NIRS

— Petition: Help Kyoto fight the dangerous Ohi plant restart.

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From Green Action, Japan

Sign the petition here.

Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, is cherished worldwide for its countless World Heritage sites and cultural treasures. Kyoto also shares a northern border with Fukui prefecture, the location of the highest concentration of nuclear power plants in the world. This is particularly alarming since the Japanese archipelago is riddled with earthquake faults and volcanoes.

Citizens from nations around the world can support Kyoto’s Governor and Mayor’s efforts to protect Kyoto. Let us stand with them to prevent another Fukushima disaster!

We are deeply concerned that the Japanese national government wants everything “back to normal” by the 2020 Olympics: Fukushima accident evacuees back to the Fukushima region, nuclear power plants restarted–everything back to pre-Fukushima days.

After the Fukushima accident, the world saw unprecedented citizen protest against the restart of nuclear power in Japan. Particularly prominent was the protest against the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui. The Ohi plant is less than 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the city center of Kyoto. It is deeply concerning that the plant is slated to restart in March 2018. An Ohi restart will threaten millions of Kyoto residents and Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan from which 14 million people receive their drinking water. A serious accident could have devastating effects on Kyoto’s world-famous cultural treasures and World Heritage sites.

The Governor and Mayor of Kyoto have petitioned the national government for the right to say yes/no to restart, to have control over Kyoto’s fate. Their plea has been answered with silence. The Japanese government must respond promptly and positively to assure Kyoto has the right to protect itself. This petition will enable the governor and mayor to show they have worldwide support.

Help Kyoto fight Ohi restart! 
Please see English language video:
https://youtu.be/di1BqYaOl8I

Sign the petition here.

From Nuclear Information and Resource Service
http://www.nirs.org
February 23, 2018

Our friends at Green Action in Japan need our help! The governor of Japan’s Fukui Province approved the restart of two reactors at the Ohi nuclear plant near Kyoto, only a few hundred miles from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

This took place in the face of much public opposition, and we are supporting the activists of Kyoto as they fight to keep the reactors off line.

On February 16th, Kyoto citizens and others from the surrounding region went to Kyoto City to urge legislators to oppose Ohi nuclear power plant restart.

Sign their petition–international signatures really help!

And please spread the word!

Thanks for all you do!

Tim Judson
Executive Director

 

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— Telebriefing by Arnie Gundersen on Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima — April 5, 2017 — register

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From NIRS.org

Dear friend,

Please join us for a telebriefing on Wednesday, April 5, 8pm-9:30pm (EDT)/7:00pm (CDT).

Arnie Gundersen of  Fairewinds Energy Education will present Spring:The Season of Nuclear Disaster–Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. 

This will be an opportunity to learn more about three of the most disastrous nuclear accidents and their global impact: Three Mile Island (March 1979), Chernobyl (April 1986) and Fukushima (March 2011). These dates mark the beginning of catastrophic events that will impact humanity for milinea to come.

As we move through the season that commemorates these events, join us as Arnie leads our disccussion on their far-reaching effects.

This national conversation is appropriate for newcomers unfamiliar with this history and seasoned activists alike! We will reserve plenty of time for your questions and short comments at the end of Arnie’s presentation.

The telebriefing is free, but registration is required. Your confirmation email will include the dial-in number.

We will begin promptly at 8:00pm (EDT)/7:00pm (CDT). We hope you will join in!

If you cannot attend, but would like to recieve the link to the recorded telebriefing, please register. We will send a link to the telelbriefing recording to all registered participants.

Please forward this invitation widely; there are tons of younger people who may have never heard of one or more of these nuclear disasters who have a right to know.  We need them to hear about these events, and to join the commitment to SHUT DOWN BEFORE MELTDOWN!

Thanks for all you do!
Mary Olson
Director, NIRS Southeast Office
NIRS holds quarterly tele-briefings. The next event will be in early June and the topic will be nuclear waste transportation—since there is a move to re-start the failed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada and a license application is in for consolidated storage in Texas. Watch for more info in May.

http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1388366

— Tell EPA — Stop dangerous radioactive drinking water

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From the Nuclear Information and Research Service

November 21, 2016

In July, thousands of us took action to stop dangerous new radiation guidance for drinking water. The EPA refused to listen, and now this guidance could be approved anytime–unless we act now!

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy is on the verge of approving radiation levels hundreds and thousands of times higher than currently allowed in drinking water and at cleaned-up Superfund sites. These mis-named “Protective” Action Guides for Drinking Water (Water PAGs)  dramatically INCREASE allowable radioactivity in water. Enormous levels of invisible but deadly radioactive contamination would be permitted in drinking water for weeks, months or even years after a nuclear accident or “incident.” The PAGs are not for the immediate phase after a radioactive release but the next phase–which could last for years–when local residents may return home to contaminated water and not know the danger.

Take action now: Protect drinking water from dangerous radiation levels!

There are two quick actions to take today:

  1. Tell your EPA Regional Administrator (see map and list below) to ask EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy why she is raising radiation levels allowed in drinking water.
  2. Send a message to Administrator McCarthy yourself asking her not to approve these dangerous radiation levels in drinking water.

We have stopped PAGs like these from being approved before–and we can do it again. EPA insiders attempted to push these dangerous guides through in the waning days of the Bush administration, and public pressure like this got the agency to pull them back. Now we have to do it again!

Click here to take action now.

Thanks for all you do!

Diane D’Arrigo
Radioactive Waste Project Director

More Information

The PAGs protect the polluters from liability, not the public from radiation. CHECK out this NBC4 News Story.

These PAGs are a bad legacy. Approving them now is a deceptive way to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund cleanup levels, and EPA’s history of limiting the allowable risk of cancer to 1 in a million people exposed (or at most 1 in 10,000 in worst-case scenarios).

The PAGs don’t just affect water!

  • They markedly relax long-term cleanup standards.
  • They set very high and outdated radiation levels allowable in food.
  • They eliminate requirements to evacuate people vulnterable to high radiation doses to the thyroid and skin.
  • They eliminate limits on lifetime whole body radiation exposures.
  • And they recommend dumping radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps not designed for such waste.

Outrageously, EPA is expanding the kinds of radioactive ‘incidents’ that would be allowed to give off these dangerously high levels and doses. PAGs originally applied to huge nuclear disasters like the nuclear power meltdowns at Fukushima or a dirty bomb BUT NOW they could ALSO apply to less dramatic releases from nuclear power reactors or radio-pharmaceutical spills, nuclear transport accidents, fires or any radioactive “incident” that “warrant[s] consideration of protective action.”

EPA REGIONS and REGIONAL ADMINISTRATORS

Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding
(617) 918-1010
spalding.curt@epa.gov;

Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck
(212) 637-5000
enck.judith@epa.gov

Region 3 Administrator Cecil Rodrigues
(215) 814-2683
Rodrigues.cecil@Epa.gov

Region 4 Administrator Heather McTeer Toney
(404) 562-9900
McTeertoney.heather@Epa.gov

Region 5 Acting Administrator Robert A. Kaplan
(312) 886-3000
Kaplan.robert@Epa.gov

Region 6 Administrator Ron Curry
(214) 665-2100
Curry.ron@Epa.gov

Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague
(913) 551-7006
Hague.mark@Epa.gov

Region 8 Administrator Shaun McGrath
(303) 312-6532
McGrath.shaun@Epa.gov

Region 9 Acting Administrator Alexis Strauss
(415) 947-8000
Strauss.alexis@Epa.gov

Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran
(206) 553-1234
mclerran.dennis@epa.gov

For more info, contact Diane D’Arrigo at NIRS: dianed@nirs.org or 301-270-6477

http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1378216

http://www.nirs.org

— EPA plans to vastly raise drinking water radioactivity limits; register for July 13 telebriefing “Dangerous Drinking Water”

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From Nuclear Information and Resource Service

July 1, 2016

Dear Friends,

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has quietly proposed to raise the allowable levels of radioactivity in drinking water a nuclear incident to hundreds of times their current limits. If this guidance goes through, EPA’s action will allow people to drink water with concentrations of radioactivity at vastly higher levels.

Look no further than the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan to understand concern that the EPA will not act to protect public health in an emergency. In this case, the EPA is attempting to ensure that it would not have to act decisively to protect public health!

But there is still time to act.

Call in to the July 13 telebriefing to find out more.
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=81984

You are invited to join us on WEDNESDAY JULY 13 for a national telebriefing: Dangerous Drinking Water, with presentations by leading experts and activists:
•Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service
•Daniel Hirsch, Director, Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy, University of California Santa Cruz
•Emily Wurth, Water Program Director, Food and Water Watch

•Moderated by NIRS Executive Director, Tim Judson

The open and free event will be on the phone, starting at 8 pm eastern, 7 pm central, 6 pm mountain and 5 pm pacific. We will reserve the second half of the program for questions and discussion.

Register to attend the July 13 telebriefing.
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=81984

The program will focus on EPA Guidance that massively increases the permitted levels of radioactivity in drinking water for years after any nuclear incident that requires consideration of “protective action,” ranging from a spill, leak or transport accident to a dirty bomb or nuclear meltdown—a nuclear accident of any kind, big or small. Allowable concentrations of radioactive elements allowed to come out of your tap would rise hundreds or even thousands of times above the current Maximum Concentration Levels allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations. Click here to review EPA’s proposal.
https://www.epa.gov/radiation/protective-action-guides-pags

Nuclear Energy is Dirty in many dimensions, but first, and foremost because of its dangerous ionizing radiation. The EPA guidance, allowing us to drink highly radioactive water is a clever effort to bypass existing limits, which the law prevents from being weakened. It is yet another way to shift liability and cleanup costs to the public from industry and government in case of a “nuclear event.” For instance, for most radionuclides the Safe Drinking Water levels are based on no more than 4 millirems a year exposure from drinking water; the proposed water PAGs would allow 500 millirems a year with no notice, and no action to limit exposure to adults. This difference protects the government and industry from any liability from massively increased health consequences.

Although EPA for the first time ever admits that those under 15 years of age are at greater risk than adults the draft PAG only pays lip-service to considering a lower level which is still enormously higher than current water limits. This is in addition to rest of EPA PAGs, which allow even more exposure from air and food.

Call in to learn more about this federal guidance and how to help stop it.
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=81984

Thanks for all you do,

Mary Olson, Southeast Office Director

Stay Informed:

NIRS on the web: http://www.nirs.org

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Stop Fukushima Freeways; Telebriefing October 15

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From the Nuclear Information & Resource Service
October 9, 2015

STOP FUKUSHIMA FREEWAYS   NIRS Telebriefing  Thursday October 15, 2015
8 pm (eastern) to 9:30 pm (eastern)

Speakers:

Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director, Nuclear Information & Resource Service
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watch Dog, Beyond Nuclear
David Kraft, Executive Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service
Judy Treichel, Executive Director, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force

Congress will order the transport of highly radioactive waste through our major cities, communities, farms and forests, and even our waterways, unless we say STOP!

If highly radioactive “spent” nuclear fuel went to a central site, how would it get there? This month our network of activists and allied organizations will show that picture.

Transporting the highly radioactive waste that has piled up at the nation’s nuclear power reactors is a far greater hazard than Congress or the federal government has admitted. These bodies also play down the risk that anything bad will happen. It is only rational to prevent extra and unnecessary shipments.

NIRS will host a telebriefing next Thursday, October 15, 2015, to share more information on transport. Register for this telebriefing by clicking here.

And join the Stop Fukushima Freeways campaign this month by helping NIRS and grassroots groups across the country raise awareness of the issue with a nationally-coordinated release of new maps of the projected routes that this lethal radioactive waste would travel. Many groups acting together as one community on the same day underscores that we are working together to stop bad ideas. NIRS will help you do it, but we ask that each group/activist step up and contact the media in your region in your own name. To join this campaign now, sign up by clicking here.

Congress wants to revive the failed Yucca Mountain repository site, and is also considering creating a new option for the creation of consolidated storage sites that would be identical to the storage already at reactors. We call on you to stand together and reject these bad ideas. We can’t allow any more lost time, money and other resources on the failed Yucca plan, or there will be no resources for a better plan. The first step remains an end to making more of this waste.

Fukushima stands as proof that this same waste can be catastrophic when stationary in pool storage. Dry storage is a step forward in reducing radioactive risks; many environmental and safe energy groups have endorsed the concept of hardened on site dry storage (HOSS).

The risks go way up, however, when these containers containing waste that will give a lethal dose of radiation in seconds if unshielded are put on a truck or a rail car. Learn more—see the links below, and register for NIRS’ telebriefing: STOP FUKUSHIMA FREEWAYS.

You will receive call-in information after you register. There is also a web-phone option.

The telebriefing will be recorded and posted online. If you register, we will send you that link in the days after the event.

Resources:
Hot Cargo Factsheet
Talking Points on Yucca
Science vs Fiction at Yucca Mountain

Bills in Congress that, if passed, would trigger transport of highly radioactive waste:
HOUSE: H.R.3643 — Interim Consolidated Storage Act of 2015
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c114:H.R.3643
SENATE: Nuclear Waste Administration Act SB 854
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114s854is/pdf/BILLS-114s854is.pdf
Click here for a webcast of an October 1 hearing in the US House Commerce Committee: Transporting Nuclear Materials: Design, Logistics, and Shipment. Written testimony is posted here.

Thank you for your activism!

And thank you for your support for NIRS. That support is especially needed now. We are just four thousand dollars short of meeting a critical $50,000 matching grant for our campaigns on nuclear power and climate and to close dangerous, obsolete and uneconomic nuclear reactors. Your donation now, of whatever size you can afford, will help enable us to meet that essential match.  Please donate now by clicking here

Michael Mariotte
President
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org

Stay Informed:

NIRS on the web: http://www.nirs.org

GreenWorld: (NIRS’ blog chronicling nuclear issues and the transition to a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy system) http://www.safeenergy.org

NIRS on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nuclear-Information-and-Resource-Service/26490791479?sk=wall&filter=12

http://www.facebook.com/nonukesnirs

http://www.facebook.com/groups/nukefreeclimatefreemarch/

NIRS on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/nirsnet

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