Crabshell Alliance, 325
East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 10, 2016
Contacts: Gwen DuBois
410-615-0717 or Max Obuszewski 410-366-1637/727-543-3227 or mobuszewski at
verizon.net
WHO: The Crabshell Alliance was formed by individuals who recognize the dangers and hazards of nuclear energy. The group participates in demonstrations, attends hearings, provides testimony and produces documents which highlight the threatening nature of using nuclear energy. The group has commemorated the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster every year since 2012. Go to www.crabshellalliance.org.
WHAT: The Crabshell
Alliance will host its annual commemoration of the ongoing Fukushima disaster,
which began on March 11, 2011. Following a major earthquake, a tsunami disabled
the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a
nuclear accident. All three cores largely melted in the first three days. Five
years later Japan and many parts of the world are suffering from this ongoing
disaster. The area around Fukushima remains a National Sacrifice Zone.
One major problem at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant is the make of the nuclear reactor
and the containment vessel. Five of the six reactors are GE Mark 1
models. This design has long be challenged by experts for years because
they have proven to be inadequate in containment during an accident.
The
organization wants to highlight two other potential disasters in the state of
Maryland. Activists are organizing Cove Point
Spring Break. The Dominion Cove Point
liquefied natural gas export terminal is the centerpiece of the fracked-gas
infrastructure build-out currently underway in the mid-Atlantic U.S. The gas
industry is tying much of its financial future to exports, and Cove Point,
Maryland, is the place it has selected to liquefy the gas, put it on tankers,
and bring it around the world. Imagine what might happen in Calvert County if there
is a possible accident. The Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant is about a mile
away.
Another
concern is the gas facility in Accident, Maryland. Have you heard of the “Accident Dome”? It is a name used
for part of an aging underground natural gas storage facility in Accident built
in the 1960s. The site houses a compressor station and an underground storage
field covering roughly 53 square miles which is owned and
managed by Spectra Energy (Texas Eastern), a
natural gas company. It is suspected the site is emitting methane into the
air. Can this aging plant develop a major leak as
happened at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in northwest Los
Angeles? Anti-nuclear activists will raise these concerns.
WHEN: From 10 AM to noon on
Friday, March 11, 2016
WHERE: Exelon, 750 E. Pratt St., Baltimore, MD 21202
WHY: It is time
oil and gas companies recognize there is a need for a carbon-free future and a
major movement towards sustainability. The Fukushima
nuclear disaster will impact forests, rivers and estuaries for hundreds of
years, warns Greenpeace report. The
environmental impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster will last
decades to centuries, warns a new Greenpeace Japan report. Man-made, long-lived
radioactive elements are absorbed into the living tissues of plants and animals
and recycled through food webs, and carried downstream to the Pacific Ocean by
typhoons, snowmelt, and flooding. “The
government’s massive decontamination program will have almost no impact on
reducing the ecological threat from the enormous amount of radiation from the
Fukushima nuclear disaster. Already, over 9 million cubic metres of nuclear
waste are scattered over at least 113,000 locations across Fukushima
prefecture,” said Kendra Ulrich, Senior Nuclear Campaigner at Greenpeace Japan.
“The Abe government is perpetuating a myth that five years after the start of
the nuclear accident the situation is returning to normal. The evidence exposes
this as political rhetoric, not scientific fact. And unfortunately for the
victims, this means they are being told it is safe to return to environments
where radiation levels are often still too high and are surrounded by heavy
contamination.”
The report is based on a large body of independent scientific
research in impacted areas in the Fukushima region, as well as investigations
by Greenpeace radiation specialists over the past five years. It exposes deeply
flawed assumptions by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Abe
government in terms of both decontamination and ecosystem risks. It further
draws on research on the environmental impact of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear
catastrophe as an indication of the potential future for contaminated areas in
Japan.
This anniversary
is another reminder about the grave safety concerns presented by nuclear power,
and the use oil and gas. Our only hope is the use of renewable energy
sources. ###
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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