From Committee to Bridge the Gap
News Release
July 27, 2025

With deep sadness but also with heartfelt gratitude for a life well lived, the Committee to Bridge the Gap announces the death of its founder, Daniel O. Hirsch, on July 19^th 2025 at his home in Ben Lomond, California. CBG board chair Jack Miles had earlier accepted Hirsch’s resignation as president of Bridge the Gap on the grounds of grievously worsening health. Anthony Zepeda, CBG secretary, had agreed to succeed Hirsch as president and had begun transitional meetings with CBG staff.

Committee to Bridge the Gap came formally into being as an organization in a meeting at UCLA after Hirsch had returned home to Los Angeles, and in its early years the organization addressed a variety of ongoing social and political issues, notably including the cause of peace and reconciliation in Israel/Palestine. Gradually, however, and particularly after Hirsch’s appointment as director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, nuclear safety became CBG’s central public-interest mission. Just two days before his death, Hirsch delivered a powerful public comment at a virtual hearing contesting Executive Order 14300 radically reducing radiation safety standards. In that spirit, the work of CBG will continue.

Privately, Hirsch, who never married, lived a life of monastic simplicity and frugality. Though an atheist, he maintained a close spiritual relationship with the sisters of Redwoods Monastery, in rural Humboldt County. By the terms of his will, the wealth he had accumulated through a lifetime of willed poverty will go to the poor. As the crippling effects of chronic Q-fever progressively incapacitated him, Dan Hirsch chose not to prolong a life whose continuation would only squander the wealth he had destined for others. May his memory be a blessing, most especially for all who sacrifice private comfort for the public good and all who when they speak truth to power, do so modestly and with meticulous attention to all the facts.

CBG will announce memorial services for Hirsch when plans are complete. Mourners may make donations in his honor to Doctors Without Borders doctorswithoutborders.org or Give Directly givedirectly.org

https://www.committeetobridgethegap.org/2025/07/27/dan-hirsch-has-passed-away/

From Smart Meter Science Substack
by Patricia Burke
July 31, 2025

Dan was the Founder of CBG, as well as Director, Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy, at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

See interviews with Dan Hirsch, posted at the UCLA Library’s Center for Oral History Research.

As reflected on CBG’s homepage, if it was about Santa Susana Field Lab, Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, or San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant, Dan was on it.

Dan just testified at educational sessions intended to push back against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s attempt to do away with the Linear, No Threshold theory of ionizing radiation’s hazards to human health. (See the link to Dan’s slideshow he presented as public comment to NRC on July 16, 2025, posted at NIRS’s website, here.) He had worked at the cutting edge of protecting human health against the nuclear industry’s artificial radioactive pollution, for many decades, including at the National Academy of Science.

As documented in the MSNBC documentary film In the Shadow of the Valley, which also features interviews with Dan, at Santa Susana, his graduate students unearthed the 1959 meltdown, which had been covered up for 20 years.

He testified repeatedly about the seismic, and other risks, at Diablo Canyon, including before U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s (Democrat-California) Environment and Public Works Committee, more than a decade ago, as well as at grassroots sessions, such as those of San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, a few years ago.

Around two decades ago, Dan stopped a nuclear power industry spokesman dead in his tracks — not for the first time. On an NPR interview about energy and environment, focused on nuclear power, the industry spokesman kept bringing up climate protection. At one point, Dan said “I actually care about the climate,” which stopped the industry spokesman from disingenuously bringing it up again.

See articles authored or co-authored by Dan, posted at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

CBG’s website also posts many of Dan’s Publications, as well as those of its colleagues.

As anti-nuclear attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio shared with the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network about the devastating news:

Dan was the ultra serious, savagely sarcastic, brilliant mentor to many a generation of antinuclear activists. A loss of great moment.

“Rest in peace and know that your impact on this world will never be forgotten.”

Condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues…

https://smartmeterscience.substack.com/p/in-memoriam-daniel-hirsch-of-committee