…Snapshots of the Resurgent Movement for a Nuclear Free California
Report to Funders
Many, many thanks to those who have supported us through the past year! With great appreciation to our funders, supporters and partner activist organizations, we celebrate our past year’s accomplishments and share some snapshots from our past year’s activities and previews of 2016. Our three main issue areas are Electro-magnetic Health Protection, Denuclearization and Election Protection – the latter, because you can’t have democratic choice on public policy issues if the voting is rigged.
Our work in 2015 began in January with helping to organize, along with Mothers for Peace and many other organizations, the NoNukesCA/West Coast conference to shut down California’s last nuke standing,’ Diablo Canyon. We also provided media support and video documentation for the conference.
"Shutdown Diablo!" Author, activist Harvey Wasserman concludes the NoNukesCA Conference with a rousing affirmation. Wasserman has been a major force in the NoNukes movement from the beginning, and continues his participation in, and reporting on, the NoNukesCA movement at NukeFree.org..
Our work in 2015 concluded with helping to organize and document on video a West Coast speaking tour for Maggie & Arnie Gundersen, founding CEO and Chief Nuclear Engineer, respectively, of Fairewinds Energy Education (Fairewinds.org). We’re pleased and honored to be collaborating with this impactful organization and the wise and wonderful couple that run it.
MB facilitates Day 2 of the NoNukesCA conference. Jim in a promotion for EON’s new documentary SHUTDOWN. A four-way conversation during Maggie and Arnie Gundersen’s Fairewinds 2015 speaking tour of Northern California that EON co-organized with John Bertucci of Fukushima Response and Project Censored at Sonoma State University; Cynthia Papermaster and the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists; and Bing Gong, Pt. Reyes Books & Cultural Potholes Institute in Pt. Reyes. There were also Fairewinds presentations at Lori Grace’s Sunrise Center in San Rafael, as well as at CalPoly and with the Mothers for Peace in San Luis Obispo. Mary Beth and Jim’s conversation with Maggie and Arnie in Pt. Reyes is now on-line on Vimeo and YouTube as a preview of the EON video series based on Fairewinds tour forthcoming in 2016.
In this “Tell All” segment of the series, Maggie and Arnie discuss their lives as former nuclear energy insiders, the lies they were told and led to believe, and the subsequent impact of speaking truth to power as whistleblowers. Now, as consultants and educators about the risk of atomic power and its radiation leaks, Maggie and Arnie talk about their role in uncovering the operating risks at San Onofre & Diablo.
During the year, we also worked to organize and document presentations by leading scientists Ken Buesseler and Tim Mousseau on their investigations of the oceanic and biological impacts of still on-going Fukushima contamination with co-sponsors Bing Gong, Fukushima Response, Pt. Reyes Books and Cultural Potholes Institute. MB’s presentation helped place the scientists’ research in perspective.
We continued our coverage of the dire radioactive waste issues at San Onofre documented by Donna Gilmore of SanOnofreSafety.org. Donna’s invaluable research has revealed key vulnerabilities and gaping holes in current technology for containing the lethal high level waste that will last thousands of years. Donna’s challenges, backed by hard NRC data, holds industry and government decision-makers accountable. Ms. Gilmore is educating, not only activists, but largely unaware industry insiders and government officials both in CA and nationally. Responsibly managing the millions of pounds of highly corrosive deadly long-lasting radioactive waste is crucial to our species and all other species survival, but current Southern Califonia Edison plans are to bury it in thin stainless steel canisters with a cement overpack, 100 ft. from the rising ocean and inches above the water table on the beach in San Clemente surrounded by 8 million people. The technology does not exist to determine depth of cracks in the thin canisters, nor for repairing the canisters, nor for transporting cracked canisters, if there were a safe place to move them.
SanOnofreSafety.org founder Donna Gilmore educates the CCC Commissioners on the risks of SoCalEdison radwaste storage plans at San Onofre A die-in at LIvermore. A teleconference on the TPP.
Revelations of nuclear plans to spend trillions of dollars for on-going nuclear weapons development were announced by Marylia Kelly at the protest at Livermore Lab on Hiroshima’s 70th. anniversary, organized by Western States Legal Foundation and Tri-Valley CAREs. EON’s coverage of this important event was cablecast multiple times. We also note the grassroots push for independent monitoring of radioactivity levels in air, food and water led by Fukushima Response and the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN). Kim Roberson organized FFAN members (EON, Beyond Nuclear and Citizens for Health) for a teleconference to block the TPP, which would further permit radioactivity in food with no labeling.
Lft.: SoCal Edison's Tom Palmisano presents his company's San Onofre radwaste storage plan to CA Coastal Commissioners. Ctr.: Mark Lombard, head of the radwaste program at the NRC admits to the CCC that the possibility to monitor and replace failing radwaste canisters like those being used at San Onofre is "not a now thing." Rt.: "We want to know how you vote!" - Ray Lutz of CitizenOversight.org demands a voice vote from California Coastal Commissioners about to approve SoCalEdison's seriously flawed San Onofre radioactive waste storage plan - thin stainless steel canisters, inches above the water table in a tsunami zone, on the beach of a rising ocean. What could possibly go wrong?
We have continued to document the unfolding scandal at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and followed closely the work of San Diego attorneys Mike Aguirre and Mia Severson as they press to expose corruption and insist on justice.
Lft.: Attorney Mike Aguirre walks us through his assembled timeline documenting CPUC corruption relating to San Onofre. Ctr.: Former CPUC President Michael Peevey (L) is under investigation. Critics say current President Michael Picker (R) is stonewalling corruption inquiries. Former CPUC President Loretta Lynch says it is now a ‘rogue agency.’ Rt.: Attorney Mia Severson explains how the costs of SoCal Edison’s mismanagement at San Onofre have been passed on to ratepayers.
In 2015 we have continued our collaboration with Dr. Devra Davis and the Environmental Health Trust documenting her and her colleagues’ work on the human health effects of electro magnetic pollution caused by wifi and cell phone technologies. Our team traveled up and down the state covering meetings of the California Coastal Commission, and grassroots conferences such as the one organized by Myla Reson and Ann Doneen of the Malibu Democratic Club.
Lft.: Dr. Devra Davis at the 2015 Bio-Electric Magnetic Society (BEMS) Conference. Ctr.: Coastal Commission debates radwaste storage plans at San Onofre (R) Speakers Paul Frey, Donna Gilmore, Linda Seeley and Harvey Wasserman talk about the risks of Diablo Canyon at a community meeting in Malibu.
In the process we added 54 video reports to our popular YouTube Channel, which now has more than 700 posts, over 4,200 subscribers, and millions of views. Much of this exclusive footage will be used in our documentary SHUTDOWN: The California-Fukushima Connection, which is now in post-production for release in 2016.
As the year came to a close…
Ca. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (with his eye on a gubernatorial run) is the Chair of the California Coastal Commission. He has called for an environmental review of Diablo's continued operation. “I don’t think that PG&E, in its quiet moments, would disagree that this may not have been the ideal site for a plant,” Newsom said at the commission’s Dec. 18 meeting. “I just don’t see that this plant is going to survive beyond 2024, 2025,” Newsom said. “I just don’t see that. Now, I absolutely may be wrong, but that’s my punditry. And there is a compelling argument as to why it shouldn’t.”
Also in the works is a potential documentary co-production [funding permitting] based on our years of work with Suzanne Patzer, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman of FreePress.org and the Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism on the history of election theft going into the lead-up to the 2016 election and what can be done to prevent it.
Our work is made possible in large part by contributions from people like you. We encourage you to consider a monthly contribution or by including EON in your 2016 giving. Thanks for whatever you can afford – we really appreciate it! EON is a 501 ( c ) 3, tax-exempt organization. Please visit our ‘something-for-every-budget’ Donate Page – https://eon3.net/donate.html
In Solidarity,
The EON Team
Mary Beth Brangan, James Heddle, Morgan Peterson
