On August 6, 2022, the anniversary of the United States detonating atomic bombs over Hiroshima, Mothers for Peace members and supporters gathered at the Mission in downtown San Luis Obispo to remember the victims of nuclear weapons as well as the threats from the nuclear industry.
The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed as many as 210,000 people, most of them civilians. Survivors, and their offspring, experienced increased rates of cancers and chronic illness, but the tragic consequences go beyond the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must also remember those living in or near nuclear test sites, uranium mines and processing facilities, nuclear laboratories whose experiments went awry, nuclear waste facilities and nuclear power plants.
Messages ranged from a plea for nuclear nations to ratify the nuclear ban treaty, urging TEPCO and Japan to stop the release of radioactively contaminated water from Fukushima into the Pacific, to shutting down Diablo Canyon, the last operating nuclear plant in California.
Around the same time, half a world away, a rocket strike landed frighteningly close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s spent fuel storage area. 174 casks are stored there, each containing 24 assemblies of spent nuclear fuel — reminding us that a nuclear plant is a nuclear bomb waiting to be detonated.
This is just another reason why Diablo Canyon MUST shut down no later than 2024 and 2025 as agreed upon in 2016 by PG&E, the California Public Utilities Commission, consumer advocacy and environmental groups.
Please attend the August 12 remote workshop being held by the California Energy Commission (CEC), Office of Governor Newsom, and the California Independent System Operator (ISO) to discuss California’s energy situation and the plan to extend the operating license of Diablo Canyon. There will be time allotted for public comment.
It’s crucial that we attend and/or send comments in great numbers expressing strong dissent on the proposal to continue operation of Diablo Canyon beyond 2025.
Click here for details for attendance and key messaging points.