Is the Bronx Burning?: A Community Forum:

NUCLEAR POWER, AND THE INDIAN POINT NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Are they PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM?

Saturday, Nov. 21, 2015
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

St. Ann’s Episcopal Church
295 St. Ann’s Avenue (at E.140th St.)
Bronx, New York 10454

Indian Point is located less than 25 miles from us, just a 30 minute drive from the Bronx. It’s an aging facility, long past its expected expiration date. There have been a number of accidents and breakdowns over the years, all of which had the potential for disaster, placing all our lives in grave danger. It’s a ticking time bomb…AND… we no longer need it to supply our electricity.

Shut Down Indian Point Now! invites you to attend a grassroots community forum where we will explore the following questions:

• Can we afford to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant
• Can we afford not to shut down Indian Point?
• Do we need to move towards 100% clean, green renewable energy, with livable-wage, green renewable jobs for Bronx residents, with all deliberate speed (but no later than 2030!)?
• If 100% clean, green renewable energy is the objective, is nuclear energy part of the solution…or part of the problem?

(HINT: What does clean, renewable energy have to do with asthma rates in the South Bronx? With livable-wage jobs in the South Bronx? With housing for poor and working people in the Bronx?)

A Question & Answer discussion will follow the presentation

Confirmed speakers (list in formation):

• Tim Judson (Nuclear Information & Resource Service – NIRS)
• Alfred Meyer (Physicians for Social Responsibility – PSR)
• Catherine Skopic (Shut Down Indian Point Now! -SDIPN!)

Welcome by Rev. Martha Overall (St. Ann’s Episcopal Church)

Introduction by Carl Lundgren (Chair, Shut Down Indian Point Now! -SDIPN!)

Co-sponsors (list in formation):

• 350NYC
• Bronx Climate Change North
• Bronx Greens/Verdes del Bronx
• Food and Water Watch
• Green Ecosocialist Movement
• Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
• Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition
• Manhattan Green Party Local
• New York Friends of Clearwater
• Peace Action Staten Island
• South Bronx Community Congress
• United for Action

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DIRECTIONS:

Subway: #6 train to Brook Ave. Walk East one block to St. Ann’s Ave; walk North two blocks on St. Ann’s Ave. Church is on your left; #2, 5 train to Prospect Ave. Transfer to Southbound BX17 bus and exit at the St. Ann’s Ave/E. 141st St. stop. Walk South on St. Ann’s Ave. a few yards. Church is on your right. Alternately: #2 train to W 135th St. Transfer to Eastbound Bx33 bus; exit at the Brook Ave./E. 138th St. stop. Walk East one block to St. Ann’s Ave; walk North two blocks on St. Ann’s Ave. Church is on left.

Bus: Eastbound Bx33 bus; exit at the Brook Ave./E. 138th St. stop. Walk East one block to St. Ann’s Ave; walk North two blocks on St. Ann’s Ave. Church is on your left. Southbound BX17 bus; exit at the St. Ann’s Ave./E. 141st St. stop. Walk South on St. Ann’s Ave. a few yards. Church is on your right.

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Sources include Coalition Against Nukes (C.A.N.), Enformable, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (S.A.P.E.), as well as postings from Shut Down Indian Point Now.

City of Water Day Festival – Governors Island – July 18, 2015

SDIPN will be tabling at the 2015 City of Water Day Festival on Governors Island. If you’d like to help out or for more info, contact Catherine Skopic – 212-227-7847 / catherineskopic@yahoo.com.

The City of Water Day Festival is a free day-long celebration of the world-class potential of the water that surrounds us and brings us together. Held on Governors Island, New York and Maxwell Place Park in Hoboken, New Jersey, the event draws thousands of people from throughout the New York-New Jersey metropolitan region to participate in hundreds of unique, fun, and educational waterfront activities organized by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA) and its over 800 Alliance Partners. The events run between 10am and 4pm on Saturday July 18, 2015.

Visit the website – www.cityofwaterday.org – for details and directions.

Lucky Thirteen

Our Call to Action in support of City Council Resolution 0694 can chalk up two more successful efforts this week with the signing on of of our 12th & 13th Council Members: Karen Koslowitz, District 29 Queens and our first CM from the Bronx, Ritchie Torres, District 15.

If you reside in those districts, give their offices a call and thank them. With each CM who co-sponsors, we move one step closer to shutting down our own potential Fukushima.

If you’d like to help, please visit our Call to Action page and follow the instructions for contacting your Council Member and urging them to co-sponsor this resolution.

Our immediate goal is to get 34 co-sponsors so that the resolution will be veto proof.

Join SDIPN at the Left Forum this Sunday

A short report and (some pics) from the LOISAIDA Festival

We had a fun and productive day at the LOISAIDA Festival yesterday. The weather was with us if not a little windy at times. Tabling with me were Ann Eagan, Marty Rajandran, Catherine Skopic and Tom Siracuse. Also at the event were members Ken Gale and Matt Borenstein. We were tabling in the “green zone,” the area designated for environmental groups. We were there along with the Raging Grannies, United for Action and Riverkeeper, among others.

We shared our table with the 6th Street Community Center, which provided chairs and tables for us (thank you, Howard Brandstein), and with David Galarza, who was petitioning for a group trying to halt the construction of a garbage incinerator in Arecibo PR. We also met Bronx community and political activist, Ed Figueroa, who was just across from us with the group “33 Mujeres,” which is fighting for the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera.

The festival kicked off with a short parade, including a marching band organized, coincidentally, by a neighbor of mine from my block in the Bronx (she’s been telling me for the past three years that she was going to find the funding to do this).

SDIPN tabled with information about the City Council Resolution, various flyers, our “shut down” petition, and sign up sheets. We filled seven petition sheets, and signed up eight new people, including Eileen Bardel with Peace Action of Staten Island, who also joined our Action Committee. Eileen invited me to speak at their next meeting on June 11, to explain how her members can get involved with SDIPN.

We also had drawing materials available for children, whom we asked to “Paint us a picture of the world you want to see:”

Our thanks to everyone who helped to make our participation in the festival go off without a hitch.

Explosion, Fire, Oil Spill at Indian Point Nuclear Power Facility

Around 6:00 pm Saturday evening, a transformer at the Indian Point nuclear power facility in Buchanan NY – just 25 miles from the NYC border – exploded and burst into flame. No injuries were reported but independent monitors recorded a spike in radioactive emissions of 2 -3 times the normal rate. Emergency crews initially put out the fire but it burst into flames again later on. The explosion ruptured the transformer causing a leak of the oil used to cool it, which went into a holding tank that then overflowed, discharging  thousands of gallons of the oil into the Hudson River. The explosion also initiated a shut down of the #3 reactor as a precaution. There’s no word yet when it will go back on line.  More information is provided in the articles and reports linked below.

An incident like this only adds to our argument for the complete shutdown and decommissioning of Indian Point.  A number of concerns and issues need to be restated at this time:

SDIPN at the 2015 Left Forum

SDIPN will be presenting a panel at this year’s Left Forum from May 29 – 31, hosted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The theme this year is “No Justice, No Peace: Confronting the Crises of Capitalism and Democracy.”

We’ll make the connection between the Black Lives Matter Movement and groups like SDIPN that are fighting for environmental justice by confronting the lies and distortions that  corporations like Entergy are distributing in communities of color in their effort to promote nuclear energy as a “clean and green” alternative to fossil fuels.

The date and time of our panel has not yet been announced. Check back for further information as we receive it.