This brochure was passed on to me recently, which argues against nuclear power particularly in the midwest/ Great Lakes area, due to the industry's potential effects on air, water, and soil.
The brochure, which you can download below, discusses the Great Lakes and Nuclear Power from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service:
Download GreatLakes
The NIRS also has a page about connections between environmental justice and nuclear energy, which can be found here.
The brochure discusses both the short term and long term (really, really long term) health and environmental effects of nuclear energy production.
While I am no advocate of coal energy, nuclear energy also makes me quite uncomfortable.
Years ago, with a geology field trip through the University of Georgia, I had the opportunity to tour Yucca Mountain-- the potential nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada. The geologists employed by the waste storage program had some very different ideas about permeability and stability than some other non-affiliated scientists with whom we were traveling. That's me on the left, with a friend standing next to the huge, multi-million dollar machine that was used to drill deep into the earth for the potential waste storage.
There are other geologists who feel that Yucca Mountain is not suitable for waste storage, including the author of this 2001 Open Letter, Leuren Moret.
One of the many connections between environmental justice and nuclear waste storage is that Nevada, like many other potential storage sites, is seen by many Americans as a largely empty place where storage and testing can be accomplished with no negative environmental effects. The people who live in the state beg to differ, though.
It's no fun living near environmentally risky business operations, especially when you live near more of them than other people in your country. Looking at the map of nuclear facilities close to either Michigan or the Great Lakes, I think we have more than our share, and are hardly in need of more.
There is hardly across-the-board agreement on this issue, though. The African American Environmentalist Association supports nuclear power.
What do you think?
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