Free film showing: "La Fuga Radiactiva" ("The Radioactive Leak") -- a 30-minute, Spanish language (with English subtitles) drama, about a radioactive disaster at a centralized interim storage facility (CISF) for irradiated nuclear fuel (high-level radioactive waste).
D.C. area premiere at the NIRS (Nuclear Information and Resource Service) office, Suite 340, 6930 Carroll Avenue, Takoma Park, MD 20912
Thursday, May 2, 2019, 6:30 pm (just days after the 33rd annual commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, and, it is reported, just eight days before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will make major rulings re: CISFs targeted at the Southwest)
If you can come, please RSVP to: kevin@beyondnuclear.org
The film will be followed by a discussion with NIRS Radioactive Waste Project Director, Diane D'Arrigo, as well as Beyond Nuclear Radioactive Waste Specialist, Kevin Kamps. Also featured will be the filmmaker, Eduardo Soto, joining the discussion by Skype, live from Cuenca, Spain.
Free refreshments will be served.
For more info., contact Kevin Kamps, (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyondnuclear.org
About the film:
Although fictional, the drama "La Fuga Radiactiva" ("The Radioactive Leak") was inspired by a real life resistance struggle against an all too real proposed CISF, targeted at a town near the ancient city of Cuenca, Spain, famous for its beautiful art and architecture, its long history, as well as its gorgeous natural surroundings and even dinosaur fossils.
The Spanish director, Eduardo Soto, premiered the film in New York City in February, 2019. The premiere in Madrid, Spain took place in March, 2019.
Soto has very generously blessed groups like NIRS and Beyond Nuclear to show his powerful, moving drama -- free of charge -- in the U.S., to help with the resistance here against two CISFs targeted at the Southwest: at southeastern New Mexico (Holtec International/Eddy-Lea [Counties] Energy Alliance), and western Texas (Waste Control Specialists and Interim Storage Partners -- including Areva of France, recently renamed Orano, and Nuclear Assurance Corporation). These two CISFs are but 40 miles apart. They would turn a largely Hispanic area, already suffering badly from nuclear and fossil fuel pollution, into an even worse "nuclear sacrifice area," an environmental injustice.
Here is a message from the filmmaker, Eduardo Soto, in Cuenca, Spain:
In 2010, the small town of Villar de Cañas, 40 km [25 miles] away from the provincial capital of Cuenca, Spain, was designated as the site for the construction of a Centralized Temporary Storage Facility (CTS) [as above, also referred to as a CISF, short for Centralized Interim Storage Facility] which was to house the high-level nuclear waste from seven active [operating] plants in Spain.
The anti-CTS Platform brought together a large team of activists that neutralized [blocked] the development of the works for 8 years, with peaceful protests, with information, with the law.
In 2018 La Fuga (The Leak) was filmed to stage a radioactive future that we don't want for Cuenca. Or for anyone.
What events would happen in the case of an accident in a highly radioactive waste storage facility? In the film we see this critical and anguished situation from the point of view of various characters. Their reactions inform us about such aspects of nuclear energy that aren't usually discussed in public forums. It's a thriller to make us think over the form of energy that we want to move the world.
We made the short film La Fuga (The Leak) after 8 years of resistance, struggle and information against the building of the CTS 40 km away from the town of of Cuenca. We had gone through stages of euphoria and stages of discouragement. We were aware that our messages only reached mailboxes and brains of a faithful, tight audience and that there was no need to convince anyone, they were already so persuaded that they no longer responded to the calls. It's exhausting to fight with a sling against a power that does not cease to feed its troops, improve its armament and multiply their means and strategies. We were tired and we needed to present news and data under a new format.
The Leak has been more than a short film since the first day of its production, demonstrating its ability to rekindle the flame of conscious activism.
WHY WE ARE SHOWING THIS FILM:
The first question during the post-screening discussion will be, "Did you know that high-level radioactive waste would likely pass through the Takoma Metro Station on the CSX railway, if CISFs are opened in New Mexico and/or Texas?!"
(See page 20 of 20 in this document, showing a close up map of the targeted rail route through Takoma Park; see page 19 of 45 in this document, for a map of additional targeted routes through Maryland; and see page 4 of 20, as well as page 12 of 20, in this document, for the shipment numbers projected through Maryland, as well as the congressional districts impacted, respectively -- including Jamie Raskin's (MD-8th). Please note that these particular route maps and shipment numbers refer to the context of shipments to Yucca Mountain, Nevada for permanent burial. However, shipments to CISFs in NM and/or TX would follow similar to identical routes, especially as far east as Maryland. Only there could be three times the number of shipments through Takoma Park, if both CISFs open, as compared to the Yucca dump scheme!)
These high-risk shipments have long been dubbed "Mobile Chernobyls" by critics, a phrase coined in the 1990s by the late Michael Mariotte, NIRS's former executive director, referring to the potential for releases of disastrous amounts of hazardous radioactivity in the event of a breach of containment, as in a severe transport accident.
They have also been dubbed "Dirty Bombs on Wheels," referring to the security risks of terrorist attacks, a phrase coined in 2002 by NIRS's Southeast Office Director, Mary Olson; "Mobile X-ray Machines that Can't Be Turned Off," referring to the hazardous gamma and neutron radiation emitted by even so-called "routine" shipments, a phrase coined in 1997 by Mary's sister, Lauren Olson; and "Floating Fukushimas," referring to a potential barge shipment disaster, as on the Chesapeake Bay, a phrase coined by Kamps, after the Japanese nuclear catastrophe began on 3/11/2011.
These shipments that would pass through Takoma Park could begin just a few years from now, if one or both of these CISFs open. The shipping casks would hold irradiated nuclear fuel, the same highly radioactive material that exploded and burned at Chernobyl, and that melted down and escaped into the environment at both Fukushima, as well as at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania beginning on March 28, 1979, 40 years ago.
(For more info. on shipping risks, see the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's related info. page.)
Last year, Takoma Park's Democratic U.S. Representative, Jamie Raskin, voted the wrong way -- in favor -- of H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018. He apparently was persuaded by bill sponsor, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (Republican-Illinois) that the legislation was a good idea, because it would supposedly get high-level radioactive waste out of Maryland.
But so long as Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant on the Chesapeake operates, there will continue to be high-level radioactive waste in Maryland -- and in fact, its export shipments will have to wait, not for years, but decades, as permanently shutdown reactors are first in line.
And if enacted into law, this dangerous bill would bring high-level radioactive waste through Takoma Park -- and the rest of metro D.C. -- on its way out west, either to the CISFs mentioned above, or else to Yucca Mountain, Nevada for permanent burial on Western Shoshone Indian land.
We need to educate U.S. Rep. Raskin, and so many more members of the U.S. House and Senate, that this legislation is a dangerously bad idea. Fortunately, the bill was not taken up by the Senate last year. However, it -- or something like it -- could well be re-introduced this year in both chambers of Congress. We need to take action now!
Please consider showing this film where you live! You can contact the filmmaker at: eduardosotoproducciones@gmail.com.
Feel free to contact Kevin Kamps at Beyond Nuclear at kevin@beyondnuclear.org with any questions about showing this film where you live, as well.