Nuclear Hotseat

• Greg Mello is Executive Director and one of the founders of the Los Alamos Study Group, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The group has worked for nuclear disarmament, environmental protection, social justice, and economic sustainability, with actions including policy research, environmental analysis, congressional education and lobbying, community organizing, and litigation.
  
  Recently, Greg took himself to the belly of the beast - the DC conference Nuclear Deterrence Summit 2024, for front-line purveyors of nuclear weapons components, self-serving justifications, and lobbying opportunities to grab taxpayer money while preparing the means to obliterate the world.
  
  To even walk into such an environment, Greg Mello shows himself to be a braver man than I.  We spoke on Feb. 16, 2024.

A networking session, with trade booths, at the 2024 Nuclear Deterrence Summit in DC. 
Each of those tables costs $6,000 - $7,500 for 90 minutes of branding.  Logo keychains, anyone? 

• Los Alamos Study Group
• Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production- PLEASE SIGN! 

With this episode, Nuclear Hotseat introduces our first monthly report from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).  Every month, we'll present an update produced by ICAN and coming to us directly from their headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.  It will contain cutting edge information on what's being done to pass the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, as well as insights into the tactics and strategies being used - and what you can do to help the world get rid of nukes.  A Nuclear Hotseat EXCLUSIVE. 

Here’s Alistair Burnett, ICAN’s Head of Media, coming to us from ICAN’s Geneva, Switzerland headquarters, with this update on the campaign to get the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW, enforced as international law.  He's joined by Susi Snyder, ICAN's Programme Coordinator.

• Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan, upon winning Best Director at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards, shows that maybe he's becoming aware of the world of us who protest against nuclear weapons and do not worship at the shrine of Oppy.  Comments pertinent to the anti-nuclear movement start at 1:40: 

https://youtu.be/iYlNtbpn7AQ?si=fA1hpRIFQseptbpp

• Karl Grossman, veteran award-winning environmnental journalist, was acknowledged for his outstanding independent journalism through that most telling of acknowledgements: an editorial cartoon (below).  It even looks like him! 

Dr. Gordon Edwards, addressing the United Nations

• Dr. Gordon Edwards is a mathematician, physicist, nuclear consultant, as well as president and co-founder of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, a not-for-profit corporation established in 1975. He has served as a consultant on nuclear issues for governmental and non-governmental bodies for over 45 years, and been accepted as an expert witness by US and Canadian courts and tribunals. He is frequently invited to testify before provincial and federal bodies, and to give major addresses in various countries. He also explains complex nuclear matters in a way that is easy to understand, for which I am deeply grateful.
  
  Here, he explains the proposed Chalk River nuclear waste dump in Ontario, adjacent to the Ottawa River and upstream of Ottawa, Montreal, and the St. Lawrence River, to be built on First Nations lands. 

GREENWASHING ALERT: Boeing is aiming at school kids with their 12-week naturalist training at the Santa Susana Field Lab in Simi Valley - one of California’s most toxic sites that’s never been cleaned up.  Of course, not one word about the radiological and other toxic contamination of the site.  And they charge for it! 

To learn more about Boeing's greenwashing of the SSFL site CLICK HERE.

Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab Nuclear Disaster demo that shut down a planned greenwashing Earth Day hike through the toxic, radiologically contaminated site.  Well done!

More shoes are dropping -- or should that be ankle bracelets? -- as further indictments are handed down in the Ohio nuclear power scandal.

Hand-out prepared by Navajo Nation and given to members of Congress during meetings on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).

KEYSTONE PHOTO:  The team that educated Congress for passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.  (l-r) Christen Commuso, Reyaun Francisco, Karen Nickel, Dawn Chapman, Rep. Tricia Byrnes, Rep Chantelle Nickson-Clark

Dawn Chapman (center) and Sen. Josh Hawley (l, maroon tie) at the DC press conference on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

• Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel founded Just Moms STL in 2014 to raise awareness of the issues their community was facing from Manhattan Project legacy nuclear waste and other hazardous materials buried at the West Lake Landfill in North St. Louis County, Missouri. When we spoke for this interview, Dawn had just returned home after a whirlwind third trip to the capitol in six months, to educate Congressional members on the need for RECA.  She had been joined in this education/lobbying trip by other victims of radiation exposure from the Manhattan Project in Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico, as well as reps from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
  
  Because this opportunity presented itself when Dawn's energy was still riding high from the experience, we decided to jump in and do the interview "on the wing."   Some wonderfully spontaneous moments occurred, along with the solid, front-line information she provided.
  
  I talked with Dawn Chapman on Monday, February 12, 2024.

• [email protected]
• Just Moms StL on Facebook
• West Lake Landfill on Facebook

Megajoules and megaheadlines are all nuclear meganonsense, reports Linda Pentz Gunter on the latest so-called fusion breakthrough and other not-so-hot stories.

• John LaForge , co-director of Nukewatch, with our monthly focus on nuclear weapons and global politics, The Nukewatch Report.

• https://cnic.jp/english/" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The latest edition of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center’s newsletter Nuke Info Tokyo
• NH # 536 Interview with Caitlin Stronell, Editor of Nuke Info Tokyo, Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
• Congress takes aim at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: ‘It’s déjà vu all over again’ by Victor Gilinsky for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
• An Open Letter to Bill Gates About his Wyoming Atomic Reactor by Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education
• Today’s AI threat: More like nuclear winter than nuclear war

• Vina Colley (seen in keystone photo on the left) has been fighting for nuclear clean-up in Piketon, Ohio, from radioactive waste created by the long-closed Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. But sweetheart deals between government and nukesters are leading to Ohio building two new nuclear reactors in the area and becoming something they call a “nuclear hub” — which more realistic minds call a nuclear sacrifice zone.
  
  Thousands of metal cylinders of corrosive radioactive waste — most weighing 14 tons and many heavily etched with rust — stretch across industrial yards. Five plumes of poisoned groundwater lie beneath the surface, one of them so close to private land that traces of contamination were found in a monitoring well on a nearby farm. Buildings are contaminated with radiation, beryllium, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and asbestos.
  
  Now a supposed “clean up” is proceeding without public oversight or input, and spreading the risk - and Vina, as founder and head of National Nuclear Workers for Justice and PRESS - Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security - has been fighting ferociously against it. We spoke on February 2, 2024.
  
• CONTACT for Vina Colley:   [email protected] ; Vina Colley on Facebook
  Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS)
  National Nuclear Workers for Justice (NNWJ)

Burn pit at Santa Susana Filed Labs Area 1, which was supposed to begin on Monday, Feb. 5 but was delayed by the massive rainstorm and flooding.  Historical photo from Parents Against the Santa Susana Field Lab. 

• The Santa Susana Field Lab in Simi Valley, 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, is the site of an un-contained nuclear meltdown in 1959, which vented radioactivity directly into the environment and contaminated the land for miles around - a fact which not discovered until 20 years later. It has burn pits that were used for improper disposal of nuclear and other highly toxic materials, and suffers from decades of neglect and lies by whatever company had control of it at that time. Now Boeing - current owner of a major portion of the site - is suddenly launching into an “emergency” clean-up.  But what’s behind this sudden “emergency,” and what lies between the claim of “clean-up” and the way it’s being handled? There’s a huge gap, with all details kept hidden from the local community.
  
  That’s what today’s guest, Melissa Bumstead, addresses. Melissa became an accidental activist for the SSFL cleanup after her four year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia in 2014. She is Founder of Parents Against SSFL and a tireless - though often tired - grassroots Organizer.
  
  When we spoke, it was during the recent massive rain storm that created flooding, landslides and mudslides throughout southern California - and we make reference to the impact of that storm on the Santa Susana Field Lab site. I spoke with Melissa Bumstead on February 5, 2024.

In the Dark of the Valley - An award-winning documentary on the Santa Susana Field Lab featuring Melissa Bumstead and the other activist moms.  Free with ads.

LINK to SSFL survey - please fill out!

A circus-style tent was used in New Mexico during remediation of the Los Alamos National Lab site, so why not cover the SSFL burn pit remediation one?  Here are just two of the circus tent manufacturers here in the U.S. capable of making an appropriate tenf for uner $100,000 - chump change to a company like Boeing. 

• Armbruster Tentmaker
• https://www.armbrustertentmaker.com/custom-products/circus-tents/. Armbruster Tentmaker" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Big Top Circus Tents For Sale

Post-nuclear apocalypse, why does anyone think that seaweed will keep us alive and sane? 

There’s a coup underway on Capitol Hill to make an already toothless lapdog, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, even weaker - by removing safety as a priority.

(l-r) International Uranium Film Festival Co-founders and Directors Marcîa Gomes de Oliviera and  Norbert Suchanek, and Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy at the 2023 IUFF in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Norbert Suchanek - This spring, the International Uranium Film Festival is launching a marathon tour of 12 cities, presenting unique and powerful films about all aspects of the nuclear industry .  IUFF co-founder and General Director Norbert Suchanek paints the picture of this massive moveable cinematic feast, which begins March 7 at Window Rock in Navajo Nation, and continues to Tucson (AZ), Austin (TX), Ashville (NC), Chicago (IL), Spokane (WA), Vancouver in Canada, Seattle (WA), Olympia (WA), Portland (OR), Salem (OR), and Santa Barbara (CA) before concluding in Las Vegas (NV).  We spoke on January 25, 2024.

• LINK to the full US 2024 schedule
• LINK to filmmaker submission page for 2025 consideration

Water bottle lable Cape Downwinders tape on top of bottles they carry and give away. Gets the point across!

Diane Turco is Director of Cape Downwinders a grassroots activist organization with the goal to protect our communities and environment from the dangers present at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and nuclear waste dump in Plymouth, MA. In this interview, she explains how the company decommissioning Pilgrim, Holtec, has been legally forbidden to dump radioactively contaminated waste water into Cape Cod Bay, so it has instead been heating and boiling off the water to release as steam into the atmosphere - also not legal, but it took a whistleblower to bring this issue to the fore.  We spoke just before production oncluded today, January 30, 2024.

• Studies to examine health risks of New England nuclear power plants
• Harvard launches two studies of Pilgrim nuclear plant health risks

Are we tired yet of rich, elite men telling us the world "wants" nuclear energy?

Visiting Boeing's Santa Susana Field Lab in California's Simi Valley, only 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles?  Well, they've got a brochure filled with safety warnings that lists everything... EXCEPT THE RADIATION DANGERS! 

To learn the history and the dangers that exist even today of the Santa Susana Field Lab, watch the film In The Dark of the Valley.  Official trailer is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puxOB5BHbKE

Happy 60th anniversary to Dr. Strangelove - still as pertinent as ever... alas!  Here's actor Slim Pickens taking the ride of a lifetime... which is about to end.

https://youtu.be/snTaSJk0n_Y?si=5SjT_Ux9tOpp9ayW

• Hawley Urges Oscars to Recognize American Victims of Nuclear Testing, as "Oppenheimer" Film Reaps Honors - full letter by Sen. Josh Hawley in support of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and Downwinders. 
• Commentary: Resister celebrates nuclear ban treaty the hard way — John LaForge