| SPRING RIVER VALLEY BAND |
| A WORLD FOR OUR CHILDREN |
| The Spring River Valley Band is a group of topnotch musicians capable of providing musical entertainment for just about any occasion. |
| I regret to inform you that Music Under the Stars has been postponed until the people of southeastern New Mexico no longer live under the threat of being exposed to radiation from the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) nuclear waste reprocessing plant. The Spring River Valley Band will continue to perform some, but will not have much time for playing music until this threat is gone forever. |
| Don't put the For Sale sign in your front yard yet. I think we can stop the GNEP! |
| Click Here for information about the Spring River Valley Band, and about southeastern New Mexico. |
| Frank McKinnon 903 N. Missouri Roswell, NM 88201 Office (505) 627-3391 Cell 420-8199 mckinnon89@hotmail.com |
| Alan Dobson of EnergySolutions |
| Alan Dobson described the Sellafield facility as being the model they plan to use for GNEP. |
| The massive leak at the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria will keep it closed for several more months and cost Britain's clean-up programme at least £300m in lost revenue this year alone, it emerged yesterday....June 2005 |
| DOE is proposing that the first GNEP burner reactor will be a full-scale, commercial power plant. Global Nuclear Energy Partnership plans do not include technology demonstrations, pilot plants, or scalable production. This is a recipe for disaster. Experience in the United States and other countries is not encouraging. The British recently awarded the first contracts of 17-18 billion pounds to cover the costs of cleaning up the reprocessing facility at Sellafield. GNEP has the potential to become the greatest technological debacle in US history....April 2007 |
| Petition for Emergency Order of Protection or Injunction to stop GNEP with approximately 1,136 signatures or Concerned Citizens to the FIFTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT on Friday 13, 2007. |
| I will keep this page for people that are interested in gathering signatures until I am sure that it is no longer necessary. |
| Click here for Review of Discussion on Nuclear Economics and Renewable Energy |
| Click Here (updated on August 14, 2007) for information about the GNEP nuclear waste burner reactor and nuclear waste reprocessing plant. |
| Pete Domenici Jr. is Gandy Marley Inc.'s lawyer. His dad says that Roswell has responded in a positive way toward GNEP. |
| Domenici's proposal is likely to be controversial because it would give the Energy Department authority to build a waste facility within a state even if a state or local authorities objected. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories... |
| Peter Maggiore (Secretary of Environment under Governor Gary Johnson) works for EnergySolutions Inc. and Gandy Marley Inc. |
| First Atomic Bomb Test Exposed U.S. Civilians to Radiation |
| posted: 16 July 2007 12:35 pm ET |
| Photo by Jack Aeby |
| The world’s first atomic bomb test might have exposed unaware civilians in New Mexico to thousands of times the recommended level of public radiation exposure, according to reconstructed data in a new study. |
| The research, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that ingestion of radioactive materials—primarily from irradiated rainwater and goat’s milk—might have been a substantial contributor to public radiation exposure that was largely not accounted for. |
| The findings come on the 62nd anniversary of the world’s first atomic explosion and were presented at the recent annual meeting of the Health Physics Society. |
| ‘Trinity’ |
| The world’s first nuclear weapons test took place on July 16, 1945 in the desolate White Sands deserts of New Mexico. In a cryptic reference to a John Donne poem that he knew and loved, J. Robert Oppenheimer, lead physicist of the Manhattan Project and scientific director of the test, dubbed the location “Trinity.” |
| At 5:29:45 a.m. local time, a plutonium-based atomic bomb was detonated atop a 100-foot steel tower erected at Trinity specifically for the test. Scientists hoped that exploding the bomb at an elevated height would reduce the amount of radioactive dust raised by the explosion. They also needed to simulate the air-drop method of deployment that was eventually used by the real bombs. |
| The Trinity bomb was an exact replica of “Fat Man,” the second and last nuclear weapon ever used in war. Fat Man was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan less than a month after the Trinity test. |
| Exploding with an energy equal to about 20 kilotons of TNT, the blast carved a crater in the Earth more than 1,000 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Radioactive fallout from the blast was detected as far away as Indiana. |
| Heat from the explosion was so intense that sand grains fused to form a reflective layer of radioactive, green glass, called “Trinitite,” on the desert floor. |
| Dangerous radiation |
| Because of its importance in the war, the Trinity test was conducted in secret. Little was known about the dangers of radiation exposure in the 1940s, so local residents were not warned or evacuated in advance of—or even following— the test. As a result, people in surrounding areas were exposed to radiation by breathing contaminated air, eating contaminated foods, and drinking affected water and milk. Some ranches were located within 15 miles of ground zero, and commercial crops were grown nearby. |
| In the hours after the blast, five monitoring teams traveled along local roads recording radiation levels. The highest radiation levels from Trinity were measured in a swath 12 miles long and one mile wide that started near an area 16 miles northeast of ground zero. Around nearby ranches, exposure rates around 15 Roentgen per hour were measured just three hours after detonation. |
| Currently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that members of the public should not receive more than 2 millirem (about 0.002 Roentgen) of radiation in any one hour from external radiation sources in any public area. The exposure rates following the Trinity test were more than 10,000 times this recommended dose level. |
| T.E. Widner, the director of the new CDC study, said he thinks evacuations would have certainly been arranged if scientists and physicians had known about the long-term effects of radiation exposure, even if the publicity threatened the mission. |
| Trinity is now open twice a year to the public, on the first Saturdays of April and October for six hours each time. According to the public affairs office at White Sands, a one-hour visit to ground zero will result in a whole body exposure of one-half to one millirem. To put this in perspective, a U.S. adult receives 360 millirems on average every year from natural and medical sources. |
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| En d the nu cle ar ag e |
| Gr ee np ea ce has al wa ys fou ght - an d wil l co nti nu e to fig ht - vig oro usl y ag ain st nu cle ar po we r be ca use it is an un acc ept abl e ris k to the en vir on me nt an d to hu ma nit y. Th e onl y sol uti on is to hal t the ex pa nsi on of all nu cle ar po we r, an d for the shu tdo wn of exi stin g pla nts. |
| We ne ed an en er gy sys te m tha t ca n fig ht cli ma te ch an ge, ba se d on ren ew abl e en er gy an d en er gy effi cie nc y. Nu cle ar po we r alr ea dy del ive rs les s en er gy glo bal ly tha n ren ew abl e en er gy, an d the sha re wil l co nti nu e to de cre ase in the co mi ng ye ars . De spi te wh at the nu cle ar ind ust ry tell s us, bui ldi ng en ou gh nu cle ar po we r stat ion s to ma ke a me ani ngf ul re du cti on in gr ee nh ous e ga s em issi ons wo uld cos t trill ion s of dol lar s, cre ate ten s of tho usa nd s of ton s of let hal hig h-l ev el ra dio act ive wa ste, co ntri but e to furt her pr olif era tio n of nu cle ar we ap ons ma teri als, an d res ult in a Ch ern ob yl- sca le acc ide nt on ce ev ery de ca de. Per ha ps mo st sig nifi ca ntl y, it wil l sq ua nd er the res our ces ne ces sar y to im ple me nt me ani ngf ul cli ma te ch an ge sol uti ons . (Br iefi ng: Cli ma te ch an ge - Nu cle ar not the ans we r.) htt p:/ /w ww .gr ee np ea ce. or g/i nte rna tio nal /ca mp aig ns/ nu cle ar |
| ...A cco rdi ng to the U. N. Int ern ati on al Ato mi c En er gy Ag en cy (IA EA ), the wo rld' s 41 3 co m me rci al nu cle ar rea cto rs pr od uc ed 13 pe r ce nt of the wo rld' s ele ctri cit y in 19 91. In 19 90, the se rea cto rs als o cre ate d ab out 9,5 00 ton s of irr adi ate d fue l, bri ngi ng the wo rld' s wa ste acc um ula tio n of use d fue l to 84, 00 0 ton s-t wic e as mu ch as in 19 85. |
| IA EA esti ma tes tha t the tot al wa ste ge ner ate d fro m all the nu cle ar rea cto rs no w op era tin g or un de r co nst ruc tio n wo rld wi de wil l ex ce ed 45 0,0 00 ton s bef ore the pla nts ha ve all clo se d do wn in the mi ddl e of the ne xt ce ntu ry. All of this wa ste, so far, is bei ng sto re d in po ols of wa ter on loc ati on at the nu cle ar rea cto rs. Go ver nm ent s aro un d the wo rld fro m Ch ina an d Fra nc e to En gla nd an d the Uni ted Sta tes ha ve be en tryi ng to de vel op a "sa fe" wa y to dis po se of it. So me pr op ose to bu ry it de ep wit hin the Ea rth wit h a ma rke r wa rni ng fut ure ge ner ati ons of the da ng er. Th e tro ubl e is, the Ea rth mo ves so mu ch ov er tim e tha t no on e ca n acc ura tel y jud ge wh ere or wh en vol ca no es an d ear thq ua kes wil l tak e pla ce. On ly the pr oc ess of nat ura l de ca y, wh ich tak es hu nd re ds of tho usa nd s or ev en mil lio ns of ye ars , di mi nis hes the ra dio act ivit y of nu cle ar wa ste. htt p:/ /w ww .ny o.u ne p.o rg/ act ion /08 .ht m# ju mp 2 |
| Int ern ati on al Ato mi c En er gy Ag en cy (IA EA ) htt p:/ /w ww .es pio na gei nfo .co m/ In-I nt/ Int ern ati on al- Ato mi c-E ner gy- Ag en cy- IA EA .ht ml |
| Int ern ati on al Sto ra ge of Co m me rci al Sp ent Fu el an d Hi gh- Le vel Wa ste: Co nsi de rati ons for U.S . Ap pr ov al to Shi p Sp ent Fu el wit h U.S .-O rig in Ur ani um to Ru ssi a for Sto ra ge an d Dis po sal |
| Dr. Ale x R. Bu rka rt, De put y Dir ect or, Bu rea u of No np roli fer ati on, Jan et M. Go rn, Se nio r For eig n Aff air s Off ice r, Bu rea u of No np roli fer ati on Pre pa re d Re ma rks to the Co nfe ren ce Wa shi ngt on, DC Jul y 18, 20 05 htt p:/ /w ww .nti .or g/ e_r ese arc h/o ffic ial _d ocs /d os/ do s07 18 05. |
| Some Writing from a Political Campaign promoting peace through renewable energy, civilized medicine, and respect for human rights. |