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GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING
Nuclear Safety & Fukushima Memorial Rally When? Sunday, March 11 1pm Walk starts at Lobster Pound - 252 Manomet Point Red., Plymouth (parking and carpooling options available) - directions: www.lobsterpoundplymouth.com 4pm Vigil at First Parish Church Unitarian-Universalist -19 Town Square, Plymouth directions: www.plymouthuu.org Why? To make the for-profit Entergy company spend its money to correct known safety & environmental deficiencies at Pilgrim NPS, Fukushima's twin sharing all its flaws
Walk, drive along side, bike, skateboard, or pogo- just come! Bring banners, flags, and camaraderie
FOR DAILY INFORMATION
For updates actions focused on Pilgrim: www.pilgrimcoalition.org Newspaper articles with nuclear news from around the world: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/whatsnew.htm Union of Concerned Scientist daily Blog: http://allthingsnuclear.org/ Fairewinds Associates, Fukushima Updates - videos: http://fairewinds.com/reports Other organizations listed under "links" are covering the story.
Comment: A Major Nuclear Reactor Accident Every 11 years For years the nuclear industry’s mantra has been that there is “one chance in a million” of a nuclear accident? We have had three accidents in 32 years - Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima in Japan -in other words, one major nuclear reactor accident every 11 years. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were caused by human error. Fukushima was brought on by the loss of offsite power, which in turn was result of the Tsunami. Nuclear power plants do not generate their own electricity; we have tragically learned that offsite power is needed to run every active safety system that is depended upon to prevent major accidents. But loss of power can occur without a Tsunami. Hurricanes and snow storms cause power losses; so can human error, mechanical failures, terrorist actions - to say nothing of the fact that the submerged electric cables that the industry relies on to bring electric power into the reactor and to power safety systems are not qualified to operate in a moist environment – as is the case at Pilgrim. Pilgrim’s chances of an accident are not “one in a million,” especially as the 39 year old reactor continues to age and NRC refuses to enforce its own regulations. Pilgrim is the same design as the reactors in Fukushima, weak and outdated. But it is more dangerous than Fukushima in an important way. Fukushima has 60% of its highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies in a common ground level spent fuel pool. All of Pilgrim’s spent fuel is stored in an overcrowded pool in the attic of the reactor, outside primary containment with a thin roof overhead. If, for example, the water level in that pool were to drop to the top of the assemblies from human error, mechanical failure or acts of malice, experts for the Mass. Attorney General Office estimated consequences up to $488 billion dollars of damage, 24,000 latent cancers and over a hundred miles contaminated. What are your chances of evacuating, one in a million? The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended Americans in Japan within 50 miles of Fukushima evacuate; yet, here, emergency planning zones are limited to only 10 miles around a reactor.
ACTION ALERTS
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