CAN Caravan of Conscience Tours
Nuclear power is a dirty technology and the industry that developed it practices environmental racism. Reactors routinely release rad waste into the surrounding community. What’s not released is held on site, for shipment to another community- predominately poor, rural, and people of color communities.
Citizens Awareness Network conducted Caravan of Conscience Tours to protest the dumping of toxic waste on Native lands and the endangering of transport communities which have little or no say about whether they want rad waste traveling on their roads and rails.
CAN traveled the transportation routes of high level waste shipments from New England and Northeast reactors to proposed dumps in Utah and Nevada. The caravan alerted reactor communities, transport communities, and waste site communities of the danger of these irradiated fuel shipments. We believe that the contamination of communities by corporations is unethical. Both proposed sites are on Native American lands while most reactors were built in poor farm communities.
In association with Greenpeace CAN organized a “ Paul Revere Alert” to protest the shipments of deadly waste from its local nuke- the Yankee Rowe reactor-to Barnwell, SC, a poor rural 46% African American community. In 1994 & 1997 a second and third Caravan of Conscience was conducted. CAN transported a dozen local organizers through communities along transportation routes. Their job was to warn citizens of impending shipments of radioactive waste from Northeast reactors through their neighborhoods. The caravans traveled along transport routes holding press conferences.
The Caravans educated citizens about the dangerous shipments coming through their communities. Media coverage raised awareness about nuclear transportation, safety, and health issues. Public response was outrage and action. The Caravans brought national attention to this critical issue. Citizens turned to their local governments to stop the shipments. To their amazement few local authorities including police and firefighters had been notified.
In 1995-97, CAN created Rad Waste Tours, taking a mock high-level waste cask throughout the New England states to create awareness in communities and media of impending bills in Congress to site a temporary storage dump for high-level waste at the Nevada Test Site. We focused attention on the transport of rad waste through ill-prepared communities.
Caravan of Conscience Tour
CAN organized a fourth Caravan to publicize the shipments of radioactive waste from New England and Northeast to the west. The west is fast becoming the toilet for Northeast’s dangerous high-level reactor waste. This is unacceptable. We worked in coalition with groups along the transport route including Citizens Action Coalition, Shundahi, and Citizens for Environmental Justice. We will hold press conferences, canvass, and workshops to publicize the transport of this dangerous cargo.
We traveled through Northeastern states (CT, VT, MA, NY, PA) through the Midwest (IN, OH, Ill., IW) and the West (NE, WY) to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah, land targeted by the nuclear industry for a “temporary” Private Fuel Storage dump (PFS), to inform the public of the serious waste issues that receive inadequate press attention.
With the nuclear industry’s pressure to create a burial ground for its high-level waste, the floodgates of waste could open in America. The movement of high-level radioactive waste endangers thousands of communities in 43 states to create “a temporary solution” to the high-level waste issue. Our roadways and rail lines will become rad waste corridors. This initiative , gambling with our health and safety is dangerous and premature. Nuclear waste should remain on-site until an adequate, permanent solution is developed that meets the needs of the American people.
MOVING TARGETS FOR TERRORISM
Most of this nuke waste slated for transport is deadly, and will remain dangerous for 240,000 years. It is the used fuel from nuclear reactors in bundles called fuel assemblies. One of these assemblies has the radioactive equivalent of 10 Hiroshima size bombs and a single rail cask will have 24 to 28 fuel assemblies. These casks, as well as reactors and waste dumps, are targets for terrorist action. Between 15,000 and 70,000 shipments are scheduled for transport from commercial nuclear reactors.
Citizens in the contamination pathway of reactors and waste sites need to educate themselves and empower their communities to protect themselves and the environment from exposure to these toxins. Caravans raised consciousness about the shipment of radioactive materials through communities. It stimulated the awareness needed to increase public participation in pollution prevention, reduction, and protection of the environment. Reactor and waste communities must work together to stop the cycle of contamination and sacrifice.
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