Eco-Logic

• radiation and public health; specifically, potential consequences of Holtec dumping (“discharging”) radioactive water from spent - fuel pools into the Hudson River
• events discussed: -
• Critical Public Health and Safety of Decommissioning Indian Point, Jan. 26 -
• Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board public hearing, Feb. 2 -

HOLTEC—A CARCINOGENIC COMPANY—AND “OUR” RIVER

On this episode of Eco-Logic, we’ll be telling you about the citizen input on a toxic waste dump, 2 items on Indian Point: - the Decommissioning Oversight Board meeting and a recent health and safety decommissioning webinar and the long-fought Tongass forest major victory,

People have been working to preserve the Tongass National Forest since at least the 1970s. Finally there is victory. A 2020 petition to protect the Tongass National Forest on The Rainforest Site, which gathered more than 22,000 signatures, pointed out that the 17-million-acre rainforest is home to 30% of the world's remaining old-growth trees, which absorb and store more carbon than young trees. After a previous protracted fight, it had been protected from commercial logging and construction under U.S. Service's Roadless Rule until the Trump Administration exempted Tongass National Forest from that rule.

There was an important forum on the public health and safety impacts of decommissioning recently,.Listen in to hear the internationally respected anti-nuclear scientist and medical doctor, Dr. Helen Caldicott explain the life-and-death realities that doctors know all too well. Dr. Helen Caldicott is one of the founders of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and one of the best and most out-spoken critics of the nuclear power industry, including the decommissioning of nukes after they no longer produce electricity. Manna Jo Greene, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater's Environmental Action Director will be on-air live to respond to your calls.

Ageing nuclear reactors across the country are closing—they need public subsidies, your tax dollars, to keep them economically competitive. Holtec, a politically-connected New Jersey company, is buying up closing reactors to decommission them as cheaply, quickly, and profitably as possible – a recipe for disaster. And Holtec has a bad reputation.

What exactly does that mean? Where will the nuclear waste go? What effects does all this have on local communities? How safe is this, really?

Ratepayers at each reactor have been paying into a Decommissioning Trust Fund, and the company that decommissions the reactor gets to keep whatever money is left when the site is returned to other use.

Dumping radioactive waste into waterways is a big threat. There are some who still believe the solution to pollution is dilution but that is false. Decommissioning has to be done safely and with concern for future generations.

Holtec has threatened to dump—they say “disperse”—radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay, as it has already done at the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor in southern New Jersey, and which it is currently looking to do in the Hudson River! The Hudson provides drinking water for 7 municipalities (and more as back-up), and nuclear waste water contains 211 radioactive isotopes—certainly not what we want in the river! Please remember, most radioactivity cannot be filtered out.

Eco-Logic is back to an hour now so we have time to get into details with our guests, play environmental music, and to take your calls – so get up early and call in. We'd love to talk with you!

You can always find us archived at www.ecoradio.org or https://wbai.org/archive/

And …
Join us next week for our next show February 11th at 6...am! Check our web site, ecoradio.org, for further details.

• Manna Jo Greene - Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
• (recorded from IP forum on Jan. 26th) - Dr. Helen Caldicott, Physicians for Social Responsibility

• Eco - Logic theme medley
• Give Us News We Can Use -

• https://www.grassrootsinfo.org/indianpointforum