Nuclear Hotseat

Nukegate in Ohio:  Activists against Ohio's bailout of failing nuclear reactors were gamed out of their referendum to block it in 2019.  Now, there's a scandal with criminal indictments against the Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Larry Householder for taking First Energy money (aka "bribes").  This may show the way to bailout reversal.  Attorney Terry Lodge speaks to all aspects of the issue on this week's show.

• Nukegate in Ohio - and elsewhere:  Terry Lodge is an Ohio trial lawyer living in Toledo who has represented many clients in civil rights, civil liberties, and environmental cases. An advocate for the public interest in energy policy issues, he has litigated nuclear power safety and environmental issues for 40 years. Lodge has also represented opponents of nuclear weapons and mountaintop removal mining. This man knows where the metaphoric bodies are buries and here, he proceeds to dig up a whole bunch of them. I spoke with Terry Lodge on Saturday, July 25, 2020.
• Sign-on to NIRS letter telling the NRC and Congress:  NO NUCLEAR WASTE IN OUR LANDFILLS!
  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is planning a very dangerous change to the way radioactive waste is handled. Some man-made nuclear waste, mainly from nuclear power, is very long-lasting and dangerous to human health and the environment.  Disregarding this danger, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposes to let regular landfill operators dispose of this radioactive waste by authorizing them as "specific exempt." This would almost certainly result in nuclear waste leaks into our water, air, crops, and communities.

Just a peach full of sugar helps the radiation go down... and the pro-2021 Olympics propaganda push to "normalize" Fukushima to the rest of the world go out in manipulated media. Rotten to the core...

Not a picture of an actual Fukushima peach, but you get the idea...

Trinity downwinder Tina Cordova

First photo of the Atomic Age - the Trinity atomic bomb test of July 16, 1945, 0.025 seconds after detonation.

• Trinity Downwinders advocating for justice: Tina Cordova grew up in her family home in the Tularosa Basin, 40 miles from the explosion of the first atomic bomb in 1945. A cancer survivor like so many in her community, in 2005, she co-founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.  She and her community have been working for compensation for New Mexico atomic downwinders for the past 15 years.
   
• Video produced by the long term victims of the Trinity atomic bomb blast, Tularosa Basin Consortion Downwinders:

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

• Trinity is but one of the nuclear nightmares in New Mexico.  Joni Arends helped to found Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, based in New Mexico.  The group is dedicated to protecting all living beings and the environment from the effects of radioactive and other hazardous materials now and in the future.  It appears that this country is setting New Mexico up to be a nuclear sacrifice zone.  A longtime activist, Joni previously spoke with Nuclear Hotseat on episode #443 from December 17, 2019 –  Joni’s Toxic Tour of New Mexico. Here, she enumerates the ongoing nuclear problems facing New Mexico.
  

Boneheaded head of the National Nuclear Security Administration visits Los Alamos to claim that nuclear bombs have "contributed to the betterment of humanity." Say what?????????

• Publication event for Uranium Atlas, presented by Beyond Nuclear.  It contains a collection of maps indicating everywhere that uranium was — or is still — extracted and used.  The editorial team that created it includes Beyond Nuclear, the Nuclear Free Future Foundation, (which earlier published a German language edition) the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) Germany. LINK to a free download of the full book. 
  

Church Rock 40th anniversary commemoration, July 16, 2019 -
former Uranium Miner Larry J. King (center) explains the site of the 1979 Church Rock uranium tailings pond breach.  This under-reported radioactive disaster dumped more than 94 million gallons of uranium-contaminated waste water into the adjacent Puerco River.  Now 41 years later, it has yet to be cleaned up.

Church Rock Uranium Tailings Pond Spill Commemoration, July 16, 2019:  Uranium mining marks the start of the nuclear fuel chain, the deadly journey uranium takes to become atomic weapons, nuclear reactors, and tons of highly radioactive waste.  NOTE: This is a special ENCORE PRESENTATION of the 2019 40th anniversary of the disaster.

On July 13 and 14, 2019, Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy attended commemorative events for the 1979 Church Rock uranium tailings pond breach and spill.  This under-reported nuclear disaster dumped more than 94 million gallons of highly acidic radioactive water into the adjacent Puerco River. The contamination reached Sanders, Arizona, more than 80 miles away. The spill has never been cleaned up.  Even after being declared a Superfund site, it needs at least two years before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission finishes its review of the EPA’s clean-up plan.  Clean-up can’t even begin until and unless the plan is approved.  And even that plan has come in for criticism by activists and community members.

This very SPECIAL Nuclear Hotseat from July 2019, presents an audio montage of interviews with community leaders from Navajo Nation.  They include: residents of the Red Water Pond Road Community, located adjacent to the spill site; commemoration event attendees; government officials; and activists from as far away as Japan. We spoke with:

• Former uranium miner Larry J. King, who worked on-site at the United Nuclear Corporation mine the day of the tailings pond spill.

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Redwater Pond Road Community member Edith Hood, on land across from her home.  Behind her, remains of an unremediated uranium mind.  Down the road less than two miles, the site of the 1979 Church Rock disaster that dumped 90 million gallons of liquid radioactive uranium tailings into the adjacent Puerco River.

• Navajo Nation president Jonathan Nez
• New Mexico state senator George Muñoz
• Southwest Research and Information Center Research Director Paul Robinson and Director of the Uranium Impact Assessment Program, Chris Shuey
• Environmental Protection Agency District 9 (San Francisco) rep Sean Hogan

Journalist and activist Mervyn Tilden