Nuclear Hotseat Hosted By Libbe Halevy

BREAKING: After last week’s latest SCRAM emergency shutdown at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Massachusetts, Diane Turco of Cape Downwinders and two others were arrested after delivering a letter demanding permanent shutdown to Mass. Governor Baker. Nuclear Hotseat spoke with Diane immediately after her arraignment hearing. Alicyn Gitlin, Conservation Coordinator for Restore & Protect the Greater Grand Canyon Campaign of the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, on uranium mining issues threatening our great national monument. Matt Pacenza, Executive Director of the environmental group HEAL Utah, brings us up to speed on that state’s downwinder, radioactive waste and new nuclear build issues… as well as an unusual activist decision regarding two proposed new nuclear reactors. Numnutz of the Week: Plutonium-contaminated Rocky Flats in Colorado – winner of a White House “Keeping it Clean” award? The only thing sustainable there is the radiation!

Nuclear Hotseat Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy attended the US 9th District Court Hearing on USS Reagan Sailors v. Tokyo Electric Power Company. The sailors were on an humanitarian aid mission to Japan following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima Daiichi triple reactor meltdowns. TEPCO never informed the US Navy of the dangerous release of radioactivity from the crippled nuclear reactors. As a result, the sailors were exposed to catastrophic levels of radiation. Seven have died and the rest continue to suffer the consequences to their health and genetic future.

Tim Deere-Jones is an independent marine pollution consultant who has worked on some of Europe's major marine pollution incidents as a specialist in the behaviour and fate of marine pollutants in marine, coastal and estuarine environments. Tim has worked for Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF, among many others, and is a member of a number of anti-nuclear advisory bodies, including the Vienna based International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group. This is an encore presentation originally on Nuclear Hotseat #225 from October 13, 2015. And petition from Fukushima Fallout Awareness network (FFAN) to stop the 2020 Tokyo NOlympics and Paralympics from taking place in Fukushima Prefecture.

Niagara Falls! It's got more than its share of nuclear problems. Lou Ricciuti has been a nuclear researcher, writer and speaker for nearly 20 years on the radioactive waste-stream generated by Niagara Falls' vast involvement in the earliest days of the Atomic Age. Veteran anti-nuclear activist Myla Reson reminds us of the leaked report from Nuclear Regulator Commission's Dr. Michael Peck saying that Diablo Canyon should be shut down until Pacific Gas and Electric can prove that the reactors' design can withstand the shaking from one of the 13 adjacent earthquake faults. Numnutz of the Week: Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission head Michael Binder pooh-poohs letter claiming withholding of important safety information written anonymously by agency insiders, jokes about whistleblowers, then muzzles a Greenpeace environmentalist and ignores a 26-page safety review, yet encourages concerned employees to "speak up!" Yeah, right! What's that olde joke about a scorpion's nature...?

Dave Sweeney is the national nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation. This week, we get to the heart of the international manipulation – dare I call it a conspiracy? – to dump the world’s nuclear waste in the land down under. It includes LATE BREAKING NEWS of the international manipulations and decades of planning that has gone into convincing Australians to accept the nuclear industry’s plans to turn their country into the world’s nuclear ash tray. Of course, Rupert Murdoch is involved. Context for understanding UK and European nuclear issues with Shaun McGee reporting from Ireland. West Lake Landfill/EPA community meeting hit by activist “die-in” to make the point of the nuclear dangers. Interview w/die-in organizer Alex Cohen of Soul Much Water.

Dave Sweeney has been active in the uranium mining and nuclear debate for two decades through his work with the media, trade unions and environment groups on mining, resource and indigenous issues. He works as a national nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation and holds a vision of a nuclear free Australia that is positive about its future and honest about its past. Numnutz of the Week is Good news/Bad news: Surfs up, dudes and dudettes... only it's in Fukushima! Feeling lucky, punk?

Filmmaker, subject and activists converged at the Los Angeles run of the documentary, INDIAN POINT, an exploration of nuclear issues seen through the lens of the two aging nuclear reactors located only 25 miles from New York City. We talk with director Ivy Meeropol about what led her to devote four years of her life to making the film. Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Dr. Gregory Jaczko, who was forced out of the agency, attended the screening and took part in the audience Q&A afterwards. INDIAN POINT recasts Dr. Jaczko as hero… and he was. Interviews with activists who attended the screening from Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Japan. Numnutz of the Week: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo loses his mind and approves $965 million bailout for unprofitable upstate nuclear reactors under the rubic, “Clean Energy Standard.”

Dr. Christopher Busby is a British nuclear scientist who has been active, effective, visible and often controversial expert witness on radiation’s impact on health. We discuss his very different role in the recent lawsuit in the UK regarding British veterans exposed to nuclear radiation while in the military and suing to receive compensation from the government. Important information for anyone who is dealing legally or legislatively with the nuclear industry claim that “low level radiation can’t harm you.” Pokemon No-Go Zone at TEPCO’s nuclear reactors – does somebody actually have to say this so people don’t look for invisible non-existent creatures in radioactive danger zones?

When is the Environmental Protection Agency’s Consent-Based Siting to decide the location of the next U.S. radioactive nuclear waste repository NOT “Consent-based?” Two activists at ground zero of this domestic nuclear war tell all. NUMNUTZ: Doesn’t take much to buy depleted uranium from the NRC…

Greg Palast is an investigative reporter whose news-breaking stories appear on BBC Television, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and Rolling Stone Magazine, and is author of the New York Times bestsellers Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and the highly acclaimed Vultures' Picnic, which is cited in our interview. He is best known in the US for uncovering Katherine Harris' purge of black voters from Florida's voter rolls in 2000. He is currently finishing the final frames of his new film on the upcoming theft of the 2016 election: "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits." Numnutz of the Week: It's a trifecta of Numnutzery - nuclear reactor "safety" practices ignored at three separate nuclear reactors.

Oh, Canada! Part 2 of Libbe HaLevy's epic talk w/Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility on the need for an international uranium mining ban, why OPG keeps pushing for that Lake Huron-adjacent radwaste dump, more!

CA Lands Commission bails on EIR; cautious optimism dashed yet again. Pre-crash interviews w/Linda Seeley of San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, who has been fighting against Diablo Canyo since before it was built; and Harvey Wasserman of Solartopia.org, who talks deep background politics. Both interviews were recorded before the CA Lands Commission bailed on EIR.

BREAKING: DIABLO CANYON SHUTDOWN ANNOUNCED; Delayed Gratification Requested. NZ's Kevin Hester - is No-nukes country going Yes-nukes? Mimi German eyewitness account of ramming of Peace Boat by WA state police boat. Byron DeLear on EPA's cover-up of West Lake Landfill report. And how dangerous is tea? Ask the NRC!

Nuclear Hotseat 5th Anniversary SPECIAL! Updates on stories old and new: Kevin Kamps on Fed radwaste storage lawsuit, Mary Olsen on EPA radiation in water, Don Hancock on the latest from WIPP, Erica Gray on US nuclear's newest nightmare, Watts Bar 2, Linda Seeley on Diablo Canyon shutdown strategies + archival audio f/Dr. Caldicott, Kevin Hester, Ian Fairlie AND our annual outtakes reel. DRUMROLL: Nuclear Hotseat is now downloaded in 112 countries! Yowzah!

Oh (nuclear) Canada! Dr. Gordon Edwards traces Canuck involvement in Nagasaki bomb, uranium mining, First Nations betrayals, radioactive contamination of land, sea and air, more. Part 1 of a 3-part interview

President Obama visited Hiroshima the same day I spoke w/Rick Wayman, Director of Programs & Operations at the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We discuss the image vs. the reality of the administration’s nuclear policy; the Marshall Islands lawsuits against the nine nuclear bomb-nations, then discusses some easy steps we can all take to pressure our government to change paths and work towards disarmament. Don’t Bank on the Bomb – report on banks which have invested in nuclear technologies so you can remove your funds and raise their consciousnesses. Marshall Islands lawsuit – learn what they’re doing, why, and how you can help. Dr. Helen Caldicott talks about her February speech to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in the most poignant terms possible.

Tracking the source of WA's radiation spikes - Hanford or CGS reactor? Radcast's Mimi German breaks it down. Former Japanese PM Koizumi meets w/USS Reagan irradiated sailors, cries. Obama goes to Hiroshima while TEPCO stops work at Fukushima "out of a sense of caution" for G-7 leaders. No such luck for their own people. http://ow.ly/1XLw300yvpi

The true extent of Washington state's Hanford nuke nightmare w/Gerry Pollet; on-site interviews from N. St. Louis's West Lake Radwaste/EPA protest; France probes Japan's 2020 Olympics bid f/corruption, money laundering - London waiting in the wings! Nuclear Hotseat #256.