It's time: demand permanent shutdown of GE Mark I reactors!

A call to action from Michael Mariotte, Executive Director of Takoma Park-based advocacy group Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS):

There are 23 nuclear reactors currently operating in the United States using the same General Electric Mark I design as those that have failed so catastrophically at Fukushima.

The flaws in this design are fundamental, cannot be fixed, and have been documented for 40 years now. They have led to containment building explosions at three of the Fukushima reactors, the exposure of irradiated fuel pools to the environment and enormous radiation releases.

It is time to close them, permanently. Please take a moment to tell that to President Obama, your Congressmembers, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Take action.

Good news for Hanford Site down-winders

Delightful: Supreme Court rejects Hanford appeal

From the story by Karen Dorn Steele in the December 16, 2008 issue of Spokane's Spokesman Review:

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Hanford’s contractors in the massive downwinders’ lawsuit – raising hopes for a legal settlement for up to 2,000 radiation-exposed people after 18 years of court battles and millions of dollars in litigation costs.

The high court’s one-line denial of the contractors’ appeal was announced today. The contractors, including E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., General Electric Co. and UNC Nuclear Industries Inc., filed their appeal in August, asking the court to review two recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that sided largely with the downwinders.

“This is very exciting for us,” said Richard Eymann of Spokane, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the long-running case. “With a new administration coming in, we want a serious look at compensation for these people after years of litigation,” he said.

When weapons manufacturers are denied immunity from liability for damage to the environment, and harm to weapons plant neighbors (not to mention noncombatants!), the true cost of war may finally hit their pocketbooks.

For more news about this decommissioned nuclear weapons production facility in Washington State check out Hanford News, published by Kennewick WA's Tri-City Herald.