- Subject: New England actions
- From: Michael Mariotte <nirsnet@igc.apc.org>
- Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:51:21 -0400
NEWS FROM NIRS
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036
202-328-0002; fax: 202-462-2183; nirsnet@igc.org, www.nirs.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Mariotte, NIRS, 202-328-0002
June 30, 1998 Debby Katz, CAN, 413-339-5781
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS LAUNCH
NUCLEAR FREE NEW ENGLAND CAMPAIGN
PLAN RALLIES, ACTION CAMP, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN VERMONT
A coalition of national, regional and local environmental organizations
today announced the formation of the Nuclear Free New England Campaign,
which will seek to end atomic power in the region by 2000.
"Three nuclear reactors in New England already have closed permanently in
the last few years," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the
Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, "due to a
combination of safety and economic problems and citizen action. But these
same problems are pervasive throughout the region, and we will work to close
the rest of the reactors in New England before disaster strikes."
The coalition announced that it will sponsor an action camp in southern
Vermont from August 21-27 to train some 200 organizers who will then fan out
across New England to organize against nuclear power.
The coalition also will sponsor a major rally in Brattleboro, Vermont on
August 22 and non-violent civil disobedience at the Vermont Yankee
reactor-the region's oldest and most decrepit operating reactor-during the
week. Confirmed speakers at the August 22 rally include Ben Cohen and Jerry
Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, long-time nonviolence activist David
Dellinger, Vermont author Grace Paley and author/activists Harvey Wasserman
and Karl Grossman. More speakers and performers will be announced in coming
weeks.
"Our goal is to inspire and empower people throughout New England to realize
that we don't have to accept the cancers and disease that accompany these
reactors," said Debby Katz, president of the Citizens Awareness Network,
"much less the awful tragedy that would occur in the event of a meltdown. We
don't need nuclear reactors to boil water to make electricity; there are
safer, cheaper and more sustainable ways to meet our electrical needs and
New England must be in the forefront of adopting these new technologies."
The campaign has been endorsed by dozens of organizations across the U.S.,
and the August 22 rally in Brattleboro is expected to be the largest in the
region in at least a decade.
While most participants in the camp and rally will be drawn from New
England, representatives from environmental groups across the U.S. have
signed up to participate. In addition, a sizeable international contingent
is expected. Already, people from Denmark, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czech Republic
and Hungary have committed to attend the event. Most are veterans of similar
actions in Europe over the past two years.
The focus of the August 22 rally will be to demand the immediate shutdown of
the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. CAN submitted a formal legal petition to
the NRC in late May demanding a full inspection of the plant's safety
system. The NRC had not replied to the petition by early June, when the
reactor, which had just come out of a lengthy refueling shutdown, suffered a
serious accident involving the failure of multiple safety systems.
"The June 9 accident at Vermont Yankee is exactly what we were trying to
avoid," said CAN's Derrik Jordan. "We pointed out to the NRC that the
utility had not adequately assessed the interactions between its various
safety systems. In this case, we hate to be proven right. This could have
been a disaster for all of southern New England. Now we demand the permanent
shutdown of this failed, aging reactor." CAN has offices in Massachusetts,
Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York.
"Nuclear power is failing nationwide," said Paul Gunter, reactor safety
specialist at NIRS, "but it is in New England where we are making a stand.
Atomic power is not needed there, and this region-my home-can become the
first region in the U.S. to decisively reject the atomic age."
The August 21-27 action camp will feature numerous workshops on nuclear
issues and organizational development led by officials from groups including
the Union of Concerned Scientists, Safe Energy Communication Council and
more as well as respected authors and scientific experts. There will be a
special workshop and action on August 25 led by Vermont's
internationally-acclaimed Bread & Puppet Theater. Workshop leaders will be
formally announced in coming weeks.
Another focus of the camp and related activities will be to spread
opposition to the proposed Texas/Maine/Vermont "low-level" atomic waste
compact, which would send radioactive waste from Vermont and Maine to a poor
Hispanic community in West Texas. The issue is currently before the U.S.
Congress, where Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone is leading opposition to
the compact on environmental justice grounds. The compact is supported by
Vermont and Maine's Congressional delegations, but the activists will
demonstrate that the compact does not have public support in the region and
that politicians who support the compact do so at their own peril.
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