Safe & Green Campaign – updates

Dear Friends of the Safe & Green Campaign,

Vermont Yankee is back in the news. According to an Entergy press release, Yankee began POWERING DOWN this week!!! By one or two percent at a time, it will “coasting down” until the end of December to use up all the fuel currently in the reactor. NRC has it at 99% today. http://www.reformer.com/News/

No one is claiming responsibility for a poll taken recently which set off rumors of an effort by Yankee workers to purchase the reactor from Entergy. “Finally, the poll asked if the person would be supportive of a “new, regionally-based energy generating company with more local management and governance operating Vermont’s power plants like Vermont Yankee?”

rutlandherald.com/article/20140916/THISJUSTIN/709169961

Two Yankee related meetings will be held next week — both scheduled for Thursday evening. The first meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP**) will be at Brattleboro Union High School at 6:30pm, Sept. 25. The first meeting for New Hampshire residents on the impacts of Yankee’s closing will be at 6pm at Hinsdale Middle/High School. One wonders how the newly-appointed NH representative to NDCAP will serve her constituents best: listening to the NH officals and hearing the questions by NH resident in Walpole, or attending her first meeting of the panel. Read more, with links, in this pithy post on Green Mtn. Daily

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! Safe & Green and CAN are planning a party for the NUCLEAR FREE NEW YEAR on Saturday, January 3, 2015. Entergy announced the closing date of Yankee is December 29. While there will be lots to do to decommission and clean up the site over the next DECADES, let’s take a time to celebrate YANKEE UNPLUGGED and no more new waste! Stay tuned for details.

PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH UPDATE Lots on our website http://www.safeandgreencampaign.org/Nuclear-Free Contingent

ONE THOUSAND Vermonters — 1% of VT’s population — and 22 THOUSAND folks from Massachusetts are going to NYC 9.20 & 9.21 this weekend

Everything you need to know about the March — which starts in 48 hours — is on the People’s Climate March (PCM) website here: http://peoplesclimate.org/march/

— Look at the Line Up & Narrative for ALL the march contingents here. Nuclear-Free is part of #3: “We Have The Solutions”
— NEW: Block Party at the end of the March by People’s Climate March (PCM) – music, food (water & porta potties, too). Javits Center.

— Take photos & email them to us safeandgreencampaign@gmail.com

We’ll post on our website & Facebook page Monday or Tuesday.

We had our last conference call of NUCLEAR-FREE, CARBON-FREE organizers this week. Here’s the run down on our contingent:

— NEW: Saturday 9-10:30 am Teach In at the Climate Convergence: Don’t Nuke the Climate:How Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse and is Stealing our Energy Future St. Johns University Manhattan Campus; 51 Astor Pl, New York, NY 10003; ROOM 108

— Saturday 2pm: National Nuclear Free Activist Gathering.2-6 pm at the Bread and Butter Deli, upstairs, 419 Park Avenue South (corner of 29th Street). #6 subway, 28th Street stop.

— VOLUNTEER SUNDAY help set up 8:00am-10am at the RALLY (location below) +/or at the end of the Rally, help take down staging, move to March end point.

— SUNDAY RALLY (10am): Central Park West between 73rd and 74th streets. Nuclear-Free, Carbon-Free Contingent (details below).

— MARCH CONTINGENT: Go to the RALLY location above and join hundreds marching with us. We’ll have banners or bring your own (paper, cardboard, string only).

BUSES ARE SOLD OUT. (Mass. has 500 person waiting list for buses!) If you are on a bus, work it! Get names of folks on your bus & their affiliations & email addresses for your group or pass them along to us. Start forming coalitions. Make plans to get together in the week or two after the March to strategize for the future. Collect signatures for petitions. 1. Tom Hayden’s petition to the UN on the proposal which promotes nuclear as a solution to climate change. 2. NIRS has one on the new EPA “clean energy” regs which asks that nuclear not be subsidized or considered clean. NIRS petition to EPA

RALLY DETAILS – If you are taking the bus, it’s a 15 minute walk to our Rally from the bus drop off area. Nuclear-Free is one of the few rallies with amplification. Confirmed speakers & performers as of Friday: Dr. Arjun Makhijani (IEER and author of Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free); Hunter Lovins, President and Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions, one of the nation’s leading experts in sustainable energy practices; Jessica Azulay, Program Director, Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE); Julia Walsh (Campaign Director, Frack Action & New Yorkers Against Fracking); Tim Judson (NIRS); Leona Morgan, Dine No Nukes in New Mexico; Japanese activist Yuko Tonohira; Sandra Steingraber, Concerned Health Professionals of New York, Distinguished Scholar at Ithaca College; new poems by Marge Piercy; Michael Mariotte, MC (NIRS).
Performers: Raging Grannies; Joel Landy, Chiho Kaneko, Mel & Vinnie.

Well, I better get packing!

Peace & Solidarity,

Leslie Sullivan Sachs

for the Safe & Green Campaign