Nuclear Hotseat

Marker at the Trinity site, where the world's first nuclear explosion took place.

• Filmmakers Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart on their new documentary-in-progress, OFF COUNTRY, which examines lives impacted on-the-ground after the Trinity test, the first nuclear explosion in the world, and at Rocky Flats, the plutonium contaminated former nuclear weapons production and Superfund site that's now home to spiffy new subdivisions and a wildlife reserve.

British Parliament toffs still considering placing the UK's nuclear waste dump underneath national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty... so the radiation can muck it all up.  But hey -- animals, plants and scenery don't vote and can't afford to hire a lobbyist!  So there you go...

• US Representatives Vote to Revive Nevada Nuclear Waste Dump
• What's Not in NNSA's Plutonium Pit Production Decision
• Atomic Minerals Found in Tamil Nadu Beach Sand Samples Meant for Export
• Kiwis Fear Cancer after Working near Leaky US Nuclear Reactor in Antarctica

Canada Nuclear Waste Dump in Chalk River, Ontario -
"Mobile Chernobyl" highway route waste would take from Los Alamos National Labs

• Dr. Gordon Edwards is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and one of that country's best known independent experts on nuclear technology. He has worked with the Canadian government, First Nations tribal councils, consulted w/governmental and non-governmental bodies, and spoken internationally at conferences sponsored by Physicians for Global Survival, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Dr. Helen Caldicott.  This interview was originally presented on Nuclear Hotseat #316 from July 11, 2017.

Astroturfing the Grassroots:  Entergy was busy manufacturing consent at New Orleans City Council hearing for new power plant they want.  The audience was "boosted" by 50 actors paid to impersonate people who supported Entergy's position.  Costumes (tee shirts) and speech cheat-sheets provided - bonus payments if you got up to speak!  They can't win legitimately, so hey, what's a little lying and cheating when so much money's at stake?

Orange tee shirt costuming of "astroturfing" actors,
getting paid to play the role of grass roots activists
in favor of Entergy's new power plant in New Orleans -
$60 for extras, $200 for 5-and-under speaking roles, bad karma forever

Pilgrim Nuclear public hearing, Diane Turco
Photo credit: M. Scott Brauer

• Diane Turco, Executive Director of Cape Downwinders, a group dedicated to the permanent closure of the Pilgrim nuclear power reactor in Plymouth, Massachusetts, updates us on the problems and dangers at that facility in just the first four months of 2018.

Fukushima Food Fight Continues!  World Trade Organization orders South Korea to buy Fukushima seafood after Japan's second appeal.  Time for SK to appeal.  Think they can keep this going until after Japan's 2020 Radioactive... uh, Tokyo Olympics?

• San Francisco - Toxic soil went from SF's Hunters Point to CA state landfills
• Hanford - Why Was Plutonium Dust Left to Blow for Miles Across a Washington (state) Plateau? 
• Hanford - Feds Bash Hanford Nuclear Waste Plant Troubles, Question DOE Priorities
• Bob Alvarez - Trump Faces Obstacles to a Korean Deal, Some Self-Inflicted
• Canada - Petition urging better regulations and urgent reforms to nsure the best anagement of long-lived radioactive waste.  Canadian citizens only can sign HERE.

Chernobyl's "Elephant's Foot" - radioactive lava flow which solidified into a mass made of
melted nuclear fuel and reactor debris - still highly radioactive.

[powerpress]

This week's Nuclear Hotseat marks the 32nd Anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with highlights from past interviews.  It bring Ukraine's devastating 1986 nuclear accident -- and its consequences -- into sharp, terrifying focus.

• Bonnie Kouneva was a 16-year-old living in Bulgaria when the Chernobyl accident started on April 26, 1986.  She was outdoors all day at a rally and got hit with the radiation plume.  Bonnie talks about Chernobyl's impact on her life and the health of her children.  This former mountaineer and Bulgarian Greenpeace member currently lives in the United States.
• Dr. Timothy Mousseau is an evolutionary biologist and faculty member of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina. Since 1999, Professor Mousseau and his collaborators have explored the ecological, genetic and evolutionary consequences of low-dose radiation in populations of plants, animals and people inhabiting the Chernobyl region of Ukraine and Belarus.
• Dr. Janette Sherman is well known for her work with epidemiologist Joseph Mangano on analyses of data after Fukushima.  Their work indicates that the Japanese nuclear disaster led to a spike in US infant mortality and hypothyroidism.  Dr. Sherman edited the English translation of Alexei Yablokov’s groundbreaking book, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.
• Dr. Alexei Yablokov was environmental advisor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Gorbachev administration, as well as a co-founder of Greenpeace, Russia.  His book, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, compiled and translated into English more than 5,000 separate scientific reports on Chernobyl that completely contradict the World Health Organization’s report, which undermined the seriousness of the accident.  Dr. Yablakov died in January, 2017.
• Ryuichi Hirokawa was the first non-Soviet photojournalist to document the Chernobyl disaster. The website on his humanitarian aid work with the children of Fukushima, based upon his experiences at Chernobyl, is at: kuminosato.net.
  

A Chernobyl Souvenir