrytown-based Riverkeeper organization, whose policy director, Lisa Rainwater, criticized Moore's view of nuclear energy yesterday.

"It's difficult to call any form of energy clean when it produces waste that is deadly for hundreds of thousands of years," Rainwater said by telephone yesterday.

"Indian Point's 1,500 tons of waste are stored on the banks of the Hudson River in leaking, spent fuel pools that are poisoning the river and groundwater," she said. "If that's clean energy, Riverkeeper would like to know what constitutes dirty energy."

Moore is a consultant to the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, whose members include Entergy. The alliance is helping the company in its relicensing effort, spokesman Paul Steidler said after the meeting.

Moore spent 15 years as a leader of Greenpeace, but said he decided he wanted to work on building consensus among competing concerns rather than continue in the "politics of confrontation."

He said many people call for the shutdown of nuclear plants without offering an alternative. He said sites for hydroelectric plants have all been taken and that natural gas was too expensive to use as a fuel for power plants.

He said solar and wind power were not enough to ensure an adequate supply of energy and that coal was too polluting, leaving nuclear power plants as an alternative. He said such plants were also much cheaper to build than coal-burning units outfitted with the best-available pollution controls.

Reach Laura Incalcaterra at 845-578-2486 or lincalca@lohud.com.

6 Pages about Indian Point in Fall 07 Riverkeeper magazine

Indian Point Campaign.

Unpeeling the Layers:
Understanding Entergy’s Latest Media Tactics.
Reenergizing New York with Governor Spitzer Leading the Way.
Environmental Review, Terrorism and Indian Point.


By Lisa Rainwater & Renee Cho contributing to this article.

PDF... starts on page 19.

NYC Wants Say on Indian Point

NYC Asks to Intervene in Indian Point Relicensing

October 16, 2007

(Associated Press) - New York City, which counts on the electricity provided by the Indian Point nuclear power plants but could be vulnerable in a reactor attack or accident, wants a say in whether the plants can stay open for 20 more years.

Without taking a position, but stating that the decision "will affect the welfare of all New Yorkers," the city has filed a request to intervene in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's relicensing process.

"The city has a clear interest in potential public health and safety issues associated with the issue of relicensure, notably in ensuring the safety of its food and water supplies," says the petition, signed by Vice President Michael Delaney of the city's Economic Development Corp.

"In addition, there is a continued need for the provision of lower-cost electric power to residential and commercial customers in New York City."

The public safety argument is often used by opponents of the Indian Point plants; the cheap electricity argument is often used by supporters. The petition was dated Oct. 1 and made public Tuesday by the NRC.

A call to Delaney was not immediately answered.

Entergy Nuclear, owner of the two Indian Point plants in Buchanan, 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan, has applied for new licenses that would allow the plants to run until 2033 and 2035.

Many of the groups that have been trying to close Indian Point since the 2001 terrorist attacks are now trying to block the relicensing.

The nuclear plants have been plagued with recent problems ranging from radioactive water leaks to balky emergency sirens to a guard caught sleeping. Opponents have long believed that the densely populated suburbs around the plants could not be quickly evacuated.

Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said, "It's sensible for New York City to take an interest, since their public buildings and infrastructure _ subways, schools, firehouses, streetlights, airports _ rely on Indian Point power."

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the city's request would be forwarded to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a quasi-judicial body which will assess the city's standing.

He said intervention is ordinarily granted only to those who take a position against relicensing, but sometimes a government agency "can be a party to proceeding without being an active participant."

Others who have asked to intervene include an anti-Indian Point group, Friends United for Sustainable Energy, and a pro-Indian Point industry group, the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance.

Michael J. Delaney, Esq.
Vice President – Energy Regulatory Affairs
New York City Economic Development Corporation
110 William Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10038
(212) 312-3787
mdelaney@nycedc.com

Top of page http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/bf93ba551df592a17644407bc44853be.htm

(Thanks to Lisa Rainwater, PhD, Policy Director Riverkeeper, Inc. for the head's up on this article. Lisa can be reached at 914-478-4501 http://www.riverkeeper.org)

Comments from Sherwood Martinelli:

I am actually very disturbed about what else was included in the article about the city of New York's filing for intervener status. Tucked in, almost as an after thought was the information that NY AREA has also asked to be accepted in as an intervener...further, it states that USUALLY only those who OPPOSE relicensing are granted such status.

This is a very alarming industry move that MUST BE OPPOSED. NY AREA is a super PRO-NUCLEAR group that was actually started and funded by Entergy...if they get status, every other group that Entergy has out there who supports Nuclear and/or Entergy is going to come in through that same door.

Sherwood
(914) 293 7458 or 734 1955

April 26 ~ Join GNB at the NRC Annual Open House in Peekskill

The NRC is hosting their Annual Indian Point Assessment Review and Open House on April 26th, at Colonial Terrace, 119 Oregon Road, Peekskill, NY, the same Cortland Manor where John Hall was sworn in as Rockland County's new Congressman, and where Entergy co-hosted the Hudson Valley Gateway Chamber of Commerce's 2007 Business Expo.

Green Nuclear Butterfly requested and obtained from the NRC an exhibitor's table during the open house segment of the event to hand out literature from the anti-Indian Point consituency.

The open house segment will be held from 2:30 PM to 6:30 PM.

The public meeting segment is from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM.

We are asking for members of IPSEC, Riverkeeper, Clearwater, and other anti-nuclear/pro-Indian Point shut down supporters to join Green Nuclear Butterfly April 16th at Cortland Manor.

GNB & Rock The Reactors needs volunteers to mend the table and collect literature. You can either bring literature on the day of the event or mail it to Sherwood Martinelli at 351 Dyckman Street, Peekskill, New York 10566.

See you April 26th.

A Solar Revolution or Millions Starving in the Streets?

The question everybody keeps asking, is where is all the power going to come from when we shut down Indian Point. It's always the same story... You have to start from scratch with people... because they don't have decades of experience in the trenches of the alternative energy movement to understand the logistics and how difficult is has been getting it to this point, against all odds, with all of the monies spent on trying to prevent a solar revolution rather than create it.

There's been tons of ink spilled on both sides of the equation, the new way vs. the old way... back in the 50's there was nothing else but oil, coal and nuclear... the subtle energies that were the sun and the wind were not harnessed yet... there is still the problem of storage, and we have the that problem licked, but it still sits in labs, waiting for funding.

It's great that so many drove to the Oscars in hybrids, that Al Gore and Laurie David are green celebrities... But look who their friends are... it's the same old thing, the same old machine, telling you one thing, then doing the other, to preserve what they have rather than take a chance on the future.

We're not talking about a leap of faith here, we're talking about high-tech nano-materials that can do so much more with so much less, like Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for example, which can light a space for a fraction of the energy that fluorescent take, never mind incandescent, which are history. Even at Wal-Mart you can't find any... In super-mass production, LEDs are going to be dramatically cheaper than fluorescents, and a lot cleaner, safer, kindler, gentler on the environment, because fluorescent use tons of poisons, while LEDs are encapsulated in solid-state substrates.

LEDs means we can light streets, homes, factories, for 2% the energy we used to need before, 2%, that's right, 2%... that's how insane this is... yet it took independent companies, the sweat of their brow, all late 90's, selling plans, through Home Power magazine, to build them yourself practically, because none of the major corporations would touch them... because they would indeed spell the end of an energy addiction, an end to profiting from our electron addiction.

The same is happening with batteries, where chemistries, where devices that can store electricity with the same voracity and precision as we use microchips to store information, also in the form of electrons, and give us power packs, without liquid or gel, that are easily mass-produced, scaled up, distributed, and safe from unstable safety effects.

Yes, all these things need pulling together, by industry, by government, but it's not happening there, it's happening from little companies, again, struggling, stealing fire from the Gods, building components in China, usurping patents they know they can't license, because the labs are in league with military interest, and they are still under the illusion, that these energy conversion devices must stay secret, or curtailed, in limited use, for fear some terrorist somewhere might find the formula to rob a bank with a pulse bomb.

We need to get over this, and quickly, because this "fear" that is chronically instilled in us, this fear of being without, of being in the dark, is a lie... an outright light... we have more alternatives, and more solutions, than we know what to do with, but for as long as all the money is spent on cleaning up a nuclear mess like the flood spills in Louisiana, or the waste leaking at plants all over the country... if we just stopped this insanity, cleaned up the mess, and invested instead in third wave, fourth wave quantum nuclear physics, that "charms" the atom rather than wack it over the head with a sledge, to boil water... we'd be in heaven... or almost.

These wars, these campaigns, led by blind men who can't settle on religious faith, who won't let sensuality rule this sphere... who block everything over dogma, can't understand that indeed the answer is blowing in the wind, this is not some romantic notion, this is a physical reality, that all things are in balance, and if we use the flow, of the wind, of the sun, we can easily run all our machinery, by fine tuning, and maybe doing with a little less here and there, conserve, not keep rooms in the City at 75 degrees in the den of winter, like I experience too often still today.

We all need to get into the act, so that this 2000Mw the new governor of New York talked about, promised, never mentioned again, to my knowledge, is done without... and it already is, all tabulated, it is... we've already conserved that much, for all the people going green, up and down the Hudson, turning off the lights, changing bulbs, walking or biking rather than driving... switching over to alternative fuels, buying more efficient vehicles... we're on a roll, doing our due diligence, educating those around us to do the same, get inspired.

But this muse is a little lazy, taking its time, likes to party... doesn't really understand that boys will be boys, want to get their hands dirty, with a feeling of urgency, and spirit, and necessity... that's what have you join the army, to serve, to feel empowered, with momentum, with power... so if we don't give them that now, to restore the earth, save the planet, that energy will be spend aggressing against an enemy that isn't there, that the weapons makers invent, to sell more guns and bombs, crippling children in hospitals, filling refugee camps.

We have heroes and heroines now, Angelina Jolie comes to mind, someone I met when she was just a toddler on a high chair, crying because nobody was paying attention to her pain... She broke my heart a few months old... the way other woman have, who cry so deep for the damage and horror we do this world... Ani DiFranco sings, and I morn, because I hear in her voice a call, a message I can't answer, because it would need an army, and I'm only a general in my imagination.

We need to get busy is what I fell you... we need to shut down Indian Point, give this country a renewed sense of being, of identity... of Viridian Design (even if you sank the Whole Earth Review, Mr. Sterling for being too stubborn to invite me in...) We are going to do this... it's only a matter of weeks... the workers themselves want to quit, we know this from talking to them in private sessions, it's a small village up there on the banks of the Hudson.

But Entergy is vast, and it's strong, and it has deep ties with evil tendencies of war... of secret programs, of bomb making, of sadness and sorrow, and horror and bones... When will we learn, when will humanity learn? When will the fear of anti-Christ stop true leaders from emerging, men like Clinton with a libido to match, nothing wrong with that, that's human kind... he at least tried... so did Carter, so do most Democrats, who don't have their hands dipped in war machinery, gone our of control, sending boys to war, who should be making music, building cities, greening cities, charming maidens... running free in the woods, making love in the rain...

But we spent our youth, us old eco-warriors, trying to set it right for future generations, and this is almost it, the Woodstock generation, trying, wanting to shut this plant, we got so old, and grey, being called names by men and women with no capacity to feel trees, and snails, and blades of grass growing... who think uranium is just another stone, and not this poison that should have been left in the ground, or at the very least, dealt with the utmost respect.

We don't have the time for all this bullshit, not anymore, sorry to ramble on, go on like that, but I'm tired, I want to go do something else... I want this to be done and over with, but I'm a tenacious f***, so I won't let go, I will never let go, I never look back... When I make a commitment to something, 30 years later I'm still at it... and if I die, if they run ME off the road one night, I know all the seeds I planted, all the young people I trained, will just be there to follow in my footsteps and finish what I started.

They made me this way, they stole my childhood, because they expected something they didn't get... a justification for their silly, hollow lives... and I don't want to see it repeated, I won't let the one I love, who inspire me now, fall prey to this desolation of the soul in exchange of rent money and food on the table. We know better now, we can do better now... all we need is a little something, a little push, a little encouragement, to let go of the old, and embrace the new... things change, it's ok... you're not losing freedom, you're gaining hope... light, love... tranquility, a new sense of open space... a mission... a divine mission to fix this place we call home.

Katharine Hamnett to the Rescue! Welcome Home Katharine! ;o)

WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR BAN NOW

www.katharinehamnett.com

I have been campaigning on many environmental issues for the last 20 years, including for a worldwide nuclear ban. Suddenly, the British Government, wants to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, despite advice against doing so for economic and environmental reasons. The results of this would affect Britain for the next million years. Here is an explanation of why this is not advisable and what to do if you want to stop it.

WHY NO TO NUCLEAR?
One aim of the Government´s 2003 Energy White Paper was:

"To put ourselves on a path to cut the UK´s CO2 emissions by some 60% by about 2050, with real progress by 2020". It also made clear that whole the issue of nuclear waste and the inherent inability of nuclear power to compete in a liberalised electricity market without public subsidy remained unresolved, nuclear power would stay in the wilderness.

Despite this, the Government in 2006 has launched a new energy review, which plans a large increase in British nuclear power stations.

So what has happened since 2003 to make the Government announce a new energy review and reopen the door to new nuclear power stations? (Greenpeace)

Could it be because the government for over a year has been secretly working with the Americans on a replacement for Trident nuclear warheads? This is in material breach of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty according to Matrix Chambers, the law firm for which Cherie Blair works. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. (CND)

A majority of people in Britain would accept new nuclear power stations if they helped fight climate change, a poll suggests. But it doesn´t. (Some 54% said they would accept new stations being built for this reason, the Mori survey of 1,500 people for the University of East Anglia found).(BBC 17/1/06)

Why nuclear energy does not help fight climate change

Doubling nuclear power in the UK would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8% (CND)

Nuclear power is not carbon emission free. The whole nuclear cycle from uranium mining onwards produces more greenhouse gases than most renewable energy sources with up to 50% more emissions than wind power. Doubling nuclear power in the UK would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8% because the electricity sector accounts for a quarter to a third of all carbon emissions (transport and industry account for most of the rest). (CND)

Nuclear power is dirty and dangerous

A major study conducted by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) into the dangers of low-energy, low-dose ionizing radiation concluded that there appears to be no safe radiation exposure level.

Meanwhile, Sellafield nuclear power station is discharging 2 million gallons of radioactive waste water into the Irish sea every day.

Downs Syndrome births amongst ex-pupils from a school in Dundalk, on the Irish sea, were found to be 89 times higher than the national average.

Incidences of leukaemia are higher than normal near nuclear power stations and atomic research establishments.

No safe solution has been found for dealing with the problem of nuclear waste

Radioactive waste from nuclear power stations remains dangerous for thousands of years. Britain has 2.3 million cubic metres of nuclear waste stored around the country (click here to see the sites http://www.corwm.org.uk/content-659). It will cost £85 billion to clear up. THORP, BNFL´s re-processing plant at Sellafield has been unable to vitrify (safely dispose of) the amount of nuclear waste it was designed to deal with, and is due to close in 2010. BNFL posted losses of £1 billion for the year ending 2003.

Nuclear energy does not make economic sense
It cannot exist without huge public subsidy

The £56 billion of taxpayers' money being used to fund the clean up of the UK´s current nuclear sites (run by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority), could instead buy 50 GW of installed wind capacity, equivalent to 20% of the UK´s electricity needs. (Greenpeace)

British Energy, the UK´s only private nuclear operator, avoided bankruptcy in 2003 via a multimillion pound Government loan and a public bailout package worth £4bn.

In March 2006, the Sustainable Development Commission, the government´s advisory body on sustainable energy development, published a new report that concluded that investing in nuclear power was not the answer to climate change or energy supply.

Read the report: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/060306.html

The Government has failed to support its commitments to renewable energy and energy efficiency requirements.

The Government´s main support mechanism for renewable energy, The Renewables Obligation, has failed to offer any significant support to less developed renewable generation technologies, particularly smaller scale renewable energy sources. (Greenpeace)

On wave and tidal energy, the Government pledged £50 million for research and development, but so far nothing has been done to encourage these potentially crucial technologies into the market place. (Greenpeace)

A report by accountants Ernst & Young of 7/2/06 said that the UK was falling behind in its attempt to meet its renewables target. (The Guardian website 8/2/06)

As for alternatives to nuclear power, "The UK has Europe's best wind, wave and tidal resources yet it continues to miss out on its economic potential," said Jonathan Johns, head of renewable energy at Ernst & Young. (The Guardian website 8/2/06)

The current Government support programme for solar energy is to be wound down six years early, despite attracting major private sector investment in solar PV manufacturing.

The program spent just £31million of the £150million that was committed in 2002.

In the same week that Blair urged China and India to invest more in zero and low carbon technologies, he cut the UK´s Low Carbon Buildings Program support for micro-renewables from an average of £11.25 million to £9.5 million per annum.

The UK has a mere 7.8 MW of installed solar PV capacity compared to Germany´s 794 MW and the Netherlands 48 MW. (Greenpeace)

Nuclear power is not sustainable

There are only 50 years´ worth left of high-grade uranium ores. If the whole world were to run on nuclear, there is only enough uranium left to power it for 12 years.

Nuclear power is accident-prone

Nuclear power is prone to accidents due to human error and carelessness, and there have been several major accidents. In the last 2 years alone there have been two major radioactive leaks in the UK. One major leak at THORP, Sellafield remained undiscovered for 8 months and has been classified as a level 3 nuclear incident (the 1986 Chernobyl disaster listed as a level 7 incident, and the 1979 Three Mile island incident as a level 5) (INES).

What to do about it
Act now

The government is in the process of an energy review whereby it will decide whether to invest in a future of nuclear power as a major source of energy in the UK. This review is due for completion in summer 2006. You have the opportunity to have your say as an individual or an organisation by 14th April by going to: http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/review

Tell them you think nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic and unnecessary. Tell them you want the Government to stick to the commitments in the 2003 White Paper, and put in place the policy and regulatory framework that will enable renewable energy and energy efficiency to deliver the deep emissions cuts needed.

They need to restore the promised funding for alternatives and give tax breaks to individuals and organisations who cut their carbon emissions and use sustainable energy.

We need the government to publish a Decentralised Energy White Paper, setting out all the necessary steps for a coherent and rapid transition to a sustainable and decentralised system.

Write to Tony Blair and Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, or Ian McCartney, chairman of the Labour party telling them the same thing, and saying that you won´t vote Labour at the next election if they don´t do this.

Contact Tony Blair by visiting http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page821.asp or writing to;

Rt Hon Tony Blair, Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London
SW1 2AA

Contact Malcolm Wicks by emailing wicksm@parliament.uk, or writing to;

Malcolm Wicks MP
84 High Street
Thornton Heath
Surrey
CR7 8LF

Contact Ian McCartney by emailing info@new.labour.org.uk marking it to the attention of Ian McCartney, or writing to;

Ian McCartney
Labour Party
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H OEU

You could also write to your local MP, for whom contact details can be found at www.locata.co.uk/commons

Riverkeeper Mounts Pressure for ISA at IP

FROM: RIVERKEEPER

Contact:
Alex Matthiessen, Riverkeeper
917-617-0013
Laura Sedlak, Riverkeeper
914-478-4501 x 226

For Immediate Release
2-12-2007

Pressure Mounts to Bring Independent Safety Assessment to Indian Point
***
Bi-Partisan Legislation Calls for In-Depth Investigation Into
Ongoing Safety and Emergency Planning Concerns

(Tarrytown, NY) Today, Riverkeeper applauded Congressman John Hall (D-NY), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) for reintroducing legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require an Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) at the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The legislation requires an in-depth review of Indian Point’s vital safety and mechanical systems, the spent fuel pools, and radiological emergency evacuation plans. Riverkeeper has been advocating for an Independent Safety Assessment in light of ongoing and increasing safety problems at the plant.

“Riverkeeper commends our Congressional delegation for introducing legislation that will force the NRC to take a hard and honest look at Indian Point – something the agency is clearly not willing to do on its own,” said Riverkeeper’s president Alex Matthiessen. “Given the plant’s proximity to 20 million people and chronic safety problems, our ‘good neighbors’ at Entergy should join us in supporting this important legislation.”

The legislation calls for an Independent Safety Assessment like the one conducted at Maine Yankee after a series of problems raised serious safety questions about that nuclear plant in the mid 1990s. Indian Point, which unlike Maine Yankee is located in a densely populated metropolitan area, has had a similar rash of safety and mechanical problems during its thirty-plus years of operation. Moreover, plant employees have alleged that the plant’s owner and operator, Entergy, has created a “chilled environment” that hinders workers from raising safety concerns. And several recent reports have concluded that the NRC is failing its mandate to thoroughly protect public health and safety.

“The Congressional delegation, local government bodies, and the public-at-large are demanding this thorough review,” comments Lisa Rainwater, Riverkeeper’s Indian Point campaign director. “With the reactors up for twenty-year license extensions, it is critical that this legislation is passed into law quickly, so the findings of the Independent Safety Assessment can be considered in the relicensing review process,” added Rainwater.

Recently, under public and political pressure for a Maine Yankee-style Independent Safety Assessment at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, the NRC revised the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) in order to include a biennial engineering assessment inspection known as the Component Design Bases Inspection (CDBI). While this new inspection did uncover a series of safety problems at Vermont Yankee, it is not considered a replacement for the Independent Safety Assessment. The differences between the two review protocols are stark. The Maine Yankee assessment incorporated over 17,000 hours of inspection by a team of twenty-five experts with no prior affiliation with Maine Yankee. In comparison, the NRC’s current CDBI incorporates approximately 700 inspection hours with NRC inspectors and contracted engineers. The State of Maine played an active role in the inspection process, while the CDBI only allows State officials to observe the review process.

# # #
About Riverkeeper
Riverkeeper is a member-supported, not-for-profit environmental organization dedicated to safeguarding the ecological integrity of the Hudson River and the watershed areas that provide drinking water to New York City and parts of four upstate counties by tracking down and stopping polluters. Since 1983, Riverkeeper has investigated and brought to justice hundreds of environmental lawbreakers.

For more information, please visit www.riverkeeper.org.

Phillip Musegaas
Staff Attorney/Policy Analyst
Riverkeeper, Inc.
828 South Broadway
Tarrytown, NY 10591
914-478-4501 x224

Greendrinks, Feb 13th...Rockland County Needs To Be There!

(Inside the Red Room at Park: The Unstoppable Summer Rayne Oakes flanked from left to right by Frank Bianco & Chris Pesce of Earthtech Products who specialize in super-high efficiency LED bulbs for business and home, which could put Indian Point offline in a matter of months if everybody bought them.)

There's one thing the Riverkeeper, Clearwater, IPSEC country club triad need to comprehend, we're not going to get anywhere without BIG MEDIA and BIG GUNS from Manhattan.

When I attended the Riverkeeper auction fundraiser at Sotheby's a few weeks ago, other than the usual mention of Indian Point by Robert Kennedy Jr. in his well oiled, well rehearsed speech... no one else in the audience had Indian Point on their mind. Lisa Rainwater, the point person for Indian Point at Riverkeeper, was not even in attendance. I went around interviewing guests about the imminent danger up the river, my Vlog is hosted on the Rock The Reactors website. Who I did meet though, were quite a few Utility big wigs on the side of the room, who surely made serious donations to the proceedings, but who acted clueless when I brought up the fact WIND FARMS were now the more cost efficient option over new so-called green and clean nukes...

Our three blind mice suddenly have the amazing opportunity here to meet up at Greendrinks with the green glitterati under bright city lights... at Park, the nightclub Darryl Hannah's man built... green architects, designers, sustainable fashion mavens, and green super models... who all congregate the second Tuesday of every month down to Greendrinks, the local NYC chapter of this international social phenomena.

Problem is, these young green entrepreneurs, many of whom mentioned in a recent issue of INC. magazine, from Treehugger, Vivavi and Voltaic Systems, have little background about nuclear power, they didn't grow up in the trenches, all they know is what they've read or heard on the news, that nukes don't give off C02 emissions, so that must be a good thing for global warming, right? WRONG! Wake the hell up children... There's Strontium-90 in the fish in the Hudson and the groundwater around the plant is contaminated!!! We're talking major threat to human and wildlife... We're talking this is insane, shut this plant down NOW... what the hell are you waiting for?

So trust me, or don't, but once these very charming, yet somewhat naive, media savvy green giants get a little taste of the information and the sense of mission collected over the years by battle worn anti-nuclear activists like us, they'll be quickly brought up to speed, as to how the NRC has yet again bamboozled the masses to the tune of billions, lulled everyone to sleep by buying into green consumer companies like ETS Energy Store!

The good folks of Rockland County, and surrounding areas, if they really care about shutting down Indian Point, if that's really why they elected John Hall as their new Congressman, they need to back their man up, and descend on Greendrinks with information in hand, to teach the green design elite in Manhattan about the reality, and the urgency of the situation up the river.

For you see, if Indian Point gets any worse, and it's really bad already, all their green work, designing LEED buildings, riding Trixi rickshaws, eating organic vegan food and shopping at Wild Oats? All that will be for nothing as radiation creeps into our bones, our DNA... giving the most beautiful women in the world breast cancer! We have to stop the NRC dead in its tracks, because their brand of corruption washes away all our green dreams, our green ambitions, our solartopic future on this green earth.

Come to Greendrinks, Tuesday February 13th, 6 PM at Park, corner of 17th St. and 10th Avenue, same venue as the Lü magazine party a few weeks ago.

To learn more about the potential relationship between Greendrinks and our fight to shut down Indian Point, contact Stephen Filler Esq. at GreenCounsel. Get ready to rock the house, rock the reactors!

Riverkeeper Website Indian Point Section Updated Today

Today we received an email from Lisa Rainwater announcing a slight redesign of the Riverkeeper website to make the Indian Point infomation it contains more easily navigable. I've been there a few times for information, although much of it is rather dated, not really up to the minute.

There a really good Word file there with listings of elected officials and their stance on Indian Point, many of them having expressed their opposition to the relicensing, which would still, even if we succeed in the preventing it, leave this plant up and running till 2012... which is scary enough, considering all the problems we know it's having.

I discovered here that Elizabeth Santander, the owner of Icon Interiors, 160 King Street in Chappaqua, advocated shutting down of Indian Point back in 2002. So did Edward Rosenfeld, of IFR Furniture Rentals in Hawthorne. Hmm... Maybe they should contact Josh Dorfman at Vivavi to share with him why green furniture designers should also support Rock The Reactors.

Or this press release about a private meeting between Congressman Eliot Engel and NRC Chairman Nils Diaz back on March 22, 2006. “I told the Chairman that the failure of the NRC to be proactive and transparent when addressing community concerns has led to the growing fear that any emergency situation at Indian Point can lead to disaster,” said Engel.

Also this Bill introduced on March 7, 2006, by Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a year to the day of the deadline for Entergy to file their relicensing request. "With radioactive material leaking out of Indian Point towards the Hudson River and the plant continuing to experience a wide array of other safety issues, it is quite clear that an Independent Safety Assessment is very much needed," Hinchey said.

Not every blog and website can do everything... the more the merrier... so I suggest we all help Riverkeeper update their data. Please go through everything, and if you see something that needs updating, email Lisa at Riverkeeper, let's make these files and these pages current again.

Counties Opposed to Relicensing

Westchester County
Rockland County
Ulster County
Suffolk County
Hudson County, NJ

Municipalities Opposed to Relicensing

Village of Airmont, NY
Village of Croton-on-Hudson, NY
Village of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
Village of Hillburn, NY
Village of Irvington, NY
Village of Mamaroneck, NY
Village of Nyack, NY
Village of Piermont, NY
Village of Pomona
Village of Portchester, NY
Village of Rye Brook, NY
Village of Sloatsburg, NY
Village of Spring Valley, NY
Village of Upper Nyack, NY
Town of Bedford, NY
Town of Clarkstown, NY
Town of Greenburgh, NY
Town of Lewisboro, NY
Town of New Castle, NY
Town of North Castle, NY
Town of Pound Ridge, NY
Town of Putnam Valley, NY
Town of Ramapo, NY
Town of Somers, NY
Town of Yorktown, NY
Town of Harrison, NJ
Borough of Alpine, NJ
Borough of Tenafly, NJ
Newark, NJ

Labor Groups that have passed shutdown resolutions
1199 SEIU (Service Employees International Union), New York
District Council 37 (56 affiliated unions), New York
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, New York (NYC Chapter)
NYSUT-AFT Local 3882

More About Mobilizing Support from Municipalities, NYC Community Boards, School Boards, and Civic Groups.