{news} Fw: Millstone Events

[Tom Sevigny]

ANTI-MILLSTONE COALITION AND CT SIERRA CLUB
ANNOUNCE RALLY AND CONCERT
TO LAUNCH CAMPAIGN FOR
‘CLEAN BEACHES - CLOSE MILLSTONE’



For Release: May 9, 2005
Contact: Nancy Burton Tel. 203-938-3952
              John Calandrelli Tel. 860-236-4405

     Niantic – The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone and the Connecticut Chapter of the Sierra Club announced plans today to jointly sponsor a rally and concert this month to launch a “Clean Beaches – Close Millstone” campaign to create a clean energy future for Connecticut.
     The campaign will include a rally at Liberty Park in Niantic on Thursday, May 26, at 11 A.M. and a concert at the Garde Arts Center in New London on Saturday, July 2, at 7 P.M. Sign-ups for clean, non-nuclear energy will be available.
     “The Connecticut Chapter of the Sierra Club is standing for clean beaches and clean energy for everyone,” said John Calandrelli, state program director.
     “Nuclear power, with its inherent problems of waste and security, deserves no place in our clean energy future,” Calandrelli said. “It’s time to start living with this earth as if our lives depended on it.”
      The campaign will draw attention to the radioactive and toxic chemicals routinely released to the Long Island Sound and surrounding beaches by the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Waterford.
     “Until Millstone closes, swimming at the public beaches in East Lyme and Waterford will be hazardous to health and will endanger unborn children” said Nancy Burton, a leader of the Coalition.
     “Everyone who uses these beaches is at risk and children are most vulnerable,” Burton said. “At the very least, we will ask the towns to post signs warning of the hazards.”
     “Members of PACE (People’s Action for Clean Energy) are deeply concerned about the ongoing releases of the radioactive isotopes from the Millstone plants,” said Judi Friedman, chairperson of PACE, a Coalition member. 
     “Of particular concern is the release of tritium directly to the air and water – 13,000 curies between 1991 and 2001,” Friedman said. “Tritium is a known cancer-causing radioactive toxin, causing birth defects and genetic damage for as long as 120 years after being released.”
     As part of the May 26 rally at Liberty Park in Niantic, the Coalition will donate signs for town officials to post prior to the official opening of the beaches on Memorial Day weekend warning of the hazards of swimming at public beaches in East Lyme.
     Following the rally, participants will march to the “Hole-in-the-Wall Beach” in Niantic, where they will conduct a symbolic closing of the beach to draw attention to the presence of life-threatening radiological and chemical effluents that wash ashore from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station’s discharge pipes every day.
     The rally will honor Zachary M. Hartley, age 7, whose mother swam at Hole-in-the-Wall Beach in 1997 during her pregnancy. Zachary was born with a rare jawbone cancer. His jawbone was removed during life-saving surgery when he was an infant and he is scheduled for major surgery again in June.
     The concert at the Garde Arts Center on July 2 will feature musical performances by the award-winning singer-songwriters Emma’s Revolution and Stefko, a New York City-based acoustic folk-rock singer-songwriter.
     Emma’s Revolution is comprised of Pat Humphries and Sandy O, whose music has been featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and Pacifica’s “Democracy Now!” and whose songs “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” and “Keep on Moving Forward” are sung at vigils and demonstrations around the world. 
     Emma’s Revolution performed before thousands at the May 1, 2005 Global Disarmament Rally in New York City, the day before the 5-year review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty began at the United Nations. They will travel to the Nevada Test Site this August for commemoration vigils during this 60th anniversary year of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
      Emma’s Revolution has been called the “epitome of great, contemporary political music” by Sing Out! Magazine. The duo’s debut CD, “One X 1,000,000 = Change,” includes “If I Give Your Name,” Grand Prize Winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. The duo’s website address is www.emmasrevolution.com.
     Stefko, based out of the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, plays a mix of folk-rock, indie, and alt-country in both English and Ukrainian. He has been performing, composing and writing lyrics for over ten years.  
     While attending Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, Stekfo often appeared either solo and/or as part of the duo Sicksided & Burned, at coffee houses and various college venues.  After graduating in 2003, he recorded an EP as part of Sicksided & Burned titled “Jessica the Vulture,” a solo acoustic single backends and a Ukrainian language EP titled “Sumni Pisni” (Sad Songs) at Wheatsheaf Studios in New Jersey.  All of the recordings were of original material.
     A second-generation Ukrainian-American, Stefko organized a benefit concert in support of freedom in Ukraine as the Orange Revolution swept over the former Soviet republic last December. The concert was held in New York City’s East Village to honor the hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians who stood at the vanguard of the Orange Revolution and to support the activities of election observers in the third round of voting which resulted in the election of Viktor Yushchenko as president.  Stefko performed at a rally in Washington DC on April 6 to welcome President Yushchenko on his first official visit to the United States the day he addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
     In addition to the musical performances, the evening concert will include speakers and other performers. Tickets are $20 for adults, children under 12 free. Adults accompanied by a child under 12 may purchase a half-price ticket at the Box Office the evening of the concert.
     “The goal of the ‘Clean Beaches – Close Millstone’ campaign is to promote and increase public awareness of how Millstone operations contaminate the Connecticut shoreline with invisible and insidious pollution, including long-lived radionuclides,” said Burton. “These are substances which, once ingested, trigger cancer and other diseases.”
     “The beaches are a great natural resource which belong to the people,” said Mitzi Bowman, a member of the Coalition. “We should not have to be afraid to enjoy summer recreation at the beach with our families.”
     Public beaches near Millstone are within the 8,000-foot-radius “mixing zone” where the facility is allowed to dump radiological, chemical and thermal waste, according to Burton.
     In reports filed with federal and state authorities, Millstone’s operators have admitted contaminating fish in Niantic Bay with cesium-137, a cancer-causing radionuclide with a half-life of 30 years that decays into an array of harmful substances.
     The nuclear plant is also responsible for buildup of cobalt-60 and other radionuclides in shoreline sediments, according to reports filed with federal and state agencies.
     The Coalition seeks a permanent shutdown of the two operating nuclear reactors at Millstone because in addition to the pollution that they cause, the simple fact is that the electricity they produce is not needed.
     “When Millstone Unit 3 declared a Class II emergency on April 17 and was shut down for two weeks while Unit 2 was also shut down for refueling, the electric grid serving Connecticut and New England did not notice the missing 2,000 megawatts, Burton said.
     “We call for the immediate shutdown of Millstone Units 2 and 3 because they are a hazard to our health and the health of our unborn children” Burton said. Millstone Unit 1 was permanently closed in 1996.
     "Contamination of our beaches is only one part of the harm caused by the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to radioactive waste management,” said Peter Bowman, co-director of Don’t Waste Connecticut, a member of the Coalition. “Safe beaches and clean water are the people's right, not to be usurped by Dominion for use as a dumping ground for their toxic and radioactive poisons.”
     “The dangerous experiment with nuclear power in all its forms has had its time,” Calandrelli said. “It’s time to evolve into a cleaner energy future.”
     For updates on the rally and concert, go to www.mothballmillstone.org and www.connecticut.sierraclub.org.

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