Nuclear Hotseat

• Never doubt that a single activist can make all the difference in the world.  Patty Ameno grew up in Apollo, Pennsylvania, 35 miles NE of Pittsburgh, not realizing that her childhood home was directly across the street from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation.  NUMEC manufactured fuel for commercial nuclear power plants and the Navy’s nuclear submarines, leaving behind a legacy of uranium and plutonium waste that impacted the health of everyone in the area — including Patty.  A trained investigator with Naval Investigative Service (NIS) and former U.S. Federal Criminal Investigator, Patty took on NUMEC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Babcock & Wilcox and Atlantic Richfield… and won. 

Patty Ameno at work

The Hurricanes that Would Not Die - and the Radnet Monitors that Would Not Work.

• Maggie Gundersen is founder of Fairewinds Energy Education, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with the mission of educating the public about nuclear power production, engineering, reliability, and safety issues.  She is also a former employee of the nuclear industry.
  

Fairewinds Reports: 
Article - Hurricane Season and Atomic Power Reactors
Peer reviewed study - LINK to full article: Radioactively-hot particles detected in dusts and soils from Northern Japan

• Paul Gunter is Director of the Reactor Oversight Project for Beyond Nuclear, which seeks 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.
• Nancy Foust is Communications manager and research team member SimplyInfo.org. a not for profit research collective that holds and manages the world’s largest public archive of data on the Fukushima disaster.

The EPA Irma Coverup, er, I mean, Notice on loss of Radnet Radiation Monitoring Network as of September 8 - just in time for it to not be able to provide readings during Hurricane Irma and in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey!  Note the wording on today's excuse to the teacher:

• "Due to Maintenance" - which implies a planned outage.
• "We are working to resolve the issue" - which implies an unexpected problem or emergency that must be handled.
  
  

• Nancy Foust of SimplyInfo.org again joins us to review the actual flooding at South Texas Project's nuclear reactors next to Bay City, Texas.

Satellite map of flooding at South Texas Project nuclear facility (UC Davis via Simply Info, with permission)

• Rundown on nuclear threat at Turkey Point and St. Lucie nuclear reactors in Florida in advance of Hurricane Irma, with perspective on previous hurricane/nuke run-ins from Andrew, Camille and Matthew.
  LINK:  Five Reasons Why Turkey Point Could Be the Next Nuclear Disaster

We don't know who's more Numnutz this week:  Washington State for fining the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a mere $16,000 for inaction on a matter at the Hanford Site - a $2.3 BILLION ANNUAL BUDGET CLEAN-UP - or actually thinking they'll see a dime of it.

• Paul Gunter is Director of the Reactor Oversight Project for Beyond Nuclear.
• Nancy Foust is Communications Manager & Research Team Member at SimplyInfo.org,  a not-for-profit research collective that holds and manages the world’s largest public archive of data on the Fukushima disaster.
• Susan Dancer is President of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, headquartered in Bay City, Texas - yes that Bay City.  She spoke from a site she evacuated to with all the animals in the animal rescue that she runs, Texas Blessings. 

LINK to PRESS RELEASE:  Don't Play Russian Roulette - Nuclear Reactors Should be Shuttered Due to Hurricane  Flooding Risks. 

How could The Weather Channel be any more arrogant and clueless?  Just put clueless interns on the phones and watch them lose all crowdsourced nuclear information and insights!

• Kristen Iversen, author of the superb book Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, explains the Preliminary Results of the Rocky Flats Health Survey, which is meant to determine what has happened to the health of those who lived and worked in proximity with that nuclear weapons production site near Denver and Boulder, Colorado.

To access the Rocky Flats Health Study, CLICK HERE.

• Tiffany Hansen, M.A., is co-founder of Rocky Flats Downwinders, a community activist group that focuses on dangers faced by local residents.
  Dani Ball is a nurse who grew up near Rocky Flats and has epilepsy,  just recently connected with Rocky Flats Downwinders and brought a body of knowledge to their attention that is exploding out the possibility of a link between epilepsy and exposure to ionizing radiation.  She can be contacted directly via email at [email protected] or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RockyFlatsResidentRegistry/

LINK to CBS Denver's 3-part series: Rocky Flats: Colorado's Nuclear Shadow

Nuclear Hotseat producer/host Libbe HaLevy's former classmate and eminently
successful journalist Rick Sallinger of CBS Denver, interviewing Dr. Mark Johnson,
Executive Director of the Jefferson County Health Department, for 3-part series
on Rocky Flats.

John Oliver does nuclear waste!  (More on this next week...)