Arrangements can be made to rendez-vous with the “Mobile Chernobyl” as well as for live or phone interviews.
WHAT: PHOTO-OP
Full-size replica of a high-level radioactive waste highway transportation container (dumb bell shaped metallic cylinder, 18 feet long by 8 feet tall, on a trailer), emblazoned with colorful radioactivity and danger symbols and such slogans as: “Stop the Mobile Chernobyl!”, “Danger! High-Level Radioactive Waste,” “Mobile X-Ray Machine That Cannot Be Turned Off,” “Department of Entropy,” and “Nuclear Rust-ulatory Commission”.
WHEN:
Morning Rush Hour (7:00 to 10:00 a.m.) and Afternoon Rush Hour (3:30 to 6:30 p.m.), Friday, April 26 (the 16 th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe)
WHERE:
Circling the I-495/I-95 Beltway around Washington, D.C. Side trips to the Calvert Cliffs nuclear reactors in Lusby, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay and to the Howard Street Tunnel in downtown Baltimore (scene of the July 2001 train tunnel fire that burned out of control for several days had high-level nuclear waste been aboard, hundreds to thousands of deaths and injuries and $14 billion in clean up costs could have resulted).
WHY:
This “Mobile Chernobyl” protest on the 16 th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster marks the impending vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to either override or sustain Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn’s veto of the decision to move ahead with licensing the proposed national high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
Nearly 300 scientific studies at the site remain unfinished; active earthquake fault lines crisscross Yucca Mountain; the underlying drinking water supply is vulnerable to radiation contamination.
In addition, many tens of thousands of high-level atomic waste trucks, trains, and barges on the roads, rails, and waterways would be required to move the waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The targeted transport routes pass through 45 states and the District of Columbia, within a half mile of the homes of 50 million Americans. The nuclear waste shipments, which would roll through such major urban population centers as Chicago, Atlanta, Des Moines, St. Louis, and countless more cities, would be vulnerable to severe accidents and terrorist attacks that could release catastrophic amounts of radiation into the environment.
WHO:
Nuclear Information & Resource Service, the information and networking center for citizens and environmental organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation, and sustainable energy issues, works with concerned citizens and grassroots groups in each of the 45 states that would be impacted by Yucca Mountain-bound atomic waste shipments.