[ RadSafe ] [AmericanDUST] Radioactive Progress, You Say?

[Roger Helbig]

I don't that you radiation professionals really want to cede the floor to people like Cathy Garger - she spews something new out every couple of days - the last one was the horrors of explosive testing using tons of DU at Site 300 at Lawrence Livermore near Tracy, California - she and her co-moderator of AmericanDUST (Depleted Uranium Study Team) even tried to organize a boycott of California milk the first time Livermore tried to get a permit to do this explosive testing - Bob Nichols another co-moderator of this list that has messages that are open to the public, but is tightly controlled to prevent anything that questions the Romi Elnagar, Cathy Garger, Bob Nichols version of radiation and depleted uranium from being posted so that the public can at least see that many of their views are half-baked science bad science fiction.  Here is her latest about Oswego, New York's seeking additional nuclear reactors on Lake Ontario to generate badly needed power for the Northeast. 

Cathy Garger <savorsuccesslady3 at yahoo.com> wrote:  
To: No-New-Nukes-Yall at yahoogroups.com, NoNewNukesMD at yahoogroups.com,
americandust at yahoogroups.com, ThinkOutsideTheBomb at yahoogroups.com,
DU-Watch at yahoogroups.com
From: Cathy Garger <savorsuccesslady3 at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:29:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [AmericanDUST] Radioactive Progress, You Say?

  Quite interesting how a mayor of a city says he wants more nuke power in his community and then all of a sudden it's the entire city of Oswego that "wants" to be radioactively contaminated with not just a couple but *four* nuke reactors.
   
  Sure looks like public officials in Oswego, NY and Calvert Cliffs, MD both need a hefty dose of public health education about the effects of radionuclide releases from power plants!
   
  But who will tell them?  How do we get the "boots on the ground" to go from door to door and explain to the government policy makers and the people who live in these towns and the surrounding counties that all nuclear power plants leak radiation that's harmful to human life?
   
  We can talk about subsidies and costs and explain how nuke power does *not* help global warming till we're blue in the face.  But the thing that motivates most people to exhibit appropriate outraged action is emotion-based concerns about what is going to happen to themselves, their families, and those they love with the proposed expansion of nuclear power in their communities.
   
  The day that public safety is no longer an issue, and when the time arrives that increased levels of cancers, blood disorders, auto-immune system diseases, diabetes, birth defects, asthma and other respiratory disorders is considered "progress"?  Why it is a sorry day for America, indeed.
   
  But then it occurs to me that perhaps this fellow is not evil but just plain ignorant? Could it not be possible that he simply has no idea whatsoever that nuclear power plants deliver a powerful radioactive "punch" to his cells - and an even bigger one for his kids' (or nieces' and nephews') little bodies?
   
  I will go now and tell this blogger and the Oswego mayor about this.. and while I'm at it, I think I'll go educate my Maryland legislators, too.  I'll report back on what they say about "progress" after being thus educated.
   
  I will also let them know that their comments and reactions will be made public so that all of America can hear their take on this nuclear renaissance "progress".
   
  But, in all honesty, I have to ask myself if we can really blame them in their ignorance? After all, if I had not been researching the health hazards of the use of Depleted Uranium in the open air inside the US and happened upon material about the public health effects of radiation emitted from nuclear power plants and weapons laboratories, Uranium mines, Uranium weapons production and manufacturing sites, and military proving grounds and bases that fire, explode, drop, and burn Uranium 238?  Maybe I would think the promotion of all-things-nuclear is a dandy idea, too!
   
  As I see it?  Promoting and growing the efforts of groups like Radiation and Public Health Project www.radiation.org and the Low Level Radiation Campaign www.llrc.org is the only thing that is going to motivate great numbers of Americans to engage in emotion-based action against ALL things nuclear and ALL things radioactive.  
   
  Any of us who have ever taken even a basic Psych 101 class know that normal humans are concerned about the safety, health, and well-being of themselves and those they love above all else.  It is, therefore, only such concerns about human health and safety that are likely to be a powerful enough motivator to get most people to take action against the growing onslaught of increasing amounts of man-made radioactive pollution in this country.
   
  In the words of John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., who used to work at the Lawrence Livermore National [Weapons] Laboratory in CA, where Uranium-238 has routinely been exploded out in California's open air for over 45 years:
   
  "It is worth noting that, in the USA alone, there are an estimated 45,000 sites which are polluted or potentially polluted by radioactive poisons --- according to a report commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 (see EPA 1992). Worldwide, there is radioactive pollution from above-ground bomb tests. There is also the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident in Europe and the former USSR. The fact that humans have already created large amounts of nuclear pollution, adds to the moral argument for allowing no more." 
  http://www.ratical.com/radiation/CNR/YuccaMtnRWRP.html
   
   
  Cathy Garger
   
   
  Friday, July 27, 2007    Oswego May Get the New Nuclear Reactor it Wants   
    All the way back in March 2005, we told you about how the Mayor of Oswego, New York made a pitch to bring a new nuclear reactor to his town. Now it looks like the town is one step closer to making that happen.

>From the Syracuse Post-Standard:
  Work has begun on getting government approval for a fourth nuclear power plant in Oswego County.

UniStar Nuclear, a company led by Constellation Energy - the owner of Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station - started a feasibility study this spring looking at the site's "overall suitability to host a new nuclear plant," said UniStar President George Vanderheyden.

The study is the first step in a process that could lead to a nuclear plant being built there in the middle of the next decade.

The process is further along at Calvert Cliffs in Lusby, Md., where UniStar has completed and submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the environmental portion of a license application.

"Calvert Cliffs is our reference application," Vanderheyden said in a phone interview from the company's offices in Baltimore.Another sign of progress, just one step at a time.
  http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2007/07/oswego-may-get-new-nuclear-reactor-it.html
      
  Help the US become Radiation Free by 2033!
  www.radiation.org 
   
  Cathy Garger
  www.mytown.ca/garger