THE POWER TO CHANGE

“If the ideas that rule our culture are stopping us from saving ourselves, then it is within our power to change those ideas.”  Naomi Klein

We humans are adept at fighting for what we are against.  Can we fight as hard for what we are for?  Socrates reminds us “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Many people, including ninety seven percent of climate scientists, agree that climate warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities.  Some of the results of global warming, according to “Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet” are: global sea levels are rising, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass and the thickness of the Arctic Sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world.  The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed in the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by approximately 2 billion tons per year.  James Hansen, adjunct professor of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, believes that carbon pollution is set to end the era of stable climate.

Solar for Seals project 2014

With these facts pointing to the devastation of life on Earth as we know it, what actions are we willing to take to assure the continuation of life on our beautiful planet?  We must join together now to do what we can do to make the necessary changes to reverse these trends.  Human beings have the capacity to learn and adapt quickly.  We are able to change old thinking and patterns of behavior and create change in positive ways.  There are political and economic forces that sometimes stand in the way of progress, but we do not have to allow these forces to prevent us from doing what we must.  Many individuals are moving forward with ideas to save our planet and creating supportive communities to make effective change.

One of the ways to avert this climate change crisis is to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels.  To this end, it is possible to switch to renewable energy.  People all over the world are creating wind farms, working with tidal power, wave power, solar power, hydroelectricity, and geothermal power.  Our organization, Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE) and Planet Earth Solar (PES) of San Clemente, CA. have successfully completed two solar projects: Oso Lake Boy Scout Camp Solar project, 2013 and the Pacific Marine Mammal Center Laguna Beach “Solar for Seals”, 2014.  ROSE and PES are currently working on a third solar project, “Solar for Non Profits” project for 2015.  We are committed to bringing people together in a community effort to provide solar power to non -profit organizations.  These organizations are already helping our social and environmental communities in various ways.  By assisting them with conversion to solar power, this adds another layer of depth to their commitment to bettering our world.

Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE) and Planet Earth Solar (PES) have selected The Center for Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley (CSLCV) in San Clemente, CA. for our 3rd Solar Project 2015.  A 60 kW system consisting of 197 solar panels to provide clean, sustainable and environmentally safe energy will be built for the Center’s facility. As PES and ROSE and CSLCV donate our time and labor for this project, please join us in taking this environmental action as a citizen of the world. Be a part of the solution for our world’s clean and renewable energy future by donating today. The total cost of this project will be $135,000.00. The money the Center saves on energy costs will go to community projects. Your donation to this solar project will be greatly appreciated.

To help us, please use our Razoo fundraising site at:  https://www.razoo.com/story/Center-For-Spiritual-Living-Capistrano-Valley for your “tax deductible” donation.

“We are all flowers in the Great Spirit’s garden. We share a common root, and the root is Mother Earth.” Hopi Prophecy 

“The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.” Chief Oren Lyons

It will take all of us working together now if we are to make a positive change for future generations.

Love, Gene and Joyce

ROSE and Planet Earth Solar 3rd Solar project 2015. Join with us.

Hello everyone,

Thinking back, we have not forgotten your kind help with our 2014 “Solar for Seals” project for Pacific Marine Mammal Center of Laguna Beach where we put 87 solar panels on their small roof.  It went so well we looked for a much bigger roof for 2015, and we found it.

We are happy to announce that Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE) and Planet Earth Solar has selected The Center for Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley (CSLCV) in San Clemente, CA. for our 3rd Solar Project 2015.  A 60 kW system consisting of 197 solar panels to provide clean, sustainable and environmentally safe energy will be built for the Center’s facility. As Planet Earth Solar and ROSE and CSLCV donate our time and labor for this project, please join us in taking this environmental action as a citizen of the world. Be a part of the solution for our world’s clean and renewable energy future by donating today. The total cost of this project will be $135,000.00, saving the Center over $150,000.00 over other bids. You may donate to this Solar project in one of two ways.

1. Make your “tax deductible” check payable to “Center for Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley” please mail check to Gene Stone 1203 Via Presa San Clemente 92672, so I can make sure to get your check into the Solar account at the center. Please note in the bottom left memo area of your check “Rose Solar project.” The check payment method will insure that 100% of your donation will go to the solar project, using the fundraising site we will lose 5% of your donation to Razoo.

2. Or use our Razoo funding raising site at for you “tax deductible” donation:

https://www.razoo.com/story/Center-For-Spiritual-Living-Capistrano-Valley

The Center’s Environmental statement:

“The Centers for Spiritual Living are committed to our vision of a world that works for everyone– a world in which resources are valued, cared for, and grown, and where there is generous and continuous sharing of these resources. A big part of that world is sustainable safe energy. At the Center for Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley in San Clemente California, we are contributing to this vision by installing a solar system to provide clean, sustainable and environmentally safe energy for our Center’s facility. We know that other spiritually minded people and organizations will want join us in taking this action for the betterment of all future generations. Not only will this new solar energy system provide our Center with safe sustainable energy, the cost savings recognized by lower energy bills will allow the Center to pursue numerous projects that will benefit our community.”

P.S. Please remember that it was this Center in San Clemente that gave ROSE such a great deal and made it so easy to do the Nuclear Symposium in October 2013.  They are willing and excited to help us with future events. We could not have done it with them.

The Center for Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley in San Clemente California, Planet Earth Solar and Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE) thank you for your kind and generous donation towards our solar project.
With your action today, you join us in being part of a clean energy future and take a step towards helping manage climate change.  You are now part of the growing number of people around the world who are “being” the change. We are honored and happy to walk down this path with you.

Sincerely,

Gene Stone
Residents Organized For a Safe Environment (ROSE)

ACTION ALERT Request San Onofre Agenda Items Be Moved To Newport Beach Coastal Commision Meeting

SAVE TRESTLES! 

The California Coastal Commission meeting on changing the San Onofre spent fuel pool cooling system is still scheduled for Santa Barbara on May 14th.

Please request the Coastal Commission to change it to the Newport Beach meeting. 
The Coastal Commission needs to hear from more of you.  
They are getting pressure from Edison to speed up yet another experiment in nuclear waste dump managment.

Send request for meeting change to joseph.street@coastal.ca.gov

Subject:  Request to move Southern California Edison San Onofre agenda items to Newport Beach meeting

These waivers are for major changes to the San Onofre spent fuel cooling systems, air cooling systems and the ocean discharge systems. These are very significant issues.

Please move the decision on the Southern California Edison Coastal Development Permit Waivers (9-15-0417-W and 9-15-0162-W) from the May 14 Santa Barbara meeting to the June Newport Beach meeting.

It will take over 4 hours to drive to Santa Barbara from San Diego and over 3 hours from South Orange county.  Given the length of time and starting time of the meeting, this is an undue hardship for the people most impacted by these decisions. There doesn't appear to be any significant reason or legal deadline to justify this hardship.

The Coastal Commission website states:
The Commission meets once a month in different locations of the State in order to facilitate public participation. Staff attempts, whenever possible, to schedule matters for hearings that will be relatively close to the location of a proposed development. However, legal deadlines for action may require that the hearing on an item take place in a different area than the proposed project.

We don't know which day in June the waivers will be addressed. They do not list them on the agenda.  I do know they will be under the section labeled as:

ENERGY, OCEAN RESOURCES and FEDERAL CONSISTENCY.

Report by the Deputy Director on permit waivers, emergency permits, immaterial amendments & extensions, negative determinations, matters not requiring public hearings, and status report on offshore oil & gas exploration & development. For specific information contact the Commission’s Energy, Ocean Resources, and Federal Consistency Division office at (415) 904-5240.

Even if you don't plan to speak at the meeting, we need you to show up or at least write for the delay of the meeting.  The Coastal Commission is our friend, but not if we don't express an interest.

Here's the link to meeting rules.
http://www.coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.html#meetingRules

It doesn't appear the chillers Edison proposes are "nuclear grade chillers".  The Coastal Commission was told they are "commercial grade chillers".  And as usual, the NRC is not doing their job. They don't plan to inspect until after the new systems are installed, so we cannot count of them to even review this new method of cooling spent fuel pools filled with hot fuel that can boil the water out, if the pools are not kept cool. 

Using water chillers to cool spent pools appears to be another Edison experiment. In fact, We have found only one that used chillers and it had fuel that didn't need cooling.  Edison told the Coastal Commission that "chillers are commonly used in commercial industries" and that "spent fuel pool islands" have been used at nuclear plants.  However, these misleading statements don't mean that chillers are used for spent fuel pool island cooling.  We have asked both the NRC and Edison to provide me a list of nuclear spent fuel pools cooled with chillers. We do not have a response from either of them, even though we have requested this at the last CEP meeting.  We've followed up with Edison via email, but do not have a response yet.  

Here's a document that talks about methods of cooling spent fuel pools as well as how to save water use at nuclear plants.  It does not list water chillers for cooling spent fuel pools, even for decommissioned plants.  It even has information about Diablo Canyon and Palo Verde cooling systems and water use.

IAEA Technical Reports: Efficient Water Management in Water Cooled Reactors, No. NP-T-2.6, November 5, 2012

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/P1569_web.pdf

Join The San Onofre Cancer Study

Calling All San Onofre Surfers

          While many of us have been busy focusing on the host of problems we face because of San Onofre,  there is one very important issue we are neglecting: the immanent pending decision of the NRC on whether to fund the Natioinal Academy of Sciences (NAS) cancer streak study in this area.  The NAS sent their Phase 2 proposal to the NRC back in January and the NRC is dragging its feet on whether to approve it.  Many think that the NRC does not want this study done because of the possibility of revealing that the radioactive releases Edison has been doing into the ocean and into our atmosphere for the last half century may have a significant toll on our health.

          The NAS study will focus particularly on women and children who are the most vulnerable.  If you have lived within 31 miles (50 km) of the plant and had children since the 1980s, you will be part of the study.  As you know, nuclear power plants are known emitters of beta and gamma radiation which can easily penetrate your home and your body and rearrange cell DNA which might result in cancer after years or decades of exposure.

          There is Congressional oversight on this,  but the NRC has played down this investigation and more public pressure is needed to get this study funded.  Even though San Onofre is “closed,” we know that considerable emissions will continue to take place during the coming decades of decommissioning.  They will continue to be discharging up to 36 radionuclides into the giant 18 ft pipes into the ocean (at a rate up to a million gallons per minutes with some discharges lasting 25 hours).  Since 1990, the NRC has relied totally on an old and now discredited study by the National Cancer Institute which performed a heavily flawed study that failed to find a cancer effect.  The NRC and the nuclear industry like this study and they routinely (and mistakenly) say it proves that radiation is harmless to people living near NPP.

          There are two key people in Congress who are actively concerned about this. They are in a position to put pressure on the NRC to fund the study.  They are our own Sen. Boxer and Massachusetts Senator Markey.  Please write to both of them, perhaps both a written letter and an email (and call them).  It is not necessary to sound like a nuclear physicist and cite the details.  Just express your concern as a resident, and ask them to please contact the NRC and help get this study funded.

Many thanks!

Roger Johnson

Senator Barbara Boxer

312 N. Spring St., Suite #1748

Los Angeles, CA  90012    213-894-5000

 

Senator Barbara Boxer

112 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC  20510    202-224-3553

senator@boxer.senate.gov

copy:   caridad_sanchez@boxer.senate.gov   and      tony_cruz@boxer.senate.gov

 

Senator Edward Markey

255 Dirksen Senate Office Building   

Washington, D.C. 20510  202-224-2742

 

Senator Edward Markey

975 JFK Federal Building

15 New Sudbury Street

Boston, MA 02203   Phone: 617-565-8519

Edward.markey@markey.senate.gov

Also copy:    sarah_butler@markey.senate.gov and Michal_Freedhoff@market.senate.gov (she is a director of policy)

 

Link to Analysis of Cancer Risks Among Populations Near Nuclear Facilities Jan. 2015:

http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Analysis-Cancer-Risks-Populations/18968?bname=nrsb

 

 

What are you doing for your Mother on EARTH DAY 2015?

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates  

Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. Earth Day was founded by Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this first Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.It is celebrated in more than 175 countries.” Wikipedia reference

Possible dates for the next SCE/CEP meeting & workshop on Nuclear Waste may be Jan 27 or the 28

A number of CEP members have expressed a strong interest in returning to the matter of long-term spent fuel storage early in 2015. We are fortunate to have been approached by the Washington DC-based Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) to organize a joint meeting with the CEP in January as part of an 18-month effort to generate action on the movement of used nuclear fuel in the U.S. With the short timeframe, we will need to finalize the event very quickly.

BPC is working on an initiative, “America’s Nuclear Future: Taking Action to Address Nuclear Waste,” to reinvigorate and expand the discussion on nuclear waste, identify barriers inhibiting progress on nuclear waste, and explore options to break through the barriers. The effort is being run by Tim Frazier who previously ran the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. I am mindful that a joint program with the BPC will be far more impactful than a program that we might endeavor to execute on our own.

Important to the BPC effort are regional meetings to identify and discuss the barriers to moving forward on nuclear waste and potential actions to remove the barriers. BPC has hosted meetings in the Northeast at MIT in June, in the Southeast at Georgia Tech in Atlanta in September, and in the Midwest in Chicago in November. A joint BPC/CEP meeting for Southern California is planned for the evening of Tuesday, 27 January, or Wednesday the 28th.

 Meeting Overview

Plans include two panel discussions. The intent is to present a range of viewpoints and panelists are to be announced. The first panel will focus on federal issues as facilitated by Tim Frazier. David Victor will chair a second panel discussion with a focus on San Onofre and state issues. The second panel discussion will include the full CEP, a facilitated public comment period, and serve as our Regular Meeting for 1Q 2015.

The doors are opening wider on our discussion of Nuclear Waste at San Onofre. Once again we have the opportunity to bring this topic forward on to the national stage. The question is will you join us? Only you can make your voice heard.

What’s up with the #SCECEP

In my opinion, I’m very concerned about the way the SCE/CEP was set up and the direction the leadership of SCE/CEP is now taking us. Instead of taking the neutral position and uncovering and observing the evidence as presented they consistently and obviously put a positive spin on it. Everything is fine and SCE is doing the best job possible.

1. We must ask ourselves does this repeated positive spin serve the public interest? In my opinion No.
2. Is this Community Engagement Panel doing the best job possible to protect the safety of our communities and California? In my opinion we are not.
3. Can or will the SCE/CEP make the changes necessary in its charter to become an effective and strong safety advocate for the decommissioning and safe storage of nuclear waste at San Onofre that the people of California deserve until such time as the DOE takes possession of this long-term problem? In my opinion that is still up in the air.

To this point SCE’s attempt to be inclusive and transparent clearly has it’s limits. While asking me and others to bring up the safety concerns of the local citizens, SCE and the SCE/CEP leadership has then glossed over them, seeing these concerns only to be checked off their list one by one. Example; Tim Brown told the CA Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee on Aug 12, 2014 that local concerns have be heard and addressed. Implying some sort of conclusion or satisfaction by all with SCE’s predestined decommissioning plan. Link for Senate hearing http://youtu.be/_q6YulhHpcU?t=1h2m9s starting time for Tim Brown 1:02:10 to 1:17:45. Nothing of course could be further from the truth for many in our local communities. SCE, Inclusiveness is not just a tool to be used on the “Yellow Brick Road to decommissioning”, we are not in the Land of Oz after all. We are however in the backyards of over 8.4 million Californians.   SCE and its CEP leadership now have a consistent record of spinning information to fit the SCE agenda. For example, regarding “defense in depth”, the chairman, after being concerned at first at the lack of defense in depth for dry cask long-term storage, concluded after his ‘”careful research”, that citizen activists had not asked about ” defense in depth” for waste storage before and that the nuclear industry and the NRC has done a poor job in defining  and getting the word out about “defense in depth” for nuclear waste and dry cask storage. Citing “defense in depth” as cladding on fuel rods, ceramics on the fuel pellets , even the 5/8″ thickness of the canister itself and concrete overpack of the casks as if these were “defense in depth” that were unspoken of in the past. And he was right they were not spoken of in the past as “defense in depth” because they were not considered nor should we consider them today as “defense in depth”. While these have some small measure of defense, they are not in anyway sufficient or adequate for long-term storage of nuclear waste within a heavily populated area like Southern California, and everyone in this nuclear industry knows the calculated risk they are betting on with California’s future.

David Victor’s report Safety of Long-term storage in casks: Issues For San Onofre Dec 9, 2014 does have some items we do agree on:  “It  is  likely  that  spent  fuel  will  be  stored  in  dry  casks  at  the  San  Onofre  nuclear   site  for  very  long  periods  of  time—most  likely  well  beyond  the  20-­‐year  period  for   initial  licensing  of  the  casks.” page 2 of report. “Some  elements  of  what  will  be  needed  for  “defense  in  depth”  are  not  yet  fully   in  existence—for  example,  actual  equipment  that  would  allow  removal  of  fuel  from   a  cask  without  an  onsite  pool  has  been  designed  and  a  prototype  was  demonstrated   in  the  1990s,  but  no  such  full  scale  commercial  system  currently  exists.  Similarly,   full-­‐blown  procedures  for  repairing  all  forms  of  cask  cracking  are  not  yet  fully   certified” page 4 of report. Other than these items there is not much here other than “pro nuclear industry spin.” Read full report at:https://docs.google.com/document/d/13DurWxC8l3l_VCNEGXz5bg0V4FJteepR7LVuUjPz4Xk/edit?usp=sharing

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