2nd Peaceful Protest at San Onofre April 29th

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Concordia Elementary School PRINCIPAL’S INFORMATION BULLETIN

No I Did Not.

From: listserver.capousd.org
Subject: Pirncipal's Info Bulletin
Date: April 25, 2012 11:20:43 AM PDT
To: "Concordia ListServe" <@listserver.capousd.org>
Reply-To: @listserver.capousd.org

Concordia Elementary School
PRINCIPAL’S INFORMATION BULLETIN

Dear Parents,

As you may be aware, on the afternoon of Friday, April 20, the Capistrano Unified School District received an “unusual event” notification from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).  Following the protocol outlined in the SONGS Emergency Response Plan, the District immediately shared this notification with all of the schools within the power plant’s Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ).  When an unusual event is declared at the plant, CUSD schools within the EPZ are directed to prepare to evacuate or shelter in place.

Upon receiving this notification at approximately 1:30 PM, I made the decision to notify teachers about the unusual event and directed them to remain in their classrooms with their students.  On Friday afternoons, many of our classes are typically outdoors having P.E. and are unable to hear announcements from the office.  Having teachers remain in their classrooms ensured that we could communicate directly with them to update them on the status of the event at the plant.  We communicated clearly that we were not calling for a shelter in place, which requires staff to close doors and windows, and to keep students indoors.   Teachers were told that students could leave class to use the restroom and that normal classroom activities could continue.  We simply wanted to keep teachers close and accessible for direct communication and further instructions if necessary.  We had a regular dismissal at 2:05 PM, and were notified that the incident at SONGS was closed at 2:40 PM.

I wanted to share this information with you in case you had questions about our actions on Friday.  Please know that student safety is our utmost concern.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this matter.



Sincerely,

Dave Gerhard, Principal
Concordia Elementary School

Connect Ed,


If this had bean an actual emergency this is what we would have done with your children. 

Irvine City Council Tonight 6PM

Arnold Gundersen speaking tonight before the Irvine City Council, 6PM, 1 Civic Center Plaza, Irvine, CA 92606, USA

Mr Gundersen is an energy advisor with 40-years of nuclear power engineering experience. A former nuclear industry senior vice president, he earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in nuclear engineering, holds a nuclear safety patent, and was a licensed reactor operator.During his nuclear industry career, Arnie managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants around the country. He currently speaks on television, radio, and at public meetings on the need for a new paradigm in energy production. An independent nuclear engineering and safety expert, Arnie provides testimony on nuclear operations, reliability, safety, and radiation issues to the NRC, Congressional and State Legislatures, and Government Agencies and Officials throughout the US, Canada, and internationally.

Let Fridays Fire, Concordia Elementary LOCK DOWN & yesterday's earthquake be your wake up call.

Speak up my friends, you've got important wisdom to share...

Song for Panhe

This land is sacred, from the mountains to the sea!
Written by Jodi Levine, guitar, Jon Sherman, flute

Keep SanO Shut Down

San Onofre, my local nuclear reactor, is completely shut down right now (like all but one reactor in Japan) and may never reopen. Why not? Because the steam generator tubes (made in Japan, by the way) clang into each other. Why does that happen? Apparently because the plant tried to increase the power output of the reactor by adding nearly 400 extra tubes when they ordered a "like-for-like" replacement of the original (four) steam generators, which were supposed to last the entire lives of the (two) reactors.

The original steam generators didn't last because they ran 'em too hot, I suspect. A couple of years ago they realized that as soon as the tubes wear out, they can replace them with steam generators that have more tubes inside but still fit in the same locations. (Or thought they could.) So they upped the power output of the reactor, which caused the tubes to fail more quickly than the normal life of the reactor -- but they didn't care. They knew our California Public Utilities Commission would stick the ratepayers with the cost of the replacement steam generators when the time came -- and they did. SanO's owners wanted to avoid having the steam generator replacement happen at the same time as the much more risky license renewal because there's ALWAYS a lot of opposition to that.

San Onofre's owners got through several steps of this process. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission saw it as a "like for like" replacement even though it wasn't, the ratepayers were charged with the costs of replacement, it happened years before license renewal, and best of all (from the utility's point of view), the utility ALSO made billions of extra dollars while they ran the reactors at extra-high power, pressure, and temperature, blowing out the gaskets, seals, and tubes!

It's like how you treat a rented car.

Only the difference is, things can go wrong when steam generator tubes burst. They are very thin, fragile things, with a thousand pounds of pressure differential on one side from the other. One tube failure can lead to another, and another, and another, which can lead to an inability to cool the reactor. Fukushima USA. is what it could lead to!

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Fundraising for 2nd Peaceful Protest at San Onofre on April 29

We are now fundraising for the April 29 2nd Peaceful Protest at San Onofre state park campground. We are bringing Professor Daniel Hirsch from San Cruz CA down as our keynote speaker. To raise this money we are selling T-shirts in black that say “San Onofre Our Fukushima?”. We will be selling these at the SD Earth Day event April 22, and at the Protest on April 29. To get one earlier send me a email at: genston(at)sbcglobal.net Your help is appreciated.

These 131I levels represent a significant input into the kelp forest ecosystem.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, damaged by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 released large amounts of 131I into the atmosphere, which was assimilated into canopy blades of Macrocystis pyrifera sampled from coastal California. The specific activity calculated to the estimated date of deposition/assimilation ranged from 0.6 to 2.5 Bq gdwt–1, levels greater than those measured from kelps from Japan and Canada prior to the release. These 131I levels represent a significant input into the kelp forest ecosystem. Canopy-forming kelps are a natural coastal dosimeter that can measure the exposure of the coastal environment to 131I and perhaps other radioisotopes released from nuclear accidents. An organizational mechanism should be in place to ensure that they are sampled immediately and continuously after such releases. (PDF)

Should we all have been taking Potassium iodide the weeks after Fukushima?