“FREEZE OUR FUKUSHIMAS” webcast and call-in September 30, 2013, 1 PM Eastern

“FREEZE OUR FUKUSHIMAS”

The Public meets the NRC

Call In with your support 1 PM EST, September 30, 2013
1-866-741-7099 and enter 3340595 #

Join the live webcast online at http://video.nrc.gov/

The only relevant protection from nuclear catastrophe is prevention.

Real civil defense means shutting these dangerous reactors down, permanently.

The people living near dangerous Fukushima-style reactors in the United States will make their case public before a panel of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for closing the GE Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactors.

You are invited to join in a live webcast at http://video.nrc.gov/  and telephone conference at 1 PM Eastern Time September 30, 2013 by calling in 1-866-741-7099 (PIN 3340595#).  The public meeting is between Beyond Nuclear and joint petitioners and the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Petition Review (NRC) regarding the March 21, 2013 emergency enforcement petition which calls for the revocation of the operating licenses of all General Electric Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactors in the United States. This is an opportunity to learn more about these aging and dangerous reactors and how you can get involved in shutting them down.

The joint petitioners are presenting additional information in support of their call for the emergency closure of all GE boiling water reactors that continue to operate with unreliable containment structures identical to the Fukushima Daiichi units that catastrophically failed during multiple severe accidents in March 2011.

The petitioners charge that current post-Fukushima NRC actions to address dangerously vulnerable US reactors are inadequate and present an undue risk to public health, safety and the environment. 

U.S. Sen. Markey slams NRC for biased study of HLRW storage pool risks

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)

As shown at Fukushima Daiichi, GE BWR Mark I (as well as II) high-level radioactive waste storage pools risk catastrophe. Only, the 31 U.S. Mark I and II HLRW storage pools often contain many times more inventory than do Japan's pools. Beyond Nuclear has published a backgrounder on GE BWR Mark I and II HLRW storage pool risks.

The storage pool at the Pilgrim Mark I, near Boston, still to this day contains every single irradiated nuclear fuel assembly ever generated there since 1972, amount now more than 600 metric tons.

On the eve of a public meeting at the agency's HQ in Rockville, Maryland, U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA, photo left), a long-time congressional watchdog on the nuclear power industry and its supposed regulators at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has written a blistering letter to NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane regarding NRC staff's "Draft Consequence Study" of the radiological risks of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage pool fires.

Markey references a "devastating critique" of NRC's "Draft Consequence Study" submitted on August 1st by Dr. Gordon Thompson, expert witness on behalf of an environmental coalition including Beyond Nuclear.

Markey points out the irony of NRC's current flip disregard of pool fire risks, given NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane's co-authorship of a 2003 study, along with several others, including Thompson, as well as IPS Senior scholar Bob Alvarez, that clearly exposed the potentially catastrophic fire risks of pool storage:

Environmental coalition challenges NRC on risk of HLRW pool fires, yet again!

IPS senior scholar Robert Alvarez

As shown at Fukushima Daiichi, GE BWR Mark I (as well as II) high-level radioactive waste storage pools risk catastrophe. Only, the 31 U.S. Mark I and II HLRW storage pools often contain many times more inventory than do Japan's pools. Beyond Nuclear has published a backgrounder on GE BWR Mark I and II HLRW storage pool risks.

It's déjà vu all over again! After announcing a public meeting on August 22nd -- supposedly intended for technical dialogue -- the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) attemped to change the rules, and unabashedly refused to respond to watchdogs' challenges to its biased analysis regarding high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage pool fire risks. The strong backlash by representatives of an environmental coalition, inlcuding Beyond Nuclear, has forced NRC to try again. NRC has issued a public notice, as well as slides, for its Sept. 18th public meeting.

The coalition's attorney, Diane Curran, has re-issued talking points first developed for public use in the lead up to the previous meeting. They are more relevant than ever. Curran urges concerned members of the public to register to speak by emailing kevin.witt@nrc.gov. You can phone into the meeting at (888) 324-8193 [enter passcode 4345562], and can watch the webcast at http://video.nrc.gov or https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/984626536.

On August 1st, Curran, and one of the environmental coalition's expert witnesses, Dr. Gordon Thompson of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies (IRSS), submitted a "devastating critique" regarding NRC's "Draft Consequence Study" on the risks of fire in HLRW storage pools. Curran and Thompson called for the study to be withdraw, due to its lack of basic scientific integrity and credibility.

Now Robert Alvarez (photo, above left), senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), has weighed in on the coalition's behalf. Alvarez previously served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy during the Clintion administration. After the 3/11/11 nuclear catastrophe began in Japan, he published a report on the potentially catastrophic risks in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant HLRW storage pools--the largest concentrations of hazardous artificial radioactivity in the entire country.

As U.S. Senator Ed Markey has pointed out in a letter to NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane, a 2003 study written by none other than Macfarlane herself (along with co-authors Alvarez, Thompson, and several others) starkly contradicts NRC's current "Draft Consequence Study" regarding pool fire risks. Astoundingly, and at catastrophic risk, NRC staff is relying on the "Draft Consequence Study" as the basis to recommend that no expedited transfer of irradiated nuclear fuel should be required as a "lesson learned" in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe. Beyond Nuclear and hundreds of environmental groups representing all 50 states have called for pools to be emptied into "Hardened On-Site Storage" (HOSS) for well over a decade, but their calls have fallen on deaf ears at NRC.

A second Freeze ad: Moratorium before Meltdown

Feel free to download our ad and use in your publications or as a handout.

The U.S. has 23 Fukushima Daiichi "twins" still operating -- GE BWR Mark Is. In addition, there are 8 similarly designed Mark IIs still operating in the U.S.

Webcast: Close dangerous GE reactors, 1 PM EST, Sept. 30, 2013

While Japan contemplates how it will permanently freeze a wall 90 feet (30 meters) into the earth around the Fukushima wreckage to contain radioactivity migrating into water and the ocean, the focus must also be on permanently freezing the operation of all GE Mark I and Mark II reactors.

As part of the ongoing effort to “Freeze Our Fukushimas”, you are invited to join in a live webcast and telephone conference at 1 PM Eastern Time September 30, 2013 for a public meeting between Beyond Nuclear and joint petitioners and the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Petition Review  Board (NRC). The public meeting regards the March 21, 2013 emergency enforcement petition which calls for the revocation of the operating licenses of all General Electric Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactors in the United States.  To view the live webcast public meeting visit    http://video.nrc.gov or call into the telephone conference line 1-866-741-7009 with passcode 3340595#.

Beyond Nuclear and community groups will present additional information in support of the call for the emergency closure of GE boiling water reactors that continue to operate with unreliable containment structures identical to the Fukushima Daiichi units that catastrophically failed during multiple severe nuclear accidents in March 2011 and where the uncontrolled release of radioactivity continues to increase the contamination of the air, land, groundwater and Pacific Ocean.

The public petitioners charge that current post-Fukushima NRC actions to address dangerously vulnerable US reactors present an undue and unacceptable risk to public health, safety and the environment.