February, 01 2011, 05:55am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, (240) 462-3216;
Derek Coronado, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, (519) 973-1116;
Michael Keegan, Don’t Waste Michigan, (734) 770-1441;
Joe DeMare, Green Party of Ohio, (419) 973-5841.
Environmental Coalition Defends Its Challenge Against "Radioactive Russian Roulette" of 20 Year License Extension at Davis-Besse Atomic Reactor
Wind and Solar Can Replace Nuclear Power, Accident Consequences Low-Balled, Groups Allege
OAK HARBOR, OH
Digging out from this winter's intense snow storms has proven challenging enough for area residents and municipalities. But imagine the chaos of evacuating the entire region if a catastrophic radioactivity release were to occur at the aged and degraded Davis-Besse nuclear power plant on the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo. Unthinkable as it is, evacuation preparedness -- as well as post-accident cleanup lines of authority and funding sources -- are sorely lacking at best, or entirely non-existent. Notification is not necessarily required in such an event, not even for Canadians living within just 50 miles of the problem-plagued atomic reactor. These hypothetical, yet all too real, risks are at the heart of contentions being raised by citizen groups opposing the 20 year license extension of Davis-Besse.
Last Friday, an environmental coalition defended its intervention against First Energy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) license renewal application. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff and FENOC have moved to have the contentions dismissed and groups' standing denied. The joint petitioners - Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio - allege that wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power, and certainly a combination of the two renewable energy sources, can readily replace Davis-Besse's electricity by the end of its 40 year operating license in 2017. The December 27, 2010 intervention petition and request for a hearing to NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), as well as its January 28, 2011 defense against NRC staff and FENOC counter challenges, is posted at the top of Beyond Nuclear's homepage, www.beyondnuclear.org. The ASLB empaneled for this proceeding has announced that it will hold an oral pre-hearing on March 1, 2011 at the Ottawa County Common Pleas Court in Port Clinton, Ohio to review the environmental coalition's intervention, NRC staff's and FENOC's objections to the intervention, and the Intervenors' "Combined Reply" in defense of its environmental contentions.
In addition to its renewable energy alternatives to Davis-Besse's 20 year license extension, the environmental coalition also asserts that the potential casualties and economic costs that could be caused by a severe radioactivity release from Davis-Besse have been grossly underestimated. Outrageously, the NRC staff and FENOC have moved to exclude the involvement of any Southwestern Ontario residents from this proceeding, because representatives from Citizens Environment Alliance sleep a mere 300 feet beyond the "approximate 50 mile radius" from Davis-Besse routinely observed under legal precedents for standing. Further research by the Intervenors has revealed that Canadians would not necessarily be informed even if a severe accident were to occur.
Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, a party to the intervention, said "Granting Davis-Besse 20 additional years to operate would be playing radioactive Russian roulette on the Great Lakes shoreline."
Beyond Nuclear has prepared a background summary on Davis-Besse's trouble-plagued history, including some of the closest-calls to major accidents in U.S. history. Among these were a Three Mile Island reactor meltdown precursor accident in 1977, a 1985 loss of cooling to the reactor core, a 1998 tornado strike, and the infamous 2002 hole-in-the-head reactor lid corrosion accident (a 2010 lid leak shows the problem is recurring). Each of these four incidents came unacceptably close to causing a reactor core loss-of-coolant-accident, which could have led to a full nuclear meltdown. The Davis-Besse backgrounder is posted at the Beyond Nuclear website at https://www.beyondnuclear.org/storage/Davis_Besse_Backgrounder.pdf.
The environmental intervenors' expert witness on renewable power sources, such as wind and solar PV readily replacing Davis-Besse, is Alvin D. Compaan, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at the University of Toledo, and former Chair of UT's Physics and Astronomy Department. UT physics undergraduate student, Kathryn Hoepfl, has also provided intervenors with analysis showing that a combination of wind and solar could readily replace Davis-Besse.
"The good news is that vast renewable energy sources, such as wind power and solar PV, coupled with energy efficiency, are ready and cost-effective today. Efficiency and renewables will benefit everyone's pocket book, health, safety, and environment, and do not risk catastrophic radioactivity releases for the sake of corporate greed," said intervenor Joe DeMare of Rossford, Ohio, a Wood County Green Party member. "Opposition to nuclear power is in keeping with the Greens' Key Principle of Ecological Wisdom," he added.
The intervention filing and its defense extensively documented the vast offshore wind power potential of Lake Erie, as well as vast on-land wind power potential in Ohio, and the ability of a combination of wind power and solar PV to readily displace Davis-Besse. A recent NRC ruling in separate proceeding may provide a significant precedent for the Davis-Besse license extension dispute. On December 28, 2010, the ASLB overseeing the Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 new reactor application in Maryland ruled in favor of environmental intervenors, including Beyond Nuclear, ordering NRC staff and the nuclear utility to more realistically consider the vast potential of offshore wind power, as well as a combination of renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar, as alternatives to nuclear power. A link to the Calvert Cliffs 3 ASLB ruling has been posted at Beyond Nuclear's website:
https://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-power/2010/12/29/nrc-licensing-boa....
The intervenors' concluding contention holds that FENOC has vastly understated the true costs that would occur in the aftermath of a catastrophic radioactivity release at Davis-Besse.
"Davis-Besse risks a Chernobyl-type nuclear catastrophe in the heart of the Great Lakes," said intervenor Derek Coronado, coordinator of the Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, based in Windsor. "Its current, ongoing leaks of hazardous tritium into the watershed are bad enough, but a catastrophic radioactivity release at Davis-Besse could instantly ruin the drinking water supply for many millions of people downstream in the U.S., Canada, and numerous Native American and First Nations." Coronado expressed dismay when he learned that Canadians would not necessarily be alerted about a severe accident, saying "No wonder they attempted to exclude our standing by 300 feet, they want to duck the question."
Intervenor Michael Keegan of Don't Waste Michigan in Monroe said "This radioactive rust bucket has got to go before it blows."
The NRC's 1982 report "Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences," based on 1970 Census data, determined that a major accident at Davis-Besse could cause 10,000 fatal cancers downwind, 1,400 "peak early fatalities," 73,000 "peak early injuries," and $84 billion in property damage in the region. Intervenors have challenged the conclusions on casualties as severe underestimates, based on population growth over the past 40 years. Adjusted for inflation, property damages would now top $184 billion, in Year 2009 Dollars.
Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.
(301) 270-2209LATEST NEWS
Columbia Students Occupy Historic Campus Building, Renaming It After Child Killed by IDF
"Students and community members are risking suspension and arrest to end the true state of emergency on campus, Columbia's complicity in the genocide in Gaza."
Apr 30, 2024
Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University early Tuesday occupied a campus building with a long history of anti-war and anti-apartheid demonstrations, storming the hall and renaming it after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza earlier this year.
Video footage shows dozens of students celebrating as other protesters who entered Hamilton Hall unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in honor of 6-year-old Hind Rajab.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student-led advocacy group, said in a statement following the takeover that Columbia's leadership "forced protesters to escalate by contributing to a genocide while refusing to follow baseline standards of conduct that make negotiation possible."
"We call on the press and members of the public to hold Columbia accountable for any disproportionate response to students' actions today," the statement continued. "To Columbia's administrators and trustees: Do not incite another Kent or Jackson State by bringing soldiers and police officers with weapons onto our campus. Students' blood will be on your hands."
Taking over Hamilton Hall as done in 1968, Columbia students unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in reference to Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces.
Hundreds of students cheer as the banner is revealed, erupting into chants to "Free Palestine." pic.twitter.com/Oi8WgdZmqf
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) April 30, 2024
The occupation came after Columbia began suspending students who refused to leave their pro-Palestinian encampment by administrators' Monday deadline of 2:00 pm ET. Columbia and other universities across the U.S. are facing growing backlash for violently cracking down on demonstrations calling on the schools to divest from companies profiting off Israel's assault on Gaza.
The Associated Press reported that Columbia students on Tuesday morning "locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall" and "carried furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus."
Following the takeover, Columbia limited campus access to students and essential employees, barring members of the press from entering to cover the ongoing demonstrations.
CUAD said Tuesday that students intend to "remain at Hind's Hall until Columbia concedes" to organizers' "three demands: divestment, financial transparency, and amnesty."
"Students and community members are risking suspension and arrest to end the true state of emergency on campus, Columbia's complicity in the genocide in Gaza," the group added. "Taking back our own campus is the only and last response to an institution that obeys neither its own 'rules' nor ethical mandates."
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'Authoritarian Bullying': Journalist Arrested at Texas Campus Protest Faces Felony Charge
"Violently arresting journalists and then charging them with felonies is unacceptable," said Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Apr 30, 2024
A photojournalist who was violently arrested while covering a pro-Palestine student protest at the University of Texas at Austin last week is reportedly being charged with felony assault on an officer, a charge that press freedom advocates condemned as an obvious attempt to intimidate reporters.
Citing court documents, a local NBC affiliate reported Monday that FOX 7 journalist Carlos Sanchez "faces a charge of assault on a peace officer, a second-degree felony."
"The affidavit said Sanchez lunged toward a Texas Highway Patrol officer, who was on campus assisting the university's police department during its response to the protest, striking him with his camera," according to KXAN. Sanchez was initially taken into custody on criminal trespass charges, which were later dropped.
Videos of Sanchez's arrest and the chaotic moments preceding it went viral on social media last week, with the footage showing Texas state troopers hurling the journalist to the ground with his camera after he appeared to collide with the back of an officer as police attempted to move a group of demonstrators.
Sanchez denied intentionally hitting an officer. The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) said in a statement Monday that "contrary to the police affidavit in support of the arrest, video of the incident does not show Sanchez intentionally hitting an officer with his camera, and there is no reason why a FOX 7 journalist, who was there to cover the protests, not participate in them, would strike an officer."
FPF said Texas authorities should drop the assault charge immediately.
Guy with camera gets rko’d by police at Palestine protest. #ut #palestine #protest pic.twitter.com/5HI2SU8VKs
— Christopher Kuhlman (@Chris_Kuhlman00) April 24, 2024
Seth Stern, FPF's director of advocacy, said in a statement late Monday that "violently arresting journalists and then charging them with felonies is unacceptable, authoritarian bullying."
"It's doubly bad when police were there to shut down free speech in the first place," said Stern. "Even after law enforcement assaults of journalists covering protests in 2020 resulted in millions in settlement payments, many officers clearly haven't learned their lesson. As even the U.S. Department of Justice has acknowledged, protests are newsworthy, and journalists need to be allowed to cover them and their aftermath, even when protestors are dispersed."
"It's important to keep in mind that none of this would have happened if American universities weren't inviting militarized police forces onto campuses to break up student protests," Stern added. "The police response to the protests—against journalists and students alike—has been far more violent than the protests ever were."
Sanchez's arrest drew swift condemnation from press freedom organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said last week that it was "very concerned by the violent arrest of a FOX 7 Austin journalist who was simply doing his job and covering matters of public interest."
Ashanti Blaize, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, said the felony charge against Sanchez is "intimidation and retaliation" by Texas authorities, who violently arrested student protesters again on Monday at the University of Texas at Austin campus.
"There will undoubtedly be a chilling effect on journalists who will cover this developing story, not just in Austin, but across TX," Blaize wrote on social media. "The public has a right to know what's happening on the ground, which means journos must be allowed to do their First Amendment-protected jobs without fear of law enforcement interference or threats of arrest and detainment."
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Police Violently Arrest University of Texas Students Protesting Genocide in Gaza
"After 205 days of genocide and almost 40,000 Palestinian martyrs, it is shameful that UT continues to invest in mass murder and resorts to brutal intimidation tactics to try to silence its own students," said one protester.
Apr 29, 2024
Around 40 peaceful pro-Palestine protesters were arrested Monday on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin as police once again violently cracked down on student-led demonstrations against their school and country's complicity in Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
UT students and allies are calling for not only an end to the Gaza genocide but also a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel and the university's divestment from Israeli investments. Protesters chanted slogans including "We are being peaceful, you are being violent!", "There is no riot here, why are you wearing riot gear?", and "Let them go!" as state troopers aided by local and campus cops dragged, hauled, and even wheeled targeted individuals into custody.
"Our main goal is to get the University of Texas to divest."
Organizers said police used so-called "less-lethal" weapons including flash-bang grenades, mace, and "other chemical munitions" against protesters. National Lawyers' Guild volunteers attempted to collect information from arrestees and inform them of their rights.
"After 205 days of genocide and almost 40,000 Palestinian martyrs, it is shameful that UT continues to invest in mass murder and resorts to brutal intimidation tactics to try to silence its own students, who are bravely taking a stand against genocide," said Lenna Nasr of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
"We demand that UT divest from the Zionist state of Israel and from all institutions and companies that are enabling the current genocide in Gaza," Nasr added. "And, we demand the resignation of [UT president Jay] Hartzell for greenlighting the militarized repression of peaceful student protestors on their own campus."
Mustafa Yowell, a UT engineering student whose father is from Texas and mother is from the occupied West Bank, toldAl Jazeera: "Our main goal is to get the University of Texas to divest. Stop sending money to Israel and divest from companies that profit off of war like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. It has nothing to do with antisemitism, or Islam, or being Arab. It's about human rights, conflict, and oppression that people face."
Police commanders eventually ordered officers to retreat from the UT campus, sparking a tremendous cheer from demonstrators, who followed and tried to block a bus loaded with arrested protesters.
Arrested students have reported mistreatment in police custody, including incidents of Islamophobia. One young Muslim woman told Al Jazeera that she was denied period products and was forced to wear blood-soiled clothing.
Some students said they did not plan on protesting but felt compelled after witnessing how police treated the nonviolent demonstrators.
"We weren't planning on doing anything like this until we saw students' heads getting smashed into the ground up the road," Joseph Ely, a graduate student and president of the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Texas State University in San Marcos, about 30 miles southwest of Austin, toldKUT News. "It was really the police at the University of Texas that provoked us to do this."
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott weighed in on the arrests in a social media post declaring that "no encampments will be allowed."
In response, Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) accused Abbott of "escalating the situation at UT Austin and putting Texas students and journalists in danger."
Monday's arrests follow last week's violent raid on pro-Palestine protesters at UT, during which dozens of people were arrested and at least one journalist and professor were brutalized along with numerous student protesters. Monday's action also came amid a growing wave of nationwide campus demonstrations against the Gaza genocide and complicity by the U.S. government and universities.
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