Nuclear Hotseat

BREAKING: After last week’s latest SCRAM emergency shutdown at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Massachusetts, Diane Turco of Cape Downwinders and two others were arrested after delivering a letter demanding permanent shutdown to Mass. Governor Baker. Nuclear Hotseat spoke with Diane immediately after her arraignment hearing.

Alicyn Gitlin, Conservation Coordinator for Restore & Protect the Greater Grand Canyon Campaign of the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, on uranium mining issues threatening our great national monument.

Matt Pacenza, Executive Director of the environmental group HEAL Utah, brings us up to speed on that state’s downwinder, radioactive waste and new nuclear build issues… as well as an unusual activist decision regarding two proposed new nuclear reactors.

Numnutz of the Week: Plutonium-contaminated Rocky Flats in Colorado – winner of a White House “Keeping it Clean” award? The only thing sustainable there is the radiation!

Nuclear Hotseat Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy attended the US 9th District Court Hearing on USS Reagan Sailors v. Tokyo Electric Power Company. The sailors were on an humanitarian aid mission to Japan following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima Daiichi triple reactor meltdowns. TEPCO never informed the US Navy of the dangerous release of radioactivity from the crippled nuclear reactors. As a result, the sailors were exposed to catastrophic levels of radiation. Seven have died and the rest continue to suffer the consequences to their health and genetic future.

This Week's EXCLUSIVE Interviews:Nuclear Hotseat Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy attended the US 9th District Court Hearing on USS Reagan Sailors v. Tokyo Electric Power Company.  The sailors were on an humanitarian aid mission to Japan following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdowns.  TEPCO never informed the US Navy of the dangerous release of radioactivity from the crippled nuclear reactors and as a result, the sailors were exposed to catastrophic levels of radiation.Hear excepts from the testimony and exclusive interviews with:

• Attorneys for the sailors Charles Bonner and Paul C. Carlson Garner
• Sailors from the USS Reagan during Operation Tomadachi:  William Zeller, Chad Holt and Chris Shamrell.
• EXCLUSIVE BOMBSHELL:  Former US Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards, who reveals a bombshell: why he flew out to attend this hearing and is so public in his support for the sailors.

At stake is whether the sailors' case will be allowed to be tried in United States courts.  TEPCO wants this case tried in Japan, which would effectively make it impossible for our sailors - many of whom are in failing health and would have to interrupt their medical treatments, fly to Japan, and fly out their own experts.  The trip would be cost-prohibitive and forcing the trial to take place there would effectively end the lawsuit.  That's what TEPCO and its attorneys are counting on.

David v. Goliath?  Count on it!

Hear the Whole Story Here: 

Nuclear Hotseat Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy at 9th District Court's Chambers Courthouse, covering the USS Reagan Sailors' hearing (video monitor behind showing judges, attorneys).

Numnutz of the Week:

Clear the roads!  Clear the air lanes!  The UK plans to fly radioactive waste to the US for disposal!  (Now who thought THAT was a good idea...?)

The Missing Links:

(Live links to all the Nuclear Hotseat episodes coming...)

• Video of full hearing of lawsuit HERE. 
• Nuclear Hotseat #96 - USS Reagan Sailors at Dr. Helen Caldicott's Symposium
• Nuclear Hotseat #129 - Interview w/Attorney Charles Bonner
• Nuclear Hotset #138 - Interview w/Attorney Charles Bonner
• Nuclear Hotseat #159 - Interview w/USS Reagan sailor Steve  Simmons
• Nuclear Hotseat #162 - Steve Simmons and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano refute TEPCO claims
• Nuclear Hotseat #166 - USS Reagan sailors v. TEPCO
• Nuclear Hotseat #173 - Yokuska Homeporting of USS Reagan and Unresolved Radiation Issues w/Carole Jahnkow
• Nuclear Hotseat #176 - USS Reagan Case Win!
• Nuclear Hotseat #180 - Internal v. External Radiation Risks for USS Reagan Sailors

Featured image: (l-r) Attorney Paul C. Carlson Garner; USS Reagan sailors Chad Holt, Chris Shamrell, William Zeller; Nuclear Hotseat Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy. (Photo courtesy Libbe HaLevy)

Radiation monitoring in USA by citizens, based on successful Japanese model, is now in development. RachelClark - professional interpreter and member of the Minna no Data Site -- provides the vision and the need. Sign up for email updates at: [email protected]. PLUS: Florida's radioactive flooding risk, Canada tries secret int'l radioactive waste dump. https://bit.ly/31VIHXu

Tim Deere-Jones is an independent marine pollution consultant who has worked on some of Europe's major marine pollution incidents as a specialist in the behaviour and fate of marine pollutants in marine, coastal and estuarine environments. Tim has worked for Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF, among many others, and is a member of a number of anti-nuclear advisory bodies, including the Vienna based International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group. This is an encore presentation originally on Nuclear Hotseat #225 from October 13, 2015.

And petition from Fukushima Fallout Awareness network (FFAN) to stop the 2020 Tokyo NOlympics and Paralympics from taking place in Fukushima Prefecture.

This Week's Featured Interview:

• Tim Deere-Jones is an independent marine pollution consultant and a specialist in the behavior and fate of marine pollutants in ocean, coastal and estuarine environments. He explains how radiation in the ocean from Fukushima and the UK's Sellafield nuclear facility have impacted food safety at tremendous distances, as far away as the US West Coast.  A jaw-dropping eye-opening report.  This is an Encore presentation originally presented on Nuclear Hotseat #225 from October 13, 2015.

Numnutz of the Week:The only thing "super" about Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-Baby showing up dressed as Super Mario at the Rio Olympics is his gall at continuing to lie about the nuclear contamination awaiting anyone who dares to attend the 2020 Tokyo Radioactive NOlympics.  (And that ball he's holding is pure projection, if not delusion...)Missing Links:

• Sign the Petition:  "No Olympics or Paralympics in Radioactive Fukushima!"
  Learn more by going to Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network.  (Thanks to FFAN for use of their gas-masked baseball pitcher as this week's Featured Image.
• Grand Canyon tribe fears for its future amid battle against uranium mining
• Greenland Inuit oppose open-pit uranium mine on Arctic mountain-top
• Indigenous Australians Fight Planned Nuclear Dump On Sacred Lands

Coming Attractions:Next week - USS Reagan Sailors in court on their TEPCO class action lawsuit and Nuclear Hotseat is there! 

Niagara Falls! It's got more than its share of nuclear problems. Lou Ricciuti has been a nuclear researcher, writer and speaker for nearly 20 years on the radioactive waste-stream generated by Niagara Falls' vast involvement in the earliest days of the Atomic Age.

Veteran anti-nuclear activist Myla Reson reminds us of the leaked report from Nuclear Regulator Commission's Dr. Michael Peck saying that Diablo Canyon should be shut down until Pacific Gas and Electric can prove that the reactors' design can withstand the shaking from one of the 13 adjacent earthquake faults.

Numnutz of the Week:

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission head Michael Binder pooh-poohs letter claiming withholding of important safety information written anonymously by agency insiders, jokes about whistleblowers, then muzzles a Greenpeace environmentalist and ignores a 26-page safety review, yet encourages concerned employees to "speak up!" Yeah, right! What's that olde joke about a scorpion's nature...?

This Week's Featured Interviews:

• Lou Ricciuti has been a nuclear researcher, writer and speaker for nearly 20 years on the radioactive waste-stream generated by Niagara Falls' vast involvement in the earliest days of the Atomic Age.
• Veteran anti-nuclear activist Myla Reson reminds us of the leaked report from Nuclear Regulator Commission's Dr. Michael Peck saying that Diablo Canyon should be shut down until Pacific Gas and Electric can prove that the reactors' design can withstand the shaking from one of the 13 adjacent earthquake faults.

Numnutz of the Week:

• Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission head Michael Binder pooh-poohs letter claiming withholding of important safety information written anonymously by agency insiders, jokes about whistleblowers, then muzzles a Greenpeace environmentalist and ignores a 26-page safety review, yet encourages concerned employees to "speak up!"  Yeah, right!  What's that olde joke about a scorpion's nature...?

The Missing Link:

• Dr. Helen Caldicott speaking in San Francisco:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hSjloOXzXk
• Myla Reson's latest video, featuring Harvey Wasserman:  "Solar Power to the People!"
  https://youtu.be/cdstKixcD2I
• Nuclear Accident in New Mexico ranks among the Costliest in U.S. History - front page in the Los Angeles Times
• Catastrophe in the Making: Growth Machine Politics; Regulatory Capture; Hurricane Katrina; Fukushima; Disasters of Tomorrow by Mining Awareness
  
• Sister Megan Rice:  "People are Miseducated about Nuclear Weapons"

Dave Sweeney is the national nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation. This week, we get to the heart of the international manipulation – dare I call it a conspiracy? – to dump the world’s nuclear waste in the land down under. It includes LATE BREAKING NEWS of the international manipulations and decades of planning that has gone into convincing Australians to accept the nuclear industry’s plans to turn their country into the world’s nuclear ash tray. Of course, Rupert Murdoch is involved.

Context for understanding UK and European nuclear issues with Shaun McGee reporting from Ireland.

West Lake Landfill/EPA community meeting hit by activist “die-in” to make the point of the nuclear dangers. Interview w/die-in organizer Alex Cohen of Soul Much Water.

This Week’s Featured Interviews: Dave Sweeney is the national nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation.  This week, we get to the heart of the international manipulation – dare I call it a conspiracy? – to dump the world’s nuclear waste in the land down under.  It includes LATE BREAKING NEWS of the international manipulations...