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A plan to put "edible landscaping" in Madison city parks won the approval of the Madison city Parks Commission last week, over an earlier proposal to require volunteer groups planting fruit and nut trees to buy $1 million of liability insurance for each public park site where the trees would be planted. More than three dozen people came to the Parks Commission hearing to speak out in favor of fruit and nut trees in city parks, and in the end, all but one of the commissioners voted in favor of permitting the trees to be planted without the liability insurance requirement.
The fossil fuel divestment campaign organized locally by 350 Madison, a WNPJ member group, can celebrate a victory.
"Mayor Paul Soglin announced Thursday that Madison will join nine other U.S. cities in a campaign to encourage divestment of city funds from the fossil fuel industry," reports the Wisconsin State Journal.
"Soglin said Madison doesn't have any funds invested in fossil fuel companies but will introduce a resolution encouraging the Madison School District, Dane County, UW-Madison, the state and other local governments to divest their holdings."
From the Nuclear Resource and Information Service:
THANK YOU! You've done it again! You sent more than 15,000 letters to Congress in December and made many, many phone calls to stop $8 billion in taxpayer loans for new nuclear reactor construction. And the final government funding bill, signed by President Obama, contains not one dime for new nukes!
The State Senate has adjourned for the session, without the Clean Energy Jobs Act ever coming to a vote in either house of the legislature. The Carbon Free Nuclear Free Coalition, which includes WNPJ, has issued the following statement:
In the midst of a big PR and lobbying campaign to try to sell nuclear power as a clean, safe solution to climate change, another problem pops up -- radioactive tritium leaking from plants, including (as the map shows) some incidents in Wisconsin. WNPJ Board member Bill Christofferson has more on the WNPJ Blog.
By mid-2013, the Kewaunee nuclear reactor near Green Bay will be shuttered by its owner, Virginia-based Dominion Resources. But its toxic legacy will be far from over.
"Initial shutdown expenses for the creaking, leaking 39-year-old monster — waste management and reactor dismantling, containerizing and transporting to dump sites — are roughly predictable," John LaForge of Nukewatch, a WNPJ member group, writes in the Capital Times.
"Dominion, which bought Kewaunee in 2005 for $220 million, will 'record a $281 million charge in (2013’s) third quarter related to the closing and decommissioning.' But that’s just the earnest money. Literally endless expenditures will be required to keep Kewaunee’s radioactive wastes contained, monitored and out of drinking water for the length of time the federal appeals courts have declared is the required minimum — 300,000 years."
The Kewaunee nuclear reactor, near Green Bay, will be shut down in mid-2013, owner Dominion Resources announced.
Dominion had been trying to sell the reactor for a year and a half, but could not find a buyer.
In a statement, the company said the decision to mothball the nuclear reactor "was based purely on economics."
The Chicago Tribune reports, "Kewaunee is the first nuclear plant to shut its doors due to competition from natural gas. Production has jumped in recent years as new technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' enable energy companies to tap the United States' vast shale reserves."
WNPJ board member Bill Christofferson responds, in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel op ed column, to editorials in the state's two biggest newspapers calling for ending the state's nuclear "moratorium."
No one in the world has yet operated a nuclear power plant safely for more than 50 years.
(We Energies CEO Gale) Klappa and the industry see that as a rationale to build new reactors. Actually, it provides an opportunity to re-evaluate Wisconsin's energy needs and decide whether nuclear power should be part of the mix.
Following the 8.9 magnitude Miyagiken-Oki earthquake of March 11, severe radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have added to the crisis in Japan.
"The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens," reports the UK Daily Mail on March 18.
Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice member groups and allies are analyzing the situation and sharing information:
608-250-9240, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, 122 State Street, Suite 405A, Madison, WI 53703, Send an email to the office diane@wnpj.org.
WNPJ is a member of the Community Shares of Wisconsin.
