San Francisco, California, April 14, 2011
In the midst of the ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan, and mindful of California's earthquake prone coast, the April Action Committee announced today that people will gather at the CPUC meeting on Thursday April 14 in San Francisco to demand the immediate phase-out of nuclear power in the state. The committee will hold a press conference on CPUC steps at noon. Many who have registered will make public comments inside the meeting, which begins at 9 am, and songs, speeches, signs and puppets will continue outside throughout the morning.
This action supports the citizens who are testifying in Sacramento today before the Senate Energy Committee hearing, "After Japan: Nuclear Power Plant Safety in California."
An analysis of the Fukushima catastrophe released on April 4th by Green Audit, projects 200,000 new cancers in the local Japanese population of 3 million over the next 20 years, using the risk model of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR). We join Japan's fishermen in calling for the shut down of all nuclear power reactors that present a clear and present danger to the world's oceans. PG&E's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and the San Onofre reactor owned by S. Calif. Edison, both on the coast, are in areas that are far more populated and harder to evacuate than Fukushima. Both plants were licensed without evacuation plans; current plans fail to address the risk of tsunamis, newly discovered earthquake faults, increased population, traffic congestion, or evolving knowledge about the impacts of radiation.
“Children and pregnant women are the most at risk from both routine and catastrophic radiation releases,” says local business owner Marc DePolo. "State officials need to take immediate steps to shut these reactors, as other countries are doing. When these plants were built, people didn't understand earthquakes or the dangers of radiation the way we do now. These things are like ticking time bombs."
“With the San Bruno disaster, PG&E has completely lost what remained of the public's trust in to protect public safety. Given the accumulation of highly radioactive spent fuel at sites on seismically unsafe ground the immediate shut down and decommissioning of Diablo Canyon is the only sensible thing to do.”
Barbara George, Executive Director, Women's Energy Matters pointed out, "California has a large glut of power through 2020, so there is no need to wait for renewables to come on line before closing down these unsafe energy sources."
The April Action Committee is an ad-hoc group of concerned citizens that asks regulators and lawmakers to immediately begin the process of ending nuclear power in California.
We are asking people to attend the Mother's for Peace Rally on April 16th, in Avila Beach adjacent to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant, near San Luis Obispo, south of San Francisco. We support their work to stop the Diablo re-licensing and their lawsuit.
We ask Gov. Brown to immediately sign a state bill to require utilities to obtain 33% of state energy from renewable resources.
To address climate change, we recommend immediate, massive investments in energy efficiency and renewables in order to immediately close nuclear power plants throughout the US and the world, and phase out coal powered plants as well.
For more information, contact: Marc DePolo, April Action Committee, 415.522.6644 marc@bardicmedia.com