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Robert Cherwink
Usenet: alt.thebird
WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb
--- EMAIL COMMENT REGARDING THE TRIAL ---
To: Steve Christianson
Hi!
Regarding the Cassini protest trial in Vermont, I am shocked and dismayed to hear that the judge forbade all the relevant testimony. I say it is relevant not because such a worthy cause necessarily excuses such digressions from acceptable behavior in society as staging a sit-in in an elected official's office (or whatever it was exactly that they did) but because I would have expected that that is the very issue which a jury of the defendant's peers should decide! Any fool can see they were guilty of "trespass", but every action we take in life -- every single one -- is to serve, at least in our own minds, a higher cause, even if only slightly higher (and sometimes very high indeed). Even taking a dump serves the higher cause of emptying the bowels of waste so that one can take in more nourishment. Getting an MBA serves the higher cause of making a living.
It's madness to not let someone speak as to the reasoning that caused their actions. After all, even homicide can be "justifiable" under the proper circumstances. It's not about tying up the courts. Quite the opposite -- it's about setting precedents so the next person doesn't have to go over the same ground. The legal system has to be available to answer questions of moral import as well as questions of minor trespass.
I think one thing this should teach everyone who might ever find themselves in a similar situation, is that whenever one is intent on civil disobedience (disobeying the law for a cause, one might say) one should be sure to wear clear identification of your cause on your teeshirts, on signs, on arm-bands, by painting one's face -- anything. Attempt to make it totally impossible (unless the judge isn't going to look at the 8 by 10 color glossy photographs) to ignore the point of the protest -- any protest.
Sincerely,
Russell D. Hoffman
--- END OF EMAIL COMMENT ---
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A phone call this morning to Colette Brown, DoE, has produced the information that the deadline for the item shown below (originally reprinted in newsletter #77) has been "extended" to January 4th, 1999. I put "extended" in quotes because apparently the November 4th deadline shown below was a typo at the source.
This is an important opportunity for us lowly citizens to describe in detail what we think every EIS for the next umpteen years should include. Of course even playing the game (by responding at all) is taking a bit of a defeatist attitude, since I (and many of my readers) believe NONE of these missions should occur, but nonetheless, the EIS is the way things are handled in this country; it's better than no EIS, and now is the time to act. Furthermore, the more detailed our response, and the more fervent, the less chance the DoE will have to come back later and say, "...But we DO tell you what's happening! We asked you what to say, you told us, and that's what we do now!" If we tell them in excruciating detail that we want all the excruciating details, then selling us a whitewash later will be much, much harder for them to do.
The author of this newsletter is a professional educational computer graphics programmer and will be recommending the use of numerous modern display techniques for future EIS's, for example showing what the SNAP-9A (1964) plume is believed to have looked like at 10 seconds after the accident, as well as 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days, 10 weeks, 10 months, and 10 years after the accident. Perhaps another one showing its distribution 100 years after the accident as well. The people writing the EIS should feel that their job is to prove beyond question to the public that they know what they are talking about, by explaining (in excruciating detail) every facet of their folly.
Maybe in doing so they'll see the light and the science and the truth (or explain it for the rest of us who at the moment, can't fathom how other people can be so misguided). (Those other people being, namely, they that are doing it and promoting it and presenting works of fiction like the EIS's I have seen to excuse it.)
I strongly urge my fellow lowly citizens to respond to this particular government opportunity. There are three hearings (one each near the three nuclear processing sites mentioned below, in Idaho, Washington, and Tennessee) which anyone interested in attending, should inquire (preferably by email) directly to Colette Brown (her email address is shown in the message below).
REPRINT OF ORIGINAL NOTICE
NOTICE OF INTENT:
To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the
Proposed Production of Plutonium-238 for Use in Advanced Radioisotope Power
Systems for Future Space Missions (DOE/EIS-299). DOE intends to prepare an
EIS to assess the potential environmental impacts of establishing a domestic
capability to produce Pu-238 including the storage of neptunium-237
(Np-237), fabrication of Np-237 targets, irradiation of targets to produce
Pu-238, and the processing of these targets to isolate the Pu-238 and
recycle the Np-237. The Pu-238 would be used in advanced radioisotope power
systems for potential future space missions. Without a long-term supply of
Pu-238, DOE would not be able to provide the radioisotope power systems that
may be required for these potential future space missions, and the
Department would not fulfill the intended space nuclear power role assigned
to the Department in the National Space Policy statement issued on 19
September 1996. This assigned role of maintaining the space nuclear
capability is also consistent with the Department's charter under the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954, as amended. Alternatives to be analyzed for the
fabrication of Np-237 targets and for processing the irradiated targets
include the use of the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, and the Fuels and Materials Examination Facility at the
Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Alternative facilities for the
irradiation of targets for Pu-238 production include the Advanced Test
Reactor near Idaho
Falls, Idaho, the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Site, Washington,
and the High Flux Isotope Reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The public scoping period begins with the publication of this Notice of
Intent and will continue until 4 November 1998. [extended to January 4th, 1999
according to in conversation with Colette Brown and the editor of this
newsletter]. Public scoping meetings will
be announced as soon as determined but at least 15 days prior to the date of
the meetings. Contact Colette Brown, Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and
Technology (NE-50), U.S. Department of Energy, 19901 Germantown Road,
Germantown, Maryland 20874, tele. 301.903.6924, fax: 301.903.1510, E-mail:
"Colette Brown" (Colette.Brown@HQ.DOE.GOV). Requests to speak at scoping hearings, scoping comments, and
requests for documents should be submitted to the above contact. [For
detailed information, see 63 FR 53398, 5 October 1998.]
Comment period begins Oct 5 and ends NOV 4
DOE Contact:
Telephone 301-903-6924
EMAIL Colette.Brown@HQ.DOE.GOV
A toll free telephone number has been established to receive public comments.
Interested parties may call (800) 708-2680 and leave a detailed message with their comments.
END OF REPRINT
We have also learned (from Jonathan Haber) that the following number also works:
(877) 562-4593 and may be a better choice, expecially for questions.
*************************************************
The "public notification" shown below is my own, and has been derived from a conversation with a public affairs officer of the United States Navy, and also their (the USN) actions towards YH&OS regarding obtaining an EIS for the homeporting of nuclear aircraft carriers in San Diego Bay, which is being done against the wishes of every sane person (who is awake) in San Diego, hundreds of whom showed up for a hearing October 28th, 1998 so their comments could be entered into the record and heard by three stone-faced guardians of the Navy's nuclear hogwash secrets. Two spoke for, and about 50 against (including the editor of this newsletter).
In San Diego, voters tomorrow will decide if they want a ballpark, but libraries all around the country are going wanting. Public documents are hard enough to acquire in the first place, yet our libraries, strapped for cash and room, cannot keep all the relevant documents that local history demands be kept. Instead they have "book sales" which include the dumping of America's History into the trash after the books, unread for years, don't sell, or they are offered for $1.00 or $0.50 and bought by a few concerned citizens who preciously guard them, until death and into the dumpster go the discarded documents. "Unread for years" is somehow misconstrued by our mad and shallow society as unimportant, when often it is just an indication of how low we have dropped, that no one cares anymore, or even knows how to care! I hear so many people tell me they are against nuclear power, but yet they no longer bother to speak out.
And those who will speak out, are swamped with causes, each of which beckon for all the available time, for each cause is profound.
We gaze in putrid horror at the book-burners in "Fahrenheit 451" and fail to see that our own real policies are destroying our history just as thoroughly as if we had designed it the way Ray Bradbury depicted it.
PUBLIC NOTIFICATION
CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
YOU NO LONGER HAVE THE RIGHT TO OWN MANY IMPORTANT PUBLIC DOCUMENTS!
IF A LIBRARY EVEN AS MUCH AS 30+ MILES FROM YOUR HOME HAS THE DOCUMENT, YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO YOUR OWN COPY.
YOUR LIBRARY WILL DESTROY THEIR COPY WHEN THEY "RUN OUT OF ROOM". YOU MAY NOT WRITE IN YOUR LIBRARY COPY. YOU MAY NOT TAKE THE DOCUMENT HOME, BECAUSE IT IS A "REFERENCE" DOCUMENT. YOU MAY NOT READ IT EXCEPT DURING LIBRARY HOURS (WHICH HAVE BEEN REPEATEDLY CUT BACK).
YOU CANNOT CIRCUMVENT THE PROBLEM BY TRYING TO PURCHASE THE DOCUMENTS.
THE DOCUMENTS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE ON THE WEB.
END OF PUBLIC NOTIFICATION
Democracy is a great thing, isn't it?
Being a citizen is pretty useless in a police state which is permanently at war with the rest of the world, including its own members as well as the very citizens whose lives it is charged to protect.
Another thing the public affairs officer told me, when I asked about the Thresher and the Scorpion, was that every couple of years they go down and test the waters around them for radioactivity -- and so far, none. When I suggested they bring the reactor cores up for proper disposal, he told me that would be the WORST THING WE COULD DO!
So what does he want us to do, dispose of ALL of our naval nuclear reactors that way? Or let the enemy or "random" accidents do so for us over time? When I remarked that the metal around the nuclear fuel pellets (reportedly about the size of grapefruits) will eventually deteriorate -- long before the nuclear material has decayed into inert substances (which takes many eons and several steps -- most radioactive materials do NOT decay into harmless substances, but into other unstable radioactive materials!) -- he corrected me. "They're stainless steel" he said. Well, pardon me, sailor. And then what are you going to do, dump sea sludge on top of it when it does start to leak? Bury it in dead and deformed whale carcasses? Or dump 10,000 tons of underwater-drying cement (there is such a thing) on the problem, at a cost that will make the "life-cycle" expenses seem trivial by comparison? A proper burial at sea indeed! It's a disgrace.
If the Navy actually has a "Magic Stainless Steel" that can last longer than reactor fuel cores can stay "hot", it is in fact their DUTY to humanity to share this magic alchemic secret with the rest of us! Yes, yes, I know it has security ramifications, but think of the things we could build! Docks that never rust! Ferries that shine like new forever!
Or maybe it's not that good, merely the best that can be supplied by the lowest bidder (Babcock & Wilcox, the ONLY bidder), and it may solve the problem today, but it's not a permanent solution by any means. In which case, the sooner we retrieve the reactor cores, the better.
Note that there is no opportunity for citizen monitoring of nuclear waste dumps which are randomly placed throughout our ocean's bottoms. Note that there are no signs near these nuclear wastepiles. Note that there are no acoustic transmitters producing noises which studies have found whales don't like, to keep such large and wonderful mammals away from these yecch-traps. Note that they don't leave radiation detection devices at the sites in rings surrounding the disaster, but merely "go down to them every couple of years" as the officer said.
Note that stainless steel rusts in the blink of an eye compared to the length of time the substances they are designed to protect will last. Note finally, that the ocean currents at the sea bottom ensure that when these things do start leaking (if indeed they haven't yet), their poison will be carried throughout the ecosystem.
Note all this, and weep for humanity.
***************************************
--- INCOMING EMAIL ---
Mr. Hoffman:
You can get the following report on military nuclear waste disposal:
AD-807777, The US Army Radioactive Waste Disposal Program in
The Continental United States, October 1966, 204 pages, VMI
Research Labs
All you need to do is send a letter of request, mentioning that you want
the report under the Freedom of Information Act, to:
Defense Technical Information Center
This report has never before been made available to the public.
--- END OF INCOMING EMAIL ---
*********************
"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
**************************************
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Published by Russell D. Hoffman electronically.
From: Russell Hoffman
Re: VT Cassini trial
Date: November 1st, 1998
Editor
STOP CASSINI Newsletter now in its 78th issue
Webmaster
STOP CASSINI web site
www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm
*** DoE deadline extended for comments on future EIS provisions
*************************************************
Colette Brown, Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (NE-50)
USDOE, 19901 Germantown Road
Germantown, MD 20874
FAX 301-903-1510
*** One reason why we need more and bigger public libraries:
*************************************************
*** Key government report on military nuclear waste disposal now available:
***************************************
Attn: DTIC-RSM, Kelly D. Akers, FOIA Manager
8725 John J. Kingman Road, Suite 0944
Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6218
*** Quote of the day
*********************
--Edmund Burke
AND IN CONCLUSION...
**************************************
Sincerely,
Russell D. Hoffman
STOP CASSINI webmaster.
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CASSINI TABLE OF CONTENTS
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First placed online November 2nd, 1998.
Last modified November 2nd, 1998.
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Copyright (c) Russell D. Hoffman