With nuclear power plants being retired around the globe, the age of nuclear energy has become the age of nuclear waste.
Environmental Justice & Nuclear Waste Tour: The road from New England to Texas and New Mexico
Tuesday, September 18
4 PM Press Conference
5 pm Potluck/catered nourishment
6:00 PM forum
Unitarian Universalist Church
130 Main Street, Montpelier, VT
We shut Vermont Yankee down four years ago but there are issues regarding decommissioning, the sale to NorthStar and how to deal with the on site high level nuclear waste (HLNW). These issues need to be witnessed and questioned. To help you better understand the Citizen's Awareness Network and the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance and the Safe and Green Coalition are hosting an educational tour.
The storage of high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) is a controversial environmental justice issue. The nuclear industry would like to create centralized interim storage (CIS) for HLNW in Andrews County, Texas and Hobbs, NM. Recently legislation passed the U.S. House that would support and fund this dangerous, industry driven storage approach to HLNW. To inform the public about this environmental justice issue the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance (VYDA) and the Citizens' Awareness Network (CAN) have organized a New England High Level Nuclear Waste (HLNW) Tour this fall. The tour will bring speakers from the U.S. and Europe to discuss nuclear waste, environmental justice and direct action as well as the refusal by the federal government and the nuclear industry to deal with high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) which is stranded at Vermont Yankee and other nuclear sites throughout the country. The speakers will be accompanied by a mock high-level nuclear waste cask demonstrating what an estimated 1,000 shipments through New England could look like.
The speakers include:
• Kerstin Rudek - People's Initiative (Bürgerintiative Umweltschutz) from Lüchow Dannenberg (Germany). Organizer of the successful opposition to HLNW transport to Gorleben,Germany
• Leona Morgan from the Navajo Nation; co-founder of Haul No!, the Radiation Monitoring Project and Nuclear Issues Study Group
• Tim Judson, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service
• Deb Katz, executive director of Citizens Awareness Network
All the speakers will address issues particular to Vermont including NorthStar's decommissioning goals to send HLNW from Vermont Yankee to west Texas. They will also address national issues including how the need to create a permanent solution for this toxic waste impacts vulnerable communities and the need for a scientifically sound and environmentally just solution to this monstrous problem