Fukushima Freeways?! Educational Speaking Tour Re: High-Level Radioactive Waste Shipping Risks Sets Off across Iowa to Nebraska

Iowa's Green State Solutions logo, featuring the Earth symbolBeyond Nuclear * Green State Solutions * Iowa Chapter/Sierra Club * PSR Iowa

Press Advisory: Monday, October 22, 2018 to Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Contact:  Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyondnuclear.org

Mike Carberry, Green State Solutions, (319) 594-6453, mikecarberry@gmail.com

Fukushima Freeways?!

Educational Speaking Tour Re: High-Level Radioactive Waste Shipping Risks

Sets Off across Iowa to Nebraska

3,066 rail-sized casks on trains, and another 1,789 Legal Weight Truck-sized casks on the interstates, would travel through Iowa, bound for Nevada, if the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump opens. In addition to all 4,855 casks entering from IA, Nebraska would be burdened with another 3,673 rail-sized casks traveling through. So-called “centralized interim storage facilities” in New Mexico and/or Texas could well mean even larger shipment numbers through IA and NE. (Barge shipments into the Port of Omaha are also proposed.) Health, safety, security, and environmental risks include severe accidents, or even terrorist attacks, releasing catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity, impacting an entire region; even routine, incident-free shipments would be like “mobile X-ray machines that can’t be turned off,” delivering a harmful dose at close range as they pass by. Come learn more about the risks, and how you can help prevent them. (See route maps and shipment numbers for IA and NE, with a close up map of Omaha, posted at: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/whatsnew.htm.)

PHOTO OP: At each event, an inflatable, full-scale replica of a highly radioactive waste Legal Weight Truck-sized shipping cask will be deployed.

In addition to plenty of Q&A/discussion time, the 90-minute program will include:

A presentation by Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear, addressing the safety and security risks of transporting highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel on the roads and rails, as proposed in legislation currently before the U.S. Congress. He will also discuss the risks of irradiated nuclear fuel indoor wet storage pool fires for the entire region, and the interim alternative of Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS), as well as the need to stop generating high-level radioactive waste.

An animation, prepared by Scott Portzline, Security Consultant, Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA), about radioactive waste transport risks in Iowa and Nebraska, will be shown. So too will a 90-second aerial drone-captured video, featuring transport routes in Pennsylvania. A short informational video, “Nuclear Transports – Eye-Witness to Rulebreaking,” also prepared by Portzline, will be shown. Lessons learned will be applied to Iowa and Nebraska.

When and Where:

12:30pm-2pm CDT, Mon., Oct. 22, Davenport Public Library, 6000 Eastern Ave., Davenport, IA;

6:30pm-8pm CDT, Mon., Oct. 22, Johnson County Ambulance, 808 Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA;

12:30pm-2pm CDT, Tues., Oct. 23, Des Moines Public Library (Central), 1000 Grand Ave., Des Moines, IA;

***PLEASE NOTE, THE FOLLOWING PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED, DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL: 6:30pm-8pm CDT, Tues., Oct. 23, UNO Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Ctr., 6400 South, University Drive Road North, Omaha, NE

[However, we would love to reschedule it in the not too distant future. If you would like to help pull an event together in the Omaha, Nebraska and/or Council Bluffs, Iowa area, please contact Kevin Kamps at Beyond Nuclear, at (240) 462-3216, or kevin@beyondnuclear.org. Thanks for your patience.]***

Complimentary food and beverages will be provided at each event.

For more info.:

www.beyondnuclear.org

https://www.facebook.com/GreenStateSolutions/

https://www.sierraclub.org/iowa

http://www.psriowa.org/