Nuclear Waste on the Lakes

Canadian Nuclear regulators are trying to use the newly elected pretty boy of Canadian politics, Justin Trudeau, to set up a disastrous nuclear waste storage site not far from the Great Lakes.

The planned Deep Geological Depository would be twice as big as the White House and as deep as four Washington Monuments. It would be used to store 50 years worth of low level radioactive waste created by Ontario nuclear power plants. (Actually nuclear cancer sites. Put a pin in where there is a nuclear power plant and look at the cancer rates around the plant. I'll bet they are higher. Want to guess why?)

In its depth, the DGC would be within a mile of the bottom of Lake Huron, and by connection, the entire Great Lakes. The Great Lakes provides fresh drinking water to over 40 million people (provided it isn't being pushed through lead pipes and have industrial waste pumped and dumped into it). The Great Lakes is also 20% of the world's fresh water. One accident and ...

Can you say “Disaster waiting to happen?”

I can.

Proponents claim that the rock is solid and that it hasn't moved in thousands of years. There's a simple reason for that.

It hasn't been dug into.

Everyone that I know that does excavation work says that when you dig into an area you weaken it. That is why they build cinder block walls, put re-bar in, and pour in tons of concrete. To strengthen and stabilize the walls of the foundation and prevent it from caving in.

Now I haven't seen the plans, but I sincerely doubt that they are planning on extensive reinforcing of the walls. It sounds to me like they are planning on the rock being that strong on its own.

Never mind that right here in WNY is a very long and dangerous fault that hasn't gone off in a long time. (I'll have to dig up the name.) All I know is that the last time it decided to slip we wound up with the Clarence Escarpment. Go on Goodrich Road in Clarence and drive north from Main Street (Route 5) and pay attention to the right hand side of the road. You can see the evidence of the late 1800's earthquake. Turn to the right on Salt Road (I believe) and you can go into a small park that lets you look at a whole lot worse damage.

And who's to say that another fault in the area of the proposed vault won't start problems?

And contrary to the article in the Sunday Buffalo News, nuclear power is not clean. One only needs to look at the mining process to see the piles of radioactive waste left behind. Then there is the refining process that produces even more waste. And then the actual running of the plant that produces all the garbage that they want to store.

And it is far from inexpensive. A long time ago on Project Censored I heard a podcast (from their radio show) that went into how expensive and polluting nuclear power is. And then there is their coverage of the Fukushima disaster. CounterSpin had a similar story on as well. Nuclear power plants cost a minimum of 400% of the initial cost. They usually go much higher and are always behind schedule and way over budget.

To be kind, this is a bad idea on the part of the Ontario and Canadian government.

There is no way that the Canadian government can keep the DGC safe from any sort of natural disaster.

Then again, the best way to deal with nuclear waste is to never create it in the first place.

But that's too logical.

Environmentalists & socialists demand:

NO to the Deep Geological Depository. The fresh water of the Great Lakes is not worth risking.

NO to nuclear power – Use the money to advance solar, wind, and tidal energy platforms instead.

NO to subsidies for the nuclear energy industry.

When I say “green energy” I'm not talking about something that glows in the dark and gives you cancer.

Ban the Bomb Trains

Frackers and tar sands advocates are having a problem getting their deadly products to markets.

People are fighting against the pipelines: KXL is pretty much a dead deal and people are now becoming aware of the back door pipeline that they want to use to get the oil to Texas for refining and export.

The Constitution Pipeline in Eastern NY is under constant attack for environmental reasons (wetlands) and passing too close to a nuclear power plant. (If that plant weren't deadly enough on its own.)

The Northern Access Pipeline is running into many problems from activists in Wheatfield and Pendleton. (They don't want the noise or the fire hazard from the compressor.)

So the oil barons have only one choice left – trains.

And people are protesting the “bomb trains” as they have become known – no thanks to a fiery explosion in Lac-Mégantic Quebec that destroyed numerous houses and businesses and killed 47 people.

And good old Senator Schumer thinks he has a solution – get the old and unsafe single hull tanker cars off the tracks and use different tanker cars to haul the oil.

There is only one way to safely handle tar sands oil and fracked oil and gas.

And that is to leave it in the ground.

Plain and simple.

The process of producing the oil and gas is deadly and unsafe for the people that live around the areas and the workers. Just look at the cancer rates of those people and that alone should be enough to end the discussion. Add to that the water, land, and air contamination and it's a real case closed argument.

That is, if anyone would listen.

And the only way to process the tar sands and fracked oil and gas is to use highly deadly and toxic chemicals. How deadly? So deadly that the companies won't release what chemicals they use and in what concentrations (claiming “trade secrets.” Seriously. All someone has to do is test the water of a contaminated well and they know how much benzene, etc is being used.)

So the companies want to ship that deadly soup by rail, across rural communities that are under burn bans, and through cities. Pull out a map of Buffalo and look at the rail road tracks and rail yards. Not a much as was in the early 20^th Century, but still enough that a fire could prove dangerous and costly.

Look at the fire at Ft McMurray in Alberta. Do we want to risk that in Eastern NY's mountainous terrain or anywhere in WNY or Central NY? None of those areas are friendly to fire fighting. Then again, no field fire is friendly to fire fighting.

And then there are the rail bridges that go over the Niagara River and into Canada. Imagine a rail disaster over the Niagara River? Clean up the mess that goes over the Falls. Can you say “economy killer?” No one is going on the Maid of the Mist or other tour boats with that mess barrelling down the river. (Don't bother telling me how much water goes over the Falls. I know. It's the psychology of it all.)

So, what needs to be done?

We need a green energy economy that puts an end to dependence upon oil and gas. We need a New Deal driven plan that helps us put more solar panels, wind turbines, and tidal turbines into use. (For that matter, I hear that the winds between the skyscrapers in NYC get pretty blustery. Any way to capture and utilize that wind? Small urban turbines. Coming soon to the side of a skyscraper near you.)

We need to leave the tar sands in the land, leave the oil in the soil, and stop fracking for gas.

If I want gas that bad, there are plenty of greasy spoon and hole in the wall restaurants that I can stop in at.

Then again, given the dangers of methane gas and global warming, perhaps I should avoid them too.

Just like we need to avoid the bomb trains.

Banning Biosolids

A state Supreme Court Justice has upheld Wheatfield's ban on using biosolids as fertilizer.

And what are biosolids?

Take sewage, strip out the water, use microbes to turn the sludge into methane (a greenhouse gas that pollutes the air and contributes to global warming and climate change), and look at what is left. That crap (quite literally) is what is called biosolids.

And Wheatfield has won a court case that allows it to ban the use of biosolids as fertilizer.

The companies that promote the use of this crap are a little upset that they have this byproduct that they can do nothing with. They are promoting it for use as fertilizer, but what the town is concerned about (and the companies can not prove) is that it is safe to use as a fertilizer.

And no harm proven yet does not mean safe in the eyes of the community.

Key fact: It has been shown that waste treatment plants can not filter out medication from the water.

So, someone takes a statin, birth control pill, or other drug, it goes through their digestive tract and they excrete out a portion of that drug. Undigested.

Now the waste treatment plant filters out the crap, treats the water, and sends it out into the watershed. And it has been tested and found contaminated with prescription (and other) drugs. (A little speed with your night time sleeping pill? Or maybe some birth control medication with your Viagara or Cialis?)

OK. What about the crap? It's literally what is left behind. In a semi-liquid form.

And the companies that are extracting the methane have to do something with the waste, which is nitrogen rich. So they want to treat it like cow manure and spread it on crop land as fertilizer. (I mis typed that as crap land. But that is pretty much what it turns into. And having lived in the country, you can tell when it is being spread. No one likes to be outside at that time. Especially if it is hot.)

Better yet, sell it as a fertilizer and make a profit off of it,

First the people of Wheatfield want to know that it is safe to be used as fertilizer.

And the company that is producing it locally can not do so.

Never mind that the nitrogen that runs off of the farms to the west of Lake Erie are what produced the toxic algae blooms.

Never mind that the nitrogen runoff from farms around the Mississippi River watershed are what produced the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. (The water is so contaminated and oxygen dead that nothing can live in it.)

And the biosolid companies want us to think that the byproduct of their greenhouse gas producing process is safe.

Try again.

Environmentalists and socialists demand:

1. An end to the production of greenhouse gas production.

2. A state wide ban on the use of biosolids as fertilizer

3. The implementation of higher water filtration and quality standards for wastewater treatment

4. Sustainable and non-polluting farming and fertilizer practices implemented

Fracking Damage

The US Geological Survey has (finally) begun to do testing on water near fracking waste water storage sites.

And the results are not promising for the frackers. Then again, the frackers knew they were damaging the environment in many different ways. They were not always clear on how they were damaging the environment and the water near their sites.

But we are now starting to receive hard scientific data on the damage being done and the frackers are not going to like it.

First was the chemicals that were found in the water near fracking waste sites: barium, bromide, calcium, chloride, sodium, lithium, and strontium. I suspect that this is not a full list of the chemicals that they found. I do suspect that the report was first given to the frackers and they then decided what chemical names could be released and how the names could be released. Many fracking companies have patents, etc on their cocktails that they use in fracking, so it is technically illegal for anyone to release their names.

Do a little research on these chemicals and you will find them none too friendly to the human body. Animals seem to be smart enough to stay away from water supplies laced with these toxic chemicals. Humans, not so much.

That is, unless the animals can't escape. Like fish and other wildlife that live in the water.

Then they suffer problems that they can not escape from.

It seems that there are endocrine disruptors in the fracking water and fish that are near to or downstream from fracking water storage sites have gender issues. It appears that male small mouth bass are having their testicles changed into ovaries by the chemicals in the water.

The gender bending was first noticed in smaller microbes that I suspect that the small mouth bass ate. Now, how many fishermen go out fishing for these bass and eat them? Or feed them to their families? What is the impact of these endocrine disruptors on them and other species that eat the bass?

I imagine that the consequences of eating these fish, over time, is not too healthy for anyone or any animal.

And all along the fracking companies knew that there would be problems.

They just weren't sure of all the problems that their get rich quick scheme would create.

And, sadly, there won't be any consequences for what they have done to the environment or to people.

Socialists demand an end to fracking for a wide variety of reasons.

-It contaminates water supplies

-It contaminates the land

-It contaminates the air

-The fire hazards at the well sites

-There is no way to safely transport fracked gas

-There is no way to safely store fracking waste water and chemicals

-The cancer risks from fracking chemicals (to the well workers)

I can go on about the global warming and climate change problems of a carbon based economy.

And now we add this to the mix.

Socialists say “NO” to fracking and demand that the fracking companies and their owners (past and present) clean up all the environmental damage that they have done out of their own pockets.

It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to clean up corporate America's mess.

May Socialist Action Newspaper is Out!

Always a good read, the May 2016 Socialist Action newspaper is out.

And the writers have plenty of reports, ideas, and actions to report on.

Into saving the environment? Lead story is all for you (and the capitalists won't like it because itpaints them as the problem. And they are.)

The Fight for $15 gets an article as does a commentary on saving capitalists butts from capitalism.

Socialism and labor unions go hand in hand and are articles on the Chicago Teachers and the Verizon strike.

Foreign policy and Hillary's claims are nicely dissected – with a feature on the Honduran coup that the US staged years ago. And the ongoing disaster that followed.

Our Canadian Comrades talk about the fight for socialism up in Canada. Unlike the US, at least our Canadian Comrades have some voice in the political discussion and we receive analysis of the situation north of the border.

We receive a little history of the Irish War of Independence with a retrospective of the 1916 uprising. Written by a sympathetic socialist organization in Ireland, we receive their point of view on what happened – not some ivory towered intellectual that only studied it and tends to ignore the working class.

Art features give us a movie review on drones (death from above!)  and review of Laura Poitras' (of Wikileaks fame) art display.

All that for a buck.

And you will spend more time thinking about it and digging up more information on these various topics than if you spent that buck on a copy of the local paper that ignores the socialist and workers' perspective.

So, if you don't subscribe, do so and soon. We are working on the next issue.

And if you like what you read enough, consider joining.

You have nothing to lose but the chains that bind you.

And breaking the mental chains is the first step.

Privatizers in Peril

I hate being sick.

Or PaladiNO in Peril.

Or something catchy.

That being said, the push to privatize Buffalo's Public Schools sits in peril, much to the Buffalo News' dismay.

The former 5-4 majority, run by residential loud mouth and publicly subsidized capitalist Carl PaladiNO suffered a major setback when the forces of privatization with the loss of 2 seats. PaladiNO nearly lost his seat to a Hutch Tech senior who has the right idea (students should have a representative on the board. Can you say “consent of the governed?”)

Now the privatizers have only 3 seats on the School Board, which gives those of us that want to see public schools run for the public and by the public a brief breathing period. School Board seats are up every 2 years and this means another fight in2 years. Laurels are not meant to be rested upon. (If you are resting upon your laurels, they are on the wrong end of your body.)

So between now and the start of the new fiscal year (July if my memory serves me correctly) we have to fight to make sure that the current 5 seat majority doesn't “slip us a mickey” with rules, changes, and policies that make it possible for them to continue their push to take our schools away from us.

One key thing that I noticed in all these arguments over the schools is that we can do what needs to be done without privatization.

Hire more teachers so that we can have smaller class sizes for our students? Easily done.

Create community schools so that students aren't spending an hour (one way) going to school? We had that back in the 1970's. Granted the schools were segregated and that was a real problem. Also the uneven funding of schools was a problem. Did we need to ship students all over blazes to integrate the schools? Or were there simple changes in the lines that the schools served needed? And equitable funding is best addressed at the Board Office and is a problem of the Board Office. Better oversight would have addressed that.

There is now a stronger possibility that the teachers' contract will be settled. Good. That will make it much more possible to attract new teachers to the district. No teacher likes to work in a district that had an ongoing contract dispute. How many teachers left because of the contract dispute? How did that hurt the ever precious test scores?

Oh yeah – that's right. This is all about the test scores and how the students in Buffalo aren't measuring up and can't perform.

The district can only hire reading and other specialists to address that problem.

The real solution is out in the business world. It's called creating good paying jobs (with benefits) for the working class. Then parents can afford housing, food, clothes and other amenities for their children. Then they (the parents) don't have to move around and destabilize their (and their children's' lives) with all the chaos that goes with moving.

Then again, the 1% don't want to do any of that because it means cutting into the profits that they need to make for Wall Street so that they can have a meaningless good looking stock rating.

Hint – Wall Street doesn't matter.

The children do.

It's time for Carl PaladiNO and co to start doing for the people of Buffalo, Eric County, and NY what they claim that they can do.

And that's not going to happen if they are wasting time trying to privatize schools.

Time to get to work.

Socialist Demand:

1. Solving the teacher's contract and sealing the deal so that the teachers get a fair contract.

2. Hiring more teachers and specialists to provide for smaller class sizes and better instructional support.

3. Equitable funding for schools in poorer neighborhoods and better support for the students,

4. Community schools that provide for the needs of the students in that community.

When?

Starting now.

Ft McMurray, NY

I will not elaborate much on the Fort McMurray tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes on TV and the Internet. It is a distinctly human made tragedy.

The only way it could get worse is if it hits the tar sands &refineries and they go up in a blaze of idiocy.

That's how I view tar sands mining.

Let's bring this home to Western New York.

I have a friend that lives in Delevan – a small community in Cattaraugus County, In his words, he's on the south side of the Arcade & Attica Railroad. A nice museum trip if you decide to take it. Pay for the ticket to ride inside the coach because, depending upon how the winds blow, it can get real smoky real fast.

In April, in a community “a country mile” away from him there was a field fire. No big deal, right? Except, because of the extremely dry winter, there is a “burn ban” in effect. Basically, no burning fires outside because of the fire risk. Just like in a very hot and dry summer with next to no rain. (If I remember correctly, that is the forecast for this summer. What Alberta has now. Hopefully minus the fires.)

Near the community will be the pipeline that National Fuel wants to use to pump fracked gas from Pennsylvania to Canada.

What if that pipeline breaks and a fire starts?

Burn ban in effect because of dryness and we have a fire problem. The pipeline safety protocols never work as advertised. Look at any of the disasters. Safety protocols failed in every case. It is rare that they actually do work.

Or if a fire gets out of control in Pennsylvania's part of the Allegheny Park system. It's not going to say “I started in PA so I'd better stay here.” It's going to go where there's fuel. And there is plenty of fuel to burn in that state park. Which is pretty dry right now. Unless we get a ton of rain this weekend. (He says he'd like that. It's dry and the farmers need rain for crops. Seriously – how do you think we get the food we eat?) So we could get a PA fracking gas fire going up to the NY Southern tier.

And I seriously doubt that fighting house fires is anything like fighting a massive field fire or a gas fire. On top of that, most of the fire departments in Cattaraugus and Chatauqua Counties are mostly volunteer departments. This isn't Erie County or Niagara where they have professionally staffed departments on call all the time. They have a few professionals and the rest (more likely all) are volunteers.

And they are going to be able to take time off from work to fight a fire the size of the McMurray fire? Or the size of Allegheny State Park?

Time to step into reality.

Josh Fox was recently in Pendleton to help in the fight against the Northern Access Pipeline. I'm sure he showed Gasland. I believe he is up to volume 2. He spoke of the dangers of fracking. Now we need to look at the worst case scenarios because we are seeing one in Alberta.

And prevention is the best cure.

The best way to prevent Fort McMurray in WNY is to stop the Northern Access Pipeline and shipping of fracked gas through Western New York. Period.

And we need to recognize that the fight against fracking knows no boundaries.

So PA's fight against fracking is ours.

Socialists Demand:

1. A ban on fracking in NY, PA, and across the USA.

2. A firm “NO” to the Northern Access Pipeline Project.

3. An end to fossil fuel dependency and subsidies.

4. More support from NY and DC into renewable energy.

We only have one planet.

Let's take care of it for our children's sake.

Health Care

It never fails.

Our school gets a book fair and I get the flu.

I swear someone I the warehouse has it in for me.

Either that or they are sick and the company that they work with does not offer sick days.

And they might offer health insurance.

But over 2000 doctors signed a statement recently advocating for a single payer health care system.

The Affordable Care Act isn't covering everyone and the costs are set to rise.

And drug costs are not exactly cheap.

But the US is one of 2 nations that allow for direct to consumer advertising of medications. And I have read in numerous places where 60% of the cost of a drug is tied up in advertising costs. Not Research and Development but advertising to average every day people. Most of them don't need the drugs but they pester the doctor until he/she gives in.

At my most recent physical the doctor wrote me a prescription for a statin drug even though I didn't need it. It was called “preventive medication for when I would need it.”

They had no idea when that would be. And I'm pretty much a vegetarian and don't have high cholesterol of any kind.

Then again, the office has a manager that oversees day to day business and evidently has a quota for prescriptions. I recycled the papers that they gave me and never picked up the prescription.

So, how do we keep people healthy?

Single payer for all.

Eliminate direct to consumer advertising.

And plenty of sleep and liquids.

And avoid doctor offices with quotas.

Swords into Plowshares

Father Daniel Berrigan died last week. The social justice movement has lost a great voice and a great leader.

Daniel started his work during the 1960's with the Vietnam War protests. Imagine someone being bold enough today to walk into a military recruiting office, taking recruitment records outside, and burning them. Or at least smashing the computer and erasing the hard drive.

He later, with a group of people, would break into a General Electric plant that was manufacturing missile warheads and hammer on them. “Beating swords into plowshares” as the Bible calls it.

He actively worked against social issues that we socialists could support – anti-war and militarism, capital punishment, bigotry, indifference to the poor, among others. If I remember correctly, he was heavily involved in the protests against the “School of the Americas” - a military institution at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the US trained comprador members of foreign military organizations and anti-democratic organizations how to commit war crimes.

All issues that socialists can support and agree upon.

He opposed abortion as well – it's his prerogative as a Catholic to be opposed to it. But in all the interviews I've seen and listened to of him, he never brought it up as an issue. Or if he did, it was part of the bigger pro-life message that he made as his work. (Let's face it, war is murder. Not feeding the hungry is a slow consignment to death. How many innocent lives were ended in death sentences? Step back for a second and look at his total life's work as being pro-life in a different way.)

At his funeral service during the communion offering, when the bread and wine is brought to the altar for consecration, a hammer and a plowshare will also be offered. It might as well have been a sickle.

I wonder how sympathetic he was towards socialism and socialist ideals.

And I wonder how many Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other religious minded people are sympathetic towards socialism but get a cold shoulder from us for whatever reason we choose to use.

I will admit, I like an old Christian church service with the Latin Mass and Gregorian chant going on. Something relaxing about it.

Then again, reading through the Torah and the writings of the prophets I see many references to social justice and social responsibility. Not exactly something to sneeze at.

So, could we have a united front with religious minded people?

Can a person be religious-socialist?

Could we expand our influence and reach by embracing common ground on specific issues and respectfully disagreeing on the rest?

I had a student say that he was opposed to gay marriage but that trying to outlaw it was stupid because it wasn't going to stop people from practicing homosexuality. And I've heard religious minded people say that they preferred people using birth control to abortion. Not every right winger is a total nut job.

So, we disagree on abortion, but could you imagine the power of having those who actually opposed war, the way immigrants are treated, the way Muslims and other non-Christian faiths are treated, those who are opposed to the misuse of the death sentence and other racial issues join us in an action?

Can you see the numbers growing because not every religious minded person is of the pro-capitalist fundamentalist strain?

Early socialism in America counted on religious support. In the 1930's the Catholic Workers Movement was influential and the work of Dorothy Day was well known. He name even comes up in the occasional high school text book.

Can we get them to join us and be on our side when we are in agreement and when not, be respectful in disagreeing. Life isn't a Fox News shouting match.

I like the idea of turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

Is there fertile ground for us to work with religious activists on some issues?

Buffalo News Battles Unions

The sub-title to the headline says it all about the Buffalo Snooze's opinion of the Buffalo School Board election/race: Union-backed candidates appear to have edge in money and manpower over the majority block.

Well, duh?

First: There are more union people than majority block(ing progress) candidates. There are more people that are sick of all the attacks on teachers. There are more people that are getting sick of all the testing that tells us nothing of what a student is truly capable of. So, I don't see the problem here.

And as far as manpower goes – it's called organizing. It's what unions do. When everybody is fighting for themselves, it's divide and conquer and the workers lose. So, when the workers band together to make their voices heard it's a bad thing? 

Can we get some clarification on that?

Second: Money. Carl PaladiNO doesn't have money to spend? Seriously? This so called self made millionaire doesn't have money to buy TV, radio,and newspaper ads?

Wait – He's been getting them free since he first ran and was elected to the Board of Education. Any time there's a question to be asked of the Board, whom do I get to see and hear from? The media's favorite go to guy: Carl PaladiNO.

And if someone were to weigh out all the actual cost of all the free advertising that Carl has received over the years, the union has not out-spent him at all. Corporate Buffalo Media has outspent the union.

I rarely hear from anyone in the union on issues affecting education. I'm sure it would be nice to have a Buffalo Teacher's Federation spokesperson on as much as PaladiNO has been. It would have at least given us (those that have paid for PaladiNO's tax breaks/corporate welfare) more information.

The Snooze just wants the people of Buffalo to roll over and play dead while corporate America rolls on in and takes over the city. Not too dead – someone has to pay for all that corporate welfare and they don't want it to be them.

If the editors were serious about reforming education in Buffalo they would provide information that shows that all this testing actually does improve education and achievement.

To date they have provided nothing at all that supports their claim.

Then again,  there is no information that supports that claim,  so.....

Does the Buffalo School District need help because students are struggling to achieve? 

Yes.

But the News has done nothing to address the number one cause of educational dysfunction – poverty.

Buffalo needs to address the issue of poverty, but that means attacking corporate America and the people that own the News.

It's just easier to attack teachers and say that they are the problem.

Well, the teachers and other unions have said “No more.”

And they are not throwing their hands up in the air and walking out of the ring.

They are lacing up their gloves, wiping off the sweat and showing what the power of numbers can do.

And the News doesn't like it.

So the Buffalo Snooze has a problem with the Buffalo Teacher's Federation and associated unions getting together and fighting against a corporate takeover of the school system?

I'd say they have a different problem – It's a problem with democracy.