Dump and decommission

On this week’s Nuclear Hotseat, host Libbe HaLevy looks at the environmental toll of decommissioning in the US. Many of us are already up in arms at the Japanese government’s determination to dump more than 1 million tonnes of tritium-contaminated water from its destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. But similar plans are afoot closer to home around US nuclear plants that are undergoing decommissioning.

Libbe talks to activist Diane Turco, Director of the Cape Downwinders on Cape Cod, a group that’s been fighting issues at the Pilgrim, MA nuclear power reactor (pictured) for more than 40 years. With decommissioning company Holtec barreling ahead on its decision to release radioactive water from Pilgrim’s spent fuel pools directly into Cape Cod Bay, possibly as soon as this summer, the outcry against it is building.

And Libbe also talks to Manna Jo Greene, a longtime opponent of the now closed Indian Point Generating Station in New York, just 30 miles from downtown Manhattan. The Environmental Director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, she is also battling to stop the release of tritiated water into the Hudson.

And Linda Pentz Gunter of Beyond Nuclear, asks in this week’s Hot Story, whether all the fuss about Russian president, Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend his country’s participation in the New START Treaty really matters, given the treaty caps each country’s nuclear weapons at a planet destroying 3,000 each? The answer is “yes, and no.”

Listen