We All Live Downstream

by Jonathan A. Scott

This post updates one made earlier this week, with new links to online action you can take now, and more information on the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey.

The nuclear power industry’s catastrophic failures continue to unfold with tragic consequences in Japan and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the companies that build the plants and the electric utilities that would like us to buy them are aggressively lobbying Congress for more taxpayer subsidies. Without sustained government support on a massive scale, the costs and financial risks of building new plants are too high to attract even the most adventurous investors. This was true even before the current crisis in Japan.

Yet, unbelievably, Congress may be poised to do industry’s bidding once again by voting in more subsidies. You can tell them it’s time to stop.

The water impacts alone make nuclear a poor choice for spending limited tax dollars.

Headlines from Japan tell of contaminated tapwater rendered unsafe for infants. Clouds of radioactive steam billow above the damaged plants. Closer to home, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health reports finding radioactive contaminants, of Japanese origin, in New England rainfall. Similar testing done in California, Pennsylvania, Washington and other states shows comparable results.

But even when nuclear energy production is operating as intended, some of this power source’s highest costs and worst impacts are on our water.

In fact, industry claims to the contrary, nuclear energy is not clean. Nor is it viable as a global warming solution. Mining, processing, transport of nuclear fuel, and storage of toxic nuclear wastes are all energy-intensive activities. They require huge inputs of polluting fossil fuels and water.

From start to finish, and everywhere along the way, nuclear power pollutes and depletes local water supplies and exposes additional water resources to risk of contamination that could linger for centuries. Nuclear power plants also consume and pollute large quantities of water, adding to the technology’s huge water impacts.

Water pollution problems have plagued nuclear plants from Vermont to New York, to New Jersey and across the South and Southeast. Leaky pipes prompted Vermont lawmakers to vote for their plant’s closure, and New York’s Indian Point plant recently had its Clean Water Act permits denied. New Jersey’s Oyster Creek plant is also a leaker, as revealed through Clean Water Action and the New Jersey Environmental Federation’s relentless campaigning.

The Oyster Creek plant is an excellent case study in what’s wrong about how government approaches this technology. All too often, it seems it is the industry that dictates what government policies should be – and the industry may not be all that reliable a source for accurate information.

Plant owner Excelon’s CEO, Christopher Crane, recently told the New York Times that storm surges could not interfere with backup generators at its plants, because they are buried underground. New Jersey activist Janet Tauro responds, “Perhaps a visit to Oyster Creek would jog Mr. Crane’s memory. Not only are both back-up generators located above ground, they are also right next to each other, on a property bounded on both sides by canals and thus vulnerable to flooding from hurricanes, nor’easters or violent storms.”

Bottom line? There is simply not enough water available in most parts of the country to meet proposed plants’ insatiable thirst for this precious resource. The health risks and the costs to taxpayers are simply too great.

Take Action Now. Let Congress know that now is not the time for more taxpayer investment in this costly, risky and thirsty technology.

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Jonathan A. Scott is Communications Director for Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund.

Janet Tauro is Board Chair for the New Jersey Environmental Federation, Clean Water Action’s Garden State chapter, and is a founding member of Grandmothers, Mothers, and More for Energy Safety (GRAMMES).

by Jonathan A.  Scott

Based on water-related costs and impacts alone, the answer is “No!”

The nuclear power industry’s catastrophic failures continue to unfold with tragic consequences in Japan and for the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the companies that build the plants and the electric utilities that would like us to buy them are aggressively lobbying Congress for more taxpayer subsidies. Without sustained government support on a massive scale, the costs and financial risks of building new plants are too high to attract even the most adventurous investors. This was true even before the current crisis in Japan.

Then there are the water impacts associated with nuclear power.

Headlines from Japan tell of contaminated tapwater rendered unsafe for infants. Clouds of radioactive steam billow above the damaged plants. Closer to home, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health reports finding radioactive contaminants, of Japanese origin, in New England rainfall. Similar testing done in California, Pennsylvania, Washington and other states shows comparable results.

But even when nuclear energy production is operating as intended, some of this power source’s highest costs and worst impacts are on our water.

In fact, industry claims to the contrary, nuclear energy is not clean. Nor is it viable as a global warming solution. Mining, processing, transport of nuclear fuel, and storage of toxic nuclear wastes are all energy-intensive activities. They require huge inputs of polluting fossil fuels and water.

From start to finish, and everywhere along the way, nuclear power pollutes and depletes local water supplies and exposes additional water resources to risk of contamination that could linger for centuries. Nuclear power plants also consume and pollute large quantities of water, adding to the technology’s huge water impacts.

Water pollution problems have plagued nuclear plants from Vermont to New York, to New Jersey and across the South and Southeast. Leaky pipes prompted Vermont lawmakers to vote for their plant’s closure, and New York’s Indian Point plant recently had its Clean Water Act permit denied. New Jersey’s Oyster Creek plant is also a leaker, as revealed through Clean Water Action and the New Jersey Environmental Federation’s relentless campaigning. [Look for more on NJ’s aging and ailing nukes on these pages soon.]

There is simply not enough water available in most parts of the country to meet proposed plants’ insatiable thirst for this precious resource.

Now is not the time for more taxpayer investment in this costly, risky and thirsty technology.

_______

Jonathan A.  Scott is Communications Director for Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund

by Lynn Thorp

During the last few weeks, Clean Water Action helped coordinate a United States site visit by the United Nations Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque is the first such Expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. One of her roles is to undertake visits like this one and make recommendations to governments on improving access and ensuring protection of human rights associated with water and sanitation.

In preparation for a meeting with Ms. De Albuquerque, I reflected on how the facts on the ground in the United States might appear to a person who has done a similar investigation in Bangladesh and who plans a visit to Namibia. It’s important to note here that, while we enjoy a relative prosperity in terms of water, access to clean water and sanitation are by no means universal  in the U.S. Our friends from the Canaan Valley Institute, for example, point out that Central Appalachia is emblematic of rural access issues and that the state of West Virginia alone has identified 140 communities that lack adequate wastewater treatment.

Still, it seems to me that the U.S. comes at this question from a far different place than countries that are struggling with the basics.

Clean Water Action makes a number of recommendations informed by our 21^st Century Smart Clean and Green Project on innovations in water use and management.

But I wanted to make a contribution on this question: What is the biggest challenge to accessing clean drinking water here in the United States?

There’s one really big one that I came up with:  the special interest stranglehold that controls “upstream” contamination sources.

Human activities – building cities and towns, agricultural practices, chemicals in products we use, choices we make in energy production, etc – are at the root of most drinking water problems. We have rules and regulations governing these kinds of activities, but none of them make drinking water impacts a primary consideration. Just think how an increased emphasis on drinking water protection might counter the special interest interference that weakens and often defeats prevention policies.

You’ve probably read at least one story in the newspaper and worried about a chemical found in drinking water because this chemical is an “endocrine disruptor.” That means it interferes with the most fundamental processes in people’s bodies – like reproduction and metabolism. That doesn’t sound healthy.

But did you notice any news coverage on how a policy that could eliminate that contamination-causing chemical in consumer products is mired in special-interest-driven debate over the science? Did you know that this chemical is found in all kinds of products that you didn’t even know contained it? Did you know that this chemical product ingredient isn’t even all that good at doing the job it claims to do? That’s exactly what’s happening with the anti-bacterial chemical triclosan.

In just about every area I can think of, the burden of pollution is left to people in “downstream” communities to deal with, while unsustainable activity is allowed to continue upstream. For the 85% of people in this country who are served by Public Water Systems (those regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act), the cost of monitoring and treatment is reflected in their water bills.

With municipalities stretched to the limit in today’s tough economic times, it’s fair to wonder why we must wait to deal with pollution until it reaches the drinking water treatment plant.

Just last month, a report by Earthjustice exposed how the waste from coal-burning power plants is a source of the notorious chemical hexavelant chromium and other contaminants in drinking water sources. EPA is updating its analysis of this chemical’s health impacts, and consumers nationwide are concerned about it. Why then are we unable to finalize regulations for disposal of this coal ash, which leaches the toxin into streams where it ends up in drinking water sources? And why in the world does building a new generation of coal plants, which will produce even more of the same toxic water contaminants, sound like a good idea?

The United States could aspire to show the world that we’re ahead of the curve in preventing drinking water contamination before it starts.

We won’t be able to do this if we can’t stop arguing about which bodies of water qualify to be considered “waters of the United States” and therefore protected under the Clean Water Act. This Orwellian bureaucratic confusion, driven by more special interests, has left drinking water sources for more than 110 million people in our country at risk.

We’ve got to stop sticking communities with the bills for pollution — in the form of drinking water contamination. In the coming months, regulators and Public Water Systems will deal with issues ripped from the headlines – perchlorate, lead and hexavelent chromium.

We knew enough decades ago to have prevented these drinking water contamination problems, and now the burden is right where it does NOT belong. Preventing tomorrow’s drinking water problems will not only improve public health and take this unfair economic burden off of local communities and ratepayers, but will also demonstrate to the rest of the world that integrated thinking and strong prevention policies can lead to innovations that are wins for everyone.

It’s the least a superpower can do.

You can read Clean Water Action’s letter on this subject to the United National Independent Expert here.

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Lynn Thorp is National Campaigns Coordinator for Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund

by Kim LaBo

Our bodies are two-thirds water.  What is in our water is in us.  Yet, when we rinse our shampoo out of our hair, clean the toilet bowel with a strong cleaner, or wash our clothes, we don’t think about what we are sending out through our plumbing to our local waterways.  We assume what we are using is safe for us and our water.  Many times, this assumption is wrong. And sometimes, contamination in our water can lead to serious health impacts including cancer.

The American public is regularly exposed to cancer causing chemicals whether from consumer products or other sources.  It doesn’t have to be this way.

According to the recent President’s Cancer Panel Report “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated” and calls on the Obama administration to “remove carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”

One in two men, and one in three women, can expect to be diagnosed with cancer at some point in our lifetime. This is a national tragedy that touches most of us personally and many of us directly.  This was not our grandparents’ reality, and it doesn’t have to be ours going forward.

The President’s Cancer Panel report shines the light on how an authentic “war on cancer” could take shape. President Obama, Congress, officials at every level of government:  we urge you to renew efforts to phase out cancer-causing chemicals as part of a broad reform of our nation’s chemical policy.  Sign the petition here.

Kim LaBo is a toxics and environmental health organizer with Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund in Minnesota