We will be tabling with our progeny-store Last Word Books, at this year's Antiquarian Book Fair in Seattle, at the Pavilion in the Seattle Center on Saturday and Sunday.
View our choice items featured for the Fair.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Illahee Resort Bad Business For Walla Walla
Okay, so most of this is my own opinion I suppose, except for the links that is, but this just rings all wrong to me, as an intelligent human being who loves and supports local community and local economy. I mean come on, an out-of-town development corporation comes in, low-bids a chunk of land right next to our water supply, gets a cheaper price than any local residents, sells the first home to the Port Commissioner and wants to start some bourgeois
golf course for out-of-town wine snobs?
There's gotta be a better way to take their money and keep it in our town. Don't they read anything other than books on wine or art? Don't they shop at Earthlight? Don't they realize how cool we are already, without them? Granted, those books do cost a fair deal of money and we do like their money, but why sell out our land and water to another company from another state when we could capitalize on the scenario sustainably and locally and reap a higher percentage of the profits while we personally improve our own amazing town? We have so much history, why spend our heritage in some other store when we have our own silos to fill and share with our neighbors. And ya know what? I just don't wanna look at it every time I drive to my family's cabin that was built in 1919. Plain and simple. Just the way we like it?
Here's some old articles I found, plus one new one. Sorry if any of the info is wrong now, I've just been pissed for awhile and stockpiling ammo. Sometimes, if the revolution takes a spell or two, the ammo gets rusty, or the spell fails to be cast.
Walla Walla 2020's website
Walla Walla 2020 keeps eye on area - this one's actually good news, I guess, especially since the UB printed it!
New Golf Project Slated For Walla Walla
Jacobsen Hardy to Commence Work on Walla Walla Course
‘Don’t Bend Walla Walla,’ locals argue
Walla Walla doesn't want to be like Bend
The Town That Doesn't Want to Bend: Walla Walla citizens see Bend as a model of how not to grow
Here's Abito's Website
more to follow, thanks for staying tuned over the tedious months
golf course for out-of-town wine snobs?
There's gotta be a better way to take their money and keep it in our town. Don't they read anything other than books on wine or art? Don't they shop at Earthlight? Don't they realize how cool we are already, without them? Granted, those books do cost a fair deal of money and we do like their money, but why sell out our land and water to another company from another state when we could capitalize on the scenario sustainably and locally and reap a higher percentage of the profits while we personally improve our own amazing town? We have so much history, why spend our heritage in some other store when we have our own silos to fill and share with our neighbors. And ya know what? I just don't wanna look at it every time I drive to my family's cabin that was built in 1919. Plain and simple. Just the way we like it?
Here's some old articles I found, plus one new one. Sorry if any of the info is wrong now, I've just been pissed for awhile and stockpiling ammo. Sometimes, if the revolution takes a spell or two, the ammo gets rusty, or the spell fails to be cast.
Walla Walla 2020's website
Walla Walla 2020 keeps eye on area - this one's actually good news, I guess, especially since the UB printed it!
New Golf Project Slated For Walla Walla
Jacobsen Hardy to Commence Work on Walla Walla Course
‘Don’t Bend Walla Walla,’ locals argue
Walla Walla doesn't want to be like Bend
The Town That Doesn't Want to Bend: Walla Walla citizens see Bend as a model of how not to grow
Here's Abito's Website
more to follow, thanks for staying tuned over the tedious months
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Books Burn to Protest Decline in Reading - So You Say You Want A Revolution?
Man, this is fucking rad! Way to go guys! I'm crying and laughing and impressed and wishing I had a list of everything you're burning right now. Would that I could come to Kansas City to book scout.
So what do we need here now to fuel the opposite flame this one merely draws attention to? The dwindling candle of reading minds in our "great" nation. Incite celebrities and athletes to write books for children and young adults which encourage youth to read? Just finished reading Ecotopia, so of course my thoughts are lofty. But I imagine a sustainable, fully-greened publishing and textbook industry supported by a network of independent bookstores paired with local online dealers. I imagine local communities taking over Barnes and Nobles and Borders locations nationwide and localizing them, staffing them, changing the tones of them to fit the precise spot they are located. I imagine a world where we remember that reading is still looking, just with a different form of thought attached, that a picture is not worth a thousand words and sometimes, the exact opposite is true.
Dear Book Lovers;
There are worse crimes than burning books, one is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodskey
The individual who won’t read has nothing over the individual who cannot read. ~ Mark Twain
For ten years Prospero’s Books has been in the front lines of the literary arts, both as a bookseller (www.prosperosbookstore.com) and as a publisher (www.unholydaypress.com). As a used bookseller, we have put our money where our hearts are – surrendering our hours and our revenues to sharing the world of books and, more importantly, the ideas they contain with anyone who would listen.
During these ten years we have seen reading decline dramatically. The National endowment of for Arts study on literary literacy in America which painfully highlighted the rapid decline of reading in America. In our own community, we’ve watched as bookstore after bookstore has folded.
Yesterday, we performed an act of art – a wakeup call to all who value books and ideas. Over the last 10 years, Prospero’s Books has 20,000 books we’ve collected that people simply will not read. We receive hundreds more each week.
At Prospero’s we fundamentally believe that the literary arts are not dead. We believe that there is still much about the human condition and our time still needing to be said. In so saying, we challenge you to get involved in two ways:
1. email these stories to your friends
2. call your local TV, radio, newspaper, blogs, etc. and tell them what is going on
3. For $1 a book (+ postage), you can save these books from the flame. We will not take these $s as profit, but will use them to publish new books.
If we are going to again place a spotlight on the importance of books and reading, we need Your help! This is bigger than two bookstore owners in Kansas City.
My greatest fear is that as a culture, we may be beyond saving the books.
We appreciate that you have joined what we hope will become a national dialogue about the importance of books. Thank you.
Sincere Regards,
Prospero’s Bookstore
Will Leathem
Tom Wayne
More news coverage:
Fox News' Take [see evil corporation]
Yahoo's
The Hindu
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
More Dirt on Hanford
I thought some of you folks researching Hanford would find some of this information interesting, from a post of mine on Pirate Papa earlier today.
The Real Costs of Nuclear War: Radioactive Breastmilk, Birth Defects, Contaminated Food Chains
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Iacocca bashes Bush in new book: Ex-Chrysler CEO also rips Congress, but the harshest criticism goes to president's leadership.
from The Detriot News
by: Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Lee Iacocca, author of the original business management best-seller, is giving President Bush an "F" in leadership.
In a book to be released Tuesday, the former Chrysler CEO -- who supported Bush's first campaign in 2000 but backed Sen. John Kerry four years later -- accused Bush of leading the nation to war "on a pack of lies" and lacking the basic components of good leadership.
"I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while," Iacocca writes, according to excerpts from "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" released on the Web site of publisher Simon & Schuster.
The book, co-written by New York journalist Catherine Whitney, comes 23 years after Iacocca's best-selling autobiography "Iacocca," which reshaped the way the publishing industry viewed business books. USA Today recently ranked the book among the 25 most influential among publishers and readers over the past 25 years.
In addition to politics, Iacocca weighs in on his experiences at Chrysler and the future of the U.S. auto industry in typically blunt fashion.
His latest broadside is in character, said Matthew Seeger, chairman of the communication department of Wayne State University and author of a book on Iacocca's speeches.
"As he's gotten older, he's gotten more blunt, more willing to take stands on issues," Seeger said.
But tough words from Iacocca may not carry the same weight they once did, said David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan.
"Some people might have some awfully harsh criticism of Lee Iacocca, too," Cole said.
Despite his stature as the savior of Chrysler in the 1980s, Cole said, other events, including his failed bid with Kirk Kerkorian to take over the company in the 1990s, have diminished his clout.
Iacocca has described himself as a political independent, and his new book is the latest twist in political history that includes a brief flirtation with his own run for president. He had a close relationship with Democrat Gov. James Blanchard and President Reagan during his time at Chrysler; he made ads for President Bush in 2000 but made campaign appearances with Kerry four years later; and he made more ads, this time for GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, last year.
"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?" Iacocca writes. "Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.' "
Disdain for Washington is nothing new from Iacocca, said Gerald Meyers, former chairman of American Motors and a business professor at the University of Michigan. Recalling a trip to talk to lawmakers in the 1970s about the Clean Air Act, Meyers said, Iacocca had little regard for politicians.
"Zero respect. Nada. No respect whatsoever," Meyers said.
Iacocca has tough things to say about Congress, corporate America, the press and even the voters who put the nation's current leadership in power. But his harshest criticism is saved for Bush.
# He savages Bush's famous determination: "George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping," Iacocca writes. "There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty."
# He accuses Bush of substituting macho for courage: "Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk."
# And he scoffs at Bush's business-degree background: "Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters."
White House spokesman Alex Conant said he had not seen the book. "We don't do book reviews at the White House," he said.
Simon & Schuster says the book will also include Iacocca's thoughts on how U.S. businesses can compete with rising economies in China and India. And he calls for government action to address the massive health care costs facing the Detroit's automakers and other U.S. businesses.
"Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing," he writes. "Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'the Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies?"
by: Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Lee Iacocca, author of the original business management best-seller, is giving President Bush an "F" in leadership.
In a book to be released Tuesday, the former Chrysler CEO -- who supported Bush's first campaign in 2000 but backed Sen. John Kerry four years later -- accused Bush of leading the nation to war "on a pack of lies" and lacking the basic components of good leadership.
"I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while," Iacocca writes, according to excerpts from "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" released on the Web site of publisher Simon & Schuster.
The book, co-written by New York journalist Catherine Whitney, comes 23 years after Iacocca's best-selling autobiography "Iacocca," which reshaped the way the publishing industry viewed business books. USA Today recently ranked the book among the 25 most influential among publishers and readers over the past 25 years.
In addition to politics, Iacocca weighs in on his experiences at Chrysler and the future of the U.S. auto industry in typically blunt fashion.
His latest broadside is in character, said Matthew Seeger, chairman of the communication department of Wayne State University and author of a book on Iacocca's speeches.
"As he's gotten older, he's gotten more blunt, more willing to take stands on issues," Seeger said.
But tough words from Iacocca may not carry the same weight they once did, said David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan.
"Some people might have some awfully harsh criticism of Lee Iacocca, too," Cole said.
Despite his stature as the savior of Chrysler in the 1980s, Cole said, other events, including his failed bid with Kirk Kerkorian to take over the company in the 1990s, have diminished his clout.
Iacocca has described himself as a political independent, and his new book is the latest twist in political history that includes a brief flirtation with his own run for president. He had a close relationship with Democrat Gov. James Blanchard and President Reagan during his time at Chrysler; he made ads for President Bush in 2000 but made campaign appearances with Kerry four years later; and he made more ads, this time for GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, last year.
"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?" Iacocca writes. "Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.' "
Disdain for Washington is nothing new from Iacocca, said Gerald Meyers, former chairman of American Motors and a business professor at the University of Michigan. Recalling a trip to talk to lawmakers in the 1970s about the Clean Air Act, Meyers said, Iacocca had little regard for politicians.
"Zero respect. Nada. No respect whatsoever," Meyers said.
Iacocca has tough things to say about Congress, corporate America, the press and even the voters who put the nation's current leadership in power. But his harshest criticism is saved for Bush.
# He savages Bush's famous determination: "George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping," Iacocca writes. "There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty."
# He accuses Bush of substituting macho for courage: "Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk."
# And he scoffs at Bush's business-degree background: "Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters."
White House spokesman Alex Conant said he had not seen the book. "We don't do book reviews at the White House," he said.
Simon & Schuster says the book will also include Iacocca's thoughts on how U.S. businesses can compete with rising economies in China and India. And he calls for government action to address the massive health care costs facing the Detroit's automakers and other U.S. businesses.
"Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing," he writes. "Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'the Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies?"
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Postage Hikes for Small Presses
Thanks Marvelys! Even though this is TERRIBLE NEWS. McChesney is a fellow Evergreen Graduate and resident badass when it comes to critiquing our current corporatocracy through the media lens.
Dear friend, relative, or acquaintance of Bob McChesney,
On very rare occasions I send a message to everyone in my email address book on an issue that I find of staggering importance and urgency. (My address book includes pretty much everyone who emails me in one form or another, and I apologize if you get this message more than once.) This is one of those times.
There is a major crisis in our media taking place right now; it is getting almost no attention and unless we act very soon the consequences for our society could well be disastrous. And it will only take place because it is being done without any public awareness or participation; it goes directly against the very foundations of freedom of the press in the entirety of American history.
The U.S. Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its rates for magazines, such that smaller periodicals will be hit with a much much larger increase than the largest magazines.
Because the Post Office is a monopoly, and because magazines must use it, the postal rates always have been skewed to make it cheaper for smaller publications to get launched and to survive. The whole idea has been to use the postal rates to keep publishing as competitive and wide open as possible. This bedrock principle was put in place by James Madison and Thoma
s Jefferson. They considered it mandatory to create the press system, the Fourth Estate necessary for self-government.
It was postal policy that converted the free press clause in the First Amendment from an abstract principle into a living breathing reality for Americans. And it has served that role throughout our history.
What the Post Office is now proposing goes directly against 215 years of postal policy. The Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its mailing rates for magazines. Under the plan, smaller periodicals will be hit with a much larger increase than the big magazines, as much as 30 percent. Some of the largest circulation magazines will face hikes of less than 10 percent.
The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, possibly putting many out of business. This includes nearly every political journal in the nation. These are the magazines that often provide the most original journalism and analysis. These are the magazines that provide much of the content on Common Dreams. We desperately need them.
What the Post Office is planning to do now, in the dark of night, is implement a rate structure that gives the best prices to the biggest publishers, hence letting them lock in their market position and lessen the threat of any new competition. The new rates could make it almost impossible to launch a new magazine, unless it is spawned by a huge conglomerate.
Not surprisingly, the new scheme was drafted by Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available suggests the bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their draconian reforms for small and independent publishers, or for citizens who depend upon a free press.
The corruption and sleaziness of this process is difficult to exaggerate. As one lawyer who works for a large magazine publisher admits, it takes a publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these rates. Little guys, and the general public who depend upon these magazines,
are not at the table when the deal is being made.
The genius of the postal rate structure over the past 215 years was that it did not favor a particular viewpoint; it simply made it easier for smaller magazines to be launched and to survive. That is why the publications opposing the secretive Post Office rate hikes cross the political spectrum. This is not a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it is a democracy issue. And it is about having competitive media markets that benefit all Americans. This reform will have disastrous effects for all small and mid-sized publications, be they on politics, music, sports or gardening.
This process was conducted with such little publicity and pitched only at the dominant players that we only learned about it a few weeks ago and it is very late in the game. But there is something you can do. Please go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com and sign the letter to the Postal Board protesting the new rate system and d emanding a congressional hearing before any radical changes are made. The deadline for comments is April 23.
I know many of you are connected to publications that go through the mail, or libraries and bookstores that pay for subscriptions to magazines and periodicals. If you fall in these categories, it is imperative you get everyone connected to your magazine or operation to go to
www.stoppostalratehikes.com.
We do not have a moment to lose. If everyone who reads this email responds at www.stoppostalratehikes.com, and then sends it along to their friends urging them to do the same, we can win. If there is one thing we have learned at Free Press over the past few years, it is that if enough people raise hell, we can force politicians to do the right thing. This is a time for serious hell-raising.
And to my friends from outside the United States, I apologize for cluttering your inbox. If you read this far, we can use your moral support.
From the bottom of my heart, thanks.
Bob
Robert W. McChesney
www.mediaproblem.org
www.freepress.net
Department of Communication
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dear friend, relative, or acquaintance of Bob McChesney,
On very rare occasions I send a message to everyone in my email address book on an issue that I find of staggering importance and urgency. (My address book includes pretty much everyone who emails me in one form or another, and I apologize if you get this message more than once.) This is one of those times.
There is a major crisis in our media taking place right now; it is getting almost no attention and unless we act very soon the consequences for our society could well be disastrous. And it will only take place because it is being done without any public awareness or participation; it goes directly against the very foundations of freedom of the press in the entirety of American history.
The U.S. Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its rates for magazines, such that smaller periodicals will be hit with a much much larger increase than the largest magazines.
Because the Post Office is a monopoly, and because magazines must use it, the postal rates always have been skewed to make it cheaper for smaller publications to get launched and to survive. The whole idea has been to use the postal rates to keep publishing as competitive and wide open as possible. This bedrock principle was put in place by James Madison and Thoma
s Jefferson. They considered it mandatory to create the press system, the Fourth Estate necessary for self-government.
It was postal policy that converted the free press clause in the First Amendment from an abstract principle into a living breathing reality for Americans. And it has served that role throughout our history.
What the Post Office is now proposing goes directly against 215 years of postal policy. The Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its mailing rates for magazines. Under the plan, smaller periodicals will be hit with a much larger increase than the big magazines, as much as 30 percent. Some of the largest circulation magazines will face hikes of less than 10 percent.
The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, possibly putting many out of business. This includes nearly every political journal in the nation. These are the magazines that often provide the most original journalism and analysis. These are the magazines that provide much of the content on Common Dreams. We desperately need them.
What the Post Office is planning to do now, in the dark of night, is implement a rate structure that gives the best prices to the biggest publishers, hence letting them lock in their market position and lessen the threat of any new competition. The new rates could make it almost impossible to launch a new magazine, unless it is spawned by a huge conglomerate.
Not surprisingly, the new scheme was drafted by Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available suggests the bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their draconian reforms for small and independent publishers, or for citizens who depend upon a free press.
The corruption and sleaziness of this process is difficult to exaggerate. As one lawyer who works for a large magazine publisher admits, it takes a publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these rates. Little guys, and the general public who depend upon these magazines,
are not at the table when the deal is being made.
The genius of the postal rate structure over the past 215 years was that it did not favor a particular viewpoint; it simply made it easier for smaller magazines to be launched and to survive. That is why the publications opposing the secretive Post Office rate hikes cross the political spectrum. This is not a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it is a democracy issue. And it is about having competitive media markets that benefit all Americans. This reform will have disastrous effects for all small and mid-sized publications, be they on politics, music, sports or gardening.
This process was conducted with such little publicity and pitched only at the dominant players that we only learned about it a few weeks ago and it is very late in the game. But there is something you can do. Please go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com and sign the letter to the Postal Board protesting the new rate system and d emanding a congressional hearing before any radical changes are made. The deadline for comments is April 23.
I know many of you are connected to publications that go through the mail, or libraries and bookstores that pay for subscriptions to magazines and periodicals. If you fall in these categories, it is imperative you get everyone connected to your magazine or operation to go to
www.stoppostalratehikes.com.
We do not have a moment to lose. If everyone who reads this email responds at www.stoppostalratehikes.com, and then sends it along to their friends urging them to do the same, we can win. If there is one thing we have learned at Free Press over the past few years, it is that if enough people raise hell, we can force politicians to do the right thing. This is a time for serious hell-raising.
And to my friends from outside the United States, I apologize for cluttering your inbox. If you read this far, we can use your moral support.
From the bottom of my heart, thanks.
Bob
Robert W. McChesney
www.mediaproblem.org
www.freepress.net
Department of Communication
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Thursday, March 29, 2007
GNEP Hearing Hood River, OR March 26, 2007 Report: Great Success
The turnout was fabulous given the 13 day notice we had for this hearing. At 6PM 120 people were in attendance as USDOE began its presentations. At least 30, and as many as 50 additional people came, filling the room and with a large standing group in back. Many people thanked Natalie and I for phone calls from Heart of America Northwest (CRK gave us a list of around 200 members of theirs to call, and we reached many of them in addition to the Heart of America members in the Gorge / Portland area).
TRIDEC did bring a bus with GNEP supporters down from the Tri-Cities. TRIDEC is the Hanford contractor group which is both the “applicant” proposing GNEP for Hanford, and the grantee given over $1 million by USDOE to study the site and report on regional stakeholder concerns. They seemed surprised that we had such a strong turnout, and prevented them from having their pro-GNEP / pro-FFTF reactor message on equal terms. Several of them commented to me that the opponents were articulate and well informed, while others called names and made threats.
Many thanks to all the concerned citizens and groups’ representatives who came – with wonderful statements.
Media coverage was excellent: OPB (NPR affiliate) ran a news story throughout the afternoon with our concerns about trucking High-Level Nuclear Waste through Portland and the Gorge, reprocessing and lack of openness. Hood River news ran article from news release put out by Natalie, and two of the three main Portland TV stations responded to the news release by sending crews all the way to Hood River (60 miles up the Columbia Gorge) – which has never happened before for any hearing.
USDOE opened the hearing with its standard presentation and Powerpoint slide show on GNEP – used at all the GNEP hearings. This touts the wonders of nuclear power, the benefits of reprocessing Spent Fuel (“recycling”), and has only two slides about generic facilities being considered for applicant sites, with no specific information.
Following the presentation, I (politely) raised a point of information inquiring why USDOE had not presented a single detail about what facilities and wastes were proposed for Hanford, e.g., how much Spent Nuclear Fuel would be imported, what size and number of reprocessing facilities were proposed (and whether use of old, contaminated facilities was proposed)... since USDOE’s own slides stated that the point of a “scoping” hearing was for the public to provide input on the scope of impacts to be studied from the proposal. This was greeted by GNEP FFTF supporters cat calls and one big guy standing up to threaten to make me sit down. Scores of other attendees then applauded and called on USDOE to answer why there was no information, and demanded to know how we were expected to comment without disclosure. A lame answer came from a USDOE official who said they would provide those details in a few months, after TRIDEC did its “siting study”. Numerous citizens pointed out that this would deny them their chance to comment on the scope. The official, if I heard correctly, said they would respond.
GREAT Opening Comments by Oregon and Senator Wyden:
The State of Oregon’s Ken Niles was the first speaker. The State’s position is very strong against GNEP: “it is lunacy”. The State opposes siting GNEP at Hanford, noting “skepticism”about USDOE’s “amazing claims” that USDOE could make reprocessing work, would reduce wastes – when, in fact, reprocessing would add more wastes to Hanford.
This was loudly applauded.
The Yakama Nation’s speaker noted the need for consultation with the Tribe before USDOE could proceed and objected to such use of ceded lands without cleanup.
Senator Wyden’s statement opposing GNEP and siting GNEP at Hanford was very strong and loudly applauded (delivered very well by Mary Gautreaux). In fact, at least three citizens quoted from it in their testimony later in the evening.... especially the line that reprocessing was like King Midas on steroids, and everything touched by reprocessing would be radioactive and become waste requiring cleanup on top of all the wastes already at Hanford.
Tri-City Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver also spoke under state and local officials. Oliver has been leading the fight to restart FFTF for years. He referred to using “assets” without saying the words: “FFTF Nuclear Reactor” and “restart.” He played well by appreciating the turnout and saying this would be so much better of a forum if there were scientific experts at the front of the room who would answer the public’s questions, instead of just having USDOE officials sitting there without responding. Claude Oliver insinuated that there would be developments coming out of the study... but he offered no info on what was being proposed despite being on the team.
Public comment was then limited to 2 minutes per speaker – due to the number signed up and to the fact that the Hood River – White Salmon bridge across the River was closing at 9:30 due to construction. Testimony was very articulate despite the limit. Many people thanked our groups (CRK, PSR, HoA) for providing them with information which was not otherwise available... one man noting that he had to “donate to Heart of America Northwest to protect him from his own government.”
themes of opponents:
- cleanup first;
- Honor the public’s vote for Initiative 297 and public sentiment against adding any new wastes to Hanford when USDOE has not been able to cleanup what is already there;
- Public relations gimmick “glib terminology” calling chemical processing of spent fuel “recycling” only increased distrust;
- Transporting Spent Nuclear Fuel had serious risks – including terrorists as well as accidents and unnecessary radiation exposures along routes. Keep SNF at reactors.
- Terrorist risks for facilities at Hanford would increase;
- Groundwater and River impacts from making more wastes and disposing of them at Hanford;
- Invest same funding in renewable, sustainable energy and conservation would get far more done for energy independence. This was called on to be studied as a reasonable alternative.
- Calling nuclear power “clean” for Global Warming is like calling coal clean because it doesn’t release radiation.
- Where would waste from overseas be imported... study impacts and hold hearings in each potential port and each transportation route.
- Incredible waste of funds for GNEP in hundreds of millions for this year and proposed for next year.
- Cleanup funds diminishing at same time USDOE wants to create more waste.
- vitrification plant is $8 billion over budget and decades behind for just half the liquid High-Level Nuclear Wastes at Hanford, while USDOE wants to create more.
- Reprocessing not cost effective in France and serous problems
- Reprocessing sets bad precedent for other nations to reprocess and extract weapons usable Plutonium and Uranium.
- Reprocessing actually increases volume of waste even if less goes to repository. This is just a way for USDOE and nuclear utilities to get around lack of repository.
- Many thanked State of Oregon and Senator Wyden;
- lack of notice from USDOE of this hearing... including from two local officials.
Proponents:
- FFTF Reactor a valuable asset, its use would save billions from building a new Advanced Burner Reactor;
- FFTF Reactor can be restarted safely and make medical isotopes... cure cancer...
- US needs nuclear... if US doesn’t build more nuclear plants we will no longer be a ‘world power”
- France and Britain reprocess and leave us behind, can be done safely.
- Reprocessing is non-proliferation
- Decrease the volume of radioactive waste
- Hanford best place to reprocess and already has FFTF (not as much of this as at Pasco hearing, of course)
- Anti GNEP people are “hysterical”... Heart of America should “get a heart” instead of opposing cure for cancer.
- Oregon should welcome reprocessing of Spent Fuel stored at Trojan... bet Oregon would want to send its Spent Fuel to Hanford for reprocessing.
- alternative energy can not meet energy demand.
Last note: USDOE apparently asked for security at the hearing. There were several private security guards present. This bears watching. At the FFTF restart hearings, USDOE made claim that police and security, including undercover, was needed due to claimed threats from citizen group. Obviously, there were no such threats about this hearing (nor about the FFTF... but, there the only violence came from FFTF supporters assaulting us).
43 people filled out “ballots” developed by Angela of Oregon PSR on GNEP and USDOE’s priorities. Good way to gather additional comments for submission. We will submit them all.
Gordon Sturrock of Vets for Peace from Eugene posted this debrief, and has photos on their website:
Another trip to speak out against the proposed GNEP (Global Nuclear Exchange
Program), this time to Hood River, Oregon where the bussed-in pro-nuke crowd
was severely out-numbered. The tables had turned from the previous meeting
which took place in Pasco, Washington, home base of the selfish nuclear
scientists and workers who clearly were more interested in putting their own
financial welfare ahead of the health and safety of their fellow humans
beings all along the Columbia River and the entire Pacific Northwest...
PICTURES AND FULL REPORT INCLUDING STATEMENT FROM SENATOR RON WYDEN AT THIS
LINK:
http://www.squadron13.com/deployed/070326HoodRiver/
TRIDEC did bring a bus with GNEP supporters down from the Tri-Cities. TRIDEC is the Hanford contractor group which is both the “applicant” proposing GNEP for Hanford, and the grantee given over $1 million by USDOE to study the site and report on regional stakeholder concerns. They seemed surprised that we had such a strong turnout, and prevented them from having their pro-GNEP / pro-FFTF reactor message on equal terms. Several of them commented to me that the opponents were articulate and well informed, while others called names and made threats.
Many thanks to all the concerned citizens and groups’ representatives who came – with wonderful statements.
Media coverage was excellent: OPB (NPR affiliate) ran a news story throughout the afternoon with our concerns about trucking High-Level Nuclear Waste through Portland and the Gorge, reprocessing and lack of openness. Hood River news ran article from news release put out by Natalie, and two of the three main Portland TV stations responded to the news release by sending crews all the way to Hood River (60 miles up the Columbia Gorge) – which has never happened before for any hearing.
USDOE opened the hearing with its standard presentation and Powerpoint slide show on GNEP – used at all the GNEP hearings. This touts the wonders of nuclear power, the benefits of reprocessing Spent Fuel (“recycling”), and has only two slides about generic facilities being considered for applicant sites, with no specific information.
Following the presentation, I (politely) raised a point of information inquiring why USDOE had not presented a single detail about what facilities and wastes were proposed for Hanford, e.g., how much Spent Nuclear Fuel would be imported, what size and number of reprocessing facilities were proposed (and whether use of old, contaminated facilities was proposed)... since USDOE’s own slides stated that the point of a “scoping” hearing was for the public to provide input on the scope of impacts to be studied from the proposal. This was greeted by GNEP FFTF supporters cat calls and one big guy standing up to threaten to make me sit down. Scores of other attendees then applauded and called on USDOE to answer why there was no information, and demanded to know how we were expected to comment without disclosure. A lame answer came from a USDOE official who said they would provide those details in a few months, after TRIDEC did its “siting study”. Numerous citizens pointed out that this would deny them their chance to comment on the scope. The official, if I heard correctly, said they would respond.
GREAT Opening Comments by Oregon and Senator Wyden:
The State of Oregon’s Ken Niles was the first speaker. The State’s position is very strong against GNEP: “it is lunacy”. The State opposes siting GNEP at Hanford, noting “skepticism”about USDOE’s “amazing claims” that USDOE could make reprocessing work, would reduce wastes – when, in fact, reprocessing would add more wastes to Hanford.
This was loudly applauded.
The Yakama Nation’s speaker noted the need for consultation with the Tribe before USDOE could proceed and objected to such use of ceded lands without cleanup.
Senator Wyden’s statement opposing GNEP and siting GNEP at Hanford was very strong and loudly applauded (delivered very well by Mary Gautreaux). In fact, at least three citizens quoted from it in their testimony later in the evening.... especially the line that reprocessing was like King Midas on steroids, and everything touched by reprocessing would be radioactive and become waste requiring cleanup on top of all the wastes already at Hanford.
Tri-City Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver also spoke under state and local officials. Oliver has been leading the fight to restart FFTF for years. He referred to using “assets” without saying the words: “FFTF Nuclear Reactor” and “restart.” He played well by appreciating the turnout and saying this would be so much better of a forum if there were scientific experts at the front of the room who would answer the public’s questions, instead of just having USDOE officials sitting there without responding. Claude Oliver insinuated that there would be developments coming out of the study... but he offered no info on what was being proposed despite being on the team.
Public comment was then limited to 2 minutes per speaker – due to the number signed up and to the fact that the Hood River – White Salmon bridge across the River was closing at 9:30 due to construction. Testimony was very articulate despite the limit. Many people thanked our groups (CRK, PSR, HoA) for providing them with information which was not otherwise available... one man noting that he had to “donate to Heart of America Northwest to protect him from his own government.”
themes of opponents:
- cleanup first;
- Honor the public’s vote for Initiative 297 and public sentiment against adding any new wastes to Hanford when USDOE has not been able to cleanup what is already there;
- Public relations gimmick “glib terminology” calling chemical processing of spent fuel “recycling” only increased distrust;
- Transporting Spent Nuclear Fuel had serious risks – including terrorists as well as accidents and unnecessary radiation exposures along routes. Keep SNF at reactors.
- Terrorist risks for facilities at Hanford would increase;
- Groundwater and River impacts from making more wastes and disposing of them at Hanford;
- Invest same funding in renewable, sustainable energy and conservation would get far more done for energy independence. This was called on to be studied as a reasonable alternative.
- Calling nuclear power “clean” for Global Warming is like calling coal clean because it doesn’t release radiation.
- Where would waste from overseas be imported... study impacts and hold hearings in each potential port and each transportation route.
- Incredible waste of funds for GNEP in hundreds of millions for this year and proposed for next year.
- Cleanup funds diminishing at same time USDOE wants to create more waste.
- vitrification plant is $8 billion over budget and decades behind for just half the liquid High-Level Nuclear Wastes at Hanford, while USDOE wants to create more.
- Reprocessing not cost effective in France and serous problems
- Reprocessing sets bad precedent for other nations to reprocess and extract weapons usable Plutonium and Uranium.
- Reprocessing actually increases volume of waste even if less goes to repository. This is just a way for USDOE and nuclear utilities to get around lack of repository.
- Many thanked State of Oregon and Senator Wyden;
- lack of notice from USDOE of this hearing... including from two local officials.
Proponents:
- FFTF Reactor a valuable asset, its use would save billions from building a new Advanced Burner Reactor;
- FFTF Reactor can be restarted safely and make medical isotopes... cure cancer...
- US needs nuclear... if US doesn’t build more nuclear plants we will no longer be a ‘world power”
- France and Britain reprocess and leave us behind, can be done safely.
- Reprocessing is non-proliferation
- Decrease the volume of radioactive waste
- Hanford best place to reprocess and already has FFTF (not as much of this as at Pasco hearing, of course)
- Anti GNEP people are “hysterical”... Heart of America should “get a heart” instead of opposing cure for cancer.
- Oregon should welcome reprocessing of Spent Fuel stored at Trojan... bet Oregon would want to send its Spent Fuel to Hanford for reprocessing.
- alternative energy can not meet energy demand.
Last note: USDOE apparently asked for security at the hearing. There were several private security guards present. This bears watching. At the FFTF restart hearings, USDOE made claim that police and security, including undercover, was needed due to claimed threats from citizen group. Obviously, there were no such threats about this hearing (nor about the FFTF... but, there the only violence came from FFTF supporters assaulting us).
43 people filled out “ballots” developed by Angela of Oregon PSR on GNEP and USDOE’s priorities. Good way to gather additional comments for submission. We will submit them all.
Gordon Sturrock of Vets for Peace from Eugene posted this debrief, and has photos on their website:
Another trip to speak out against the proposed GNEP (Global Nuclear Exchange
Program), this time to Hood River, Oregon where the bussed-in pro-nuke crowd
was severely out-numbered. The tables had turned from the previous meeting
which took place in Pasco, Washington, home base of the selfish nuclear
scientists and workers who clearly were more interested in putting their own
financial welfare ahead of the health and safety of their fellow humans
beings all along the Columbia River and the entire Pacific Northwest...
PICTURES AND FULL REPORT INCLUDING STATEMENT FROM SENATOR RON WYDEN AT THIS
LINK:
http://www.squadron13.com/deployed/070326HoodRiver/
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
GNEP - Hell No We Won't Glow!
My mother's official response to the Global Nuclear Energy Plan, or, as she likes to call it: George's Nuclear Energy Plot. Go Mom!
Mr. Timothy A. Frazier
Office of Nuclear Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
100 Independence Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20585-0119
(e-mail: GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov)
RE: GNEP PEIS Comments
Complete text of my public
hearing testimony re:Hanford
March 13, 2007
My name is Judith Cosby; I’m from Walla Walla, Washington. I’m here tonight because I cannot believe it an impossible task to convince the United States of America that it is an unwise proposal to ship 63,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that will remain radio-
active for thousands of years across thousands of miles of American highways and rails, across the Cascades, the Blue Mountains, the Rockies, dodging drunken drivers, rockslides, snowstorms, and black ice, for the purpose of planting this high-level radio-
active waste virtually alongside one of the largest rivers of the world, and next door to the only active volcanoes in the contiguous United States.
Listen to me: Over a million gallons of radioactive wastes have already leaked out of storage tanks at the Hanford reservation. The nuclear industry and the federal government want us to believe that high-level radioactive wastes are safe for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. Right here at Hanford, we’ve been unable to contain them for even 50 years. We are told the best expertise in the nation is work at Hanford.
My request is RESULTS FIRST. I want the people of Washington state and America to require the Department of Energy to keep the last three promises they made: Clean-up, Containment, a completed Vitrification Plant—first.
I’d like to point my own government and the nuclear industry consortium toward two crucial issues—the first is accountability; the second is the human right to environmental health and safety. Accountability—who is it that is providing the technical information on site selection? safety? feasibility? Someone who has the continuation of nuclear power or defense as an economic incentive? -- Fluor? ($800 Million contract)
Bechtel? (Vitrification Plant) CH2MHill? (High Level Waste Tanks)
Battelle? AREVA? Westinghouse? The Washington Group?
ALL of the reassurances of industry and federal representatives about the relative safety of nuclear power must be weighed on the scale against Price-Anderson Act guarantees that no major corporation or power company involved in nuclear technologies is financially responsible for damages.
What do Fluor’s assets come to? Bechtel’s assets? Let all the utilities, corporations and private companies sincere about their claims as to the safety of nuclear power, the safe long-term storage of nuclear wastes, their reassurances about transcontinental transportation agree to put their money where their mouth is. Let the nuclear industries put their assets on the line (instead of our tax dollars) and insure each other! If nuclear technologies are as safe and economical as they’ve been telling us for 50 years, this should pose no problem.
Listen to me. For all the "expert" reassurances over the years, a nuclear catastrophe is always a real possibility. ALL reactors have a severe accident potential. Shall we multiply this terrible fact tenfold by shuttling radioactivity all over the country? Mothers Against Drunk Drivers think they’ve got problems now—just wait. No. Don’t wait. Just say NO.
May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, ending 123 years of inactivity. It unleashed mudflows that disrupted ship traffic 60 miles downstream in the Columbia River. Aren’t we glad there weren’t any barges of radioactive waste on the river? (Would we have been told if there were?)
My home is 50 miles from Hanford. We raise food in Washington state that feeds America and the world. Our award-winning wines are being shipped world-wide. Thousands of acres of fertile land are irrigated with Columbia River water. Many more thousands of acres of agricultural land share the winds that blow across Hanford. . . . .
Chernobyl, April 26, 1986. Chernobyl was not a terrorist act. Nor an act of war or aggression. Chernobyl was not an unavoidable act of nature—a hurricane, tornado, volcano, or earthquake. (Though all of these in the nuclear age have an increasing likelihood of being a nuclear disaster. –Just have to be in the right place. –More places all the time, too.)
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the radioactive plume advancing toward our own beloved Columbia River are all messages that we have as much to fear from our own nuclear stockpiles as from our enemies’. Nearly three decades ago, the United States decided (on non-proliferation grounds) to NOT process spent fuel from U.S. power reactors, but instead to directly dispose of it in a deep underground geologic repository where it would remain isolated from the environment for at least tens of thousands of years.
Billions of taxpayer dollars later, we are no closer to achieving any of those goals than we were 30 years ago. "Clean Up" is years behind schedule, we can’t even keep up with containment of the wastes we have already produced. The deep geologic repository is in limbo, Yucca Mountain may never happen. -- And "remaining isolated from the environment for at least tens of thousands of years" is a lie. The best scientists in the nation haven’t even been able to accomplish this for 50 years. If the United States Department of Energy has the billions of dollars for reprocessing, why can’t they pay first for cleaning up the mess they already made?
This is not my first hearing. In the last 25 years I’ve been lied to by some of the best names in the business, General Electric, Westinghouse, Rockwell. I’ve been lied to about bids. I’ve been lied to about budgets. I’ve been lied to about Environmental Protection. I’ve been lied to about "clean up". I’ve been lied to about safety. For years.
Listen to me. These are the lies we’ve been told: Atoms for Peace. With nuclear power plants, electricity will be too cheap to meter. "Clean Up" is in process. "Clean up" is "progressing". --Listen to me: When DOE or Fluor or Tri-Dec says "permanent storage site" they really mean permanent site. No one in this field has demonstrated yet that there is any such thing as permanent storage. Not a single country in the world.
Wake me from this word-play nightmare! "Clean up" means ongoing pollution; "long terms safe storage" means extremely short term highly hazardous waste dumping. The nuclear industry, in cahoots with our federal government, say nuclear power is clean, safe and affordable—when it’s really polluting, toxic, and exorbitantly expensive! When they discuss "secure interim storage", "secure" is another lie and that "interim" is a hell of a long time. Hundred of years, at the very least.
Nuclear fuel "recycling" sounds harmless, benign, when the truth is-- high level nuclear waste reprocessing from spent fuel is dirty, dangerous and deadly, with hundreds of years worth of economic expenses and thousands of years worth of environmental costs. High level nuclear waste transportation, even just continent-wide, is a Homeland Security nightmare. And this is a Global Nuclear Energy Proposal, folks.
Wake up. "Incident-free trucking" by their OWN guess-timates and testimony, really means fatal cancers to adults, and even more to children, along the routes. "Nuclear waste reduction" means global nuclear waste proliferation and world-wide transportation of high level nuclear wastes.
We already gave you our citizen input. We said no more nuclear waste will be imported until clean up is accomplished. 70% of us in the state of Washington already said no to this dangerous idea three years ago. (I-297, 2004) You, the United States Department of Energy, you are fighting us in court even as we speak! Read my lips: No new wastes.
Now you ask us to trust you, to trust these corporations, industry lobbyists, and the local nuclear booster club—while they are absolved from any real liability, remember—to trust you to be the caretakers of some of Mother Earth’s most toxic poisons, right here in our homeland, for not only the next seven generations but for the next few thousand years?
Before you use any more of my taxpayer dollars on this madness, admit that you cannot keep up with the time-schedule or the run-away costs of "treating", "cleaning", temporary storage", more permanent—but still temporary—storage of the deadly wastes we already have right here at Hanford.
A good first step toward regaining citizen and tribal trust would be for the DOE to drop their lawsuit against the state of Washington mandate to clean up the highly radioactive mess they’ve already made. Prove that you are worthy of further public trust by showing us that you can clean up/contain the waste that’s already here. Show us that vitrification works first, before selling us the song and dance of reprocessing.
The United States Department of Energy and these corporations must complete the projects they’ve already started first. Do not reopen or start up the FFTF until clean up/containment is successfully demonstrated. Fund no new proposal, including GNEP, until the vitrification plant is completed. Contain the toxic radioactive poisons that are corroding old tanks here at Hanford. Decontaminate our soil. Clean up and restore our beloved Columbia River. Before creating any more waste or importing these deadly substances from anywhere else, much less world-wide!
Along with your Environmental Impact Statement I want to read a detailed report from the Office of Homeland Security on GNEP. We’re taking knitting needles away from little old ladies at airports and confiscating Swiss Army Knives from Boy Scouts on busses, at the same time that we’re proposing to truck and ship high level radioactive wastes all over kingdom come ? Wake up! Snap out of it!
I implore you to hold more public hearings in the Pacific Northwest: Seattle, Olympia, Spokane, Portland, Salem, Eugene. Also, I beg Governor Christine Gregoire to not abandon the 2004 mandate from the overwhelming majority of Washington State voters to clean up existing high level radioactive toxins before adding any more from anywhere. Washington is already bearing far more than its "fair share" of the national nuclear waste problem, as it is. Enough. Call a moratorium until we get some results.
Surely Washington state does not have to fight this battle alone. Look at a map of the United States. At the eastern side of North Dakota, draw an imaginary line south. Follow state lines to the Gulf of Mexico. On the west side of that line lies far more than half of the territory of the United States. Home. Also home to 15 operating nuclear reactors.
East of my imaginary line are 88 operating reactors. Almost six times as many reactors as we have in the western half of our country. Eleven of our western states are nuclear free. One of the politicians at the last hearing I attended said, "Well, they’ve got to put it somewhere." This is true. I’d like suggest moving Mohammed to the mountain. Especially when both are radioactive.
The state legislatures and state representatives of at least the western 17 states should be included in these discussions, because of the possible environmental impacts of interstate/transcontinental transportation of huge amounts of extremely hazardous waste.
I request, as part of the EIS for GNEP, statistics on routes, numbers of shipments, frequency, mileage, and total civilian populations along all proposed transportation routes-- land and sea. An alliance of western governors at a National Governors Conference would be an existing forum for objecting to this dangerous proposal.. Surely there exist other forums. Surely we can create still others.
DOE has an abysmal record as far as clean up/containment of the wastes we already have at Hanford. Broken promises litter this landscape. Because of a history of delays, cost overruns, and blatant misrepresentation, I request external independent regulation. Perhaps the Union of Concerned Scientists, Heart of America Northwest, Greenpeace, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Natural Resources Defense Council and the sovereign nations of American Indian Tribes.
We have the legal right to a hearing, but the Bush Administration and you, the United States Department of Energy, refuse to allow us to read the secret proposal on which you are pretending to offer us a chance to comment! Thus, this "public hearing" is a farce and a travesty. We insist that you disclose the Tri-Dec/Hanford contractors’ proposal and then hold public hearings.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Judith Cosby
cc:
Governor Christine Gregoire
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Representative Bill Grant
Representative Maureen Walsh
Jay Manning, WA State Department of Ecology
Grandmothers’ Roundtable, Walla Walla
Heart of America Northwest
Union of Concerned Scientists
Yakama Nation
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Hanford High-Level Nuclear Waste Import scheme (GNEP) - Tri-City Herald article acknowledges message of WA voters on I-297 is obstacle, now trying...
...to claim no liquid High-Level Wastes
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:08:28 -0700
Can't attend? Send in your comments today to address at bottom of article (and be sure to ask USDOE to send you a response and to add you to mailing list)!
TRIDEC says Hanford reservation good site for nuclear fuel recycling
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:08:28 -0700
TRIDEC's public relations drumbeat for GNEP at Hanford, including import of Spent Nuclear Fuel and reprocessing... continues in the Tri-City Herald (article below). Note that the article acknowledges Washington's voters overwhelming message of I-297 (cleanup before being allowed to add more waste) stands in way. The claim made that liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste will not be "stored" on site is false -- reprocessing creates liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste. They parse words by claiming they will turn it into a solid. But, Hanford is, at best, 12 years away from being able to prove it can glassify any liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste (and just $8 billion over budget for a plant which will only handle half the volume in Hanford's existing tanks). They can't truck the liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste offsite. So, where will it be vitrified??? Expect them to say they will add another vitrification facility.... while the GNEP national proposal calls for other extremely radioactive solid wastes to be buried onsite, adding to the long-term contamination threat. See fact sheets on the Heart of America Northwest website for detailed citations showing liquid High-level Nuclear Waste results from reprocessing as proposed. Bear in mind that the Tri-City Herald publisher sits on the board and executive committee of TRIDEC, and this is TRIDEC's proposal.
Mark your calendar for Monday, March 26th Hood River Best Western 6PM for the only other hearing on this proposal in the Northwest. That's just one hour away from Portland. The Hotel is visible from I-84 at the 2nd Hood River exit (heading east). Talking points and detailed fact sheets on the wastes that would be imported and produced from GNEP are available at www.hoanw.org . We have asked that the official Hanford Clean-Up mailing list be mailed notice of the hearing... but, of course, USDOE refuses to do so. So, please forward email and urge your friends and relatives to come... remind them that this involves trucking High-Level Nuclear Waste through Portland and I-84.
Can't attend? Send in your comments today to address at bottom of article (and be sure to ask USDOE to send you a response and to add you to mailing list)!
TRIDEC says Hanford reservation good site for nuclear fuel recycling
Published Saturday, March 17th, 2007 Tri-City Herald
By ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER
The Hanford nuclear reservation offers many benefits other sites cannot match as it competes to be the home of a nuclear fuel recycling program that could bring 8,000 jobs, a top official of the Tri-City Development Council said Friday. Gary Petersen, vice president for Hanford programs, outlined Hanford's possible role in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership at TRIDEC's annual meeting.
TRIDEC won a $1 million grant to study Hanford as the site of a nuclear fuel recycling center and an advanced burner reactor to use the recycled fuel. As part of that grant, Columbia Basin Consulting Group is studying whether Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility could be restarted as part of a GNEP research center.
The Bush administration is proposing the project as a way to reduce the amount of used commercial reactor fuel that must be disposed of and to limit expansion of nuclear weapons by limiting the number of countries that would have to enrich or reprocess nuclear fuel for nuclear power.
At the Tri-City level, the project also could solve a potential economic problem. "Just about the time Hanford is ramping down drastically, this could come on line," Petersen said. Cold War production of plutonium at Hanford and the cleanup of massive contamination left behind have been a key driver for the Tri-City economy. But Hanford jobs should decrease as the site is cleaned up. DOE is projecting that the nuclear fuel recycling center, advanced burner reactor and research center would be in full operation by 2020 to 2025, with some work starting earlier.
Hanford has the advantage of being the only place to have on site an operating commercial nuclear power reactor licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Petersen said. And using the FFTF, a shut-down research reactor, could speed up the project by many years, he said.
The site also has on DOE land much of the infrastructure the project needs, including lay-down yards for the fuel; buildings built for previous nuclear projects; a sewage treatment plant; power transmission lines; a training center; and roads, railroads and nearby access for barges, he said.
The decision on whether to go forward with the project and where it would be located is to be made by the energy secretary in June 2008, just months before the presidential election. "There's nothing done in June 2008 that the next energy secretary can't change, so it is very important to have broad bipartisan support," said Mike Lawrence of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle. Battelle, Areva and Washington Group International are working with TRIDEC on the siting study.
Dealing with concerns about nuclear waste may be an important issue in gaining support. In 2004, Washington voters approved Initiative 297 to bar the Department of Energy from bringing more waste to Hanford until waste already there is cleaned up. Although the initiative was ruled invalid in federal court and remains the subject of legal proceedings, voters made clear what many in the state thought about Hanford waste, including 53 million gallons of liquid and solid radioactive waste stored in underground tanks.
There would be no storage of liquid waste on site under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Lawrence said. One benefit pushed by the Bush administration is that the plant would reduce waste produced by U.S. commercial nuclear reactors by reusing their fuel. Now commercial fuel is used just one time, then stored to eventually be sent to Yucca Mountain, the nation's unopened nuclear repository. Reprocessing would reduce both the toxicity of the waste and also its volume up to 100-fold, Lawrence said. The world might need just five nuclear repositories like Yucca Mountain rather than hundreds, he said.
The recycling process to prepare fuel to be reused would leave excess uranium that would be disposed of or enriched for use again. The process also would separate out some shorter-lived radioactive isotopes such as cesium and strontium that would lose their radioactivity over hundreds rather than thousands of years. All secondary waste from the project would be turned into a solid, Lawrence said. DOE is continuing to take comments on its environmental study of the project. They may be sent until April 4 to Timothy Frazier, GNEP PEIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy, Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, DC 20585-0119, or e-mailed to GNEP-PEIS@nuclear. energy .gov. Mark envelopes and e-mails as "GNEP PEIS Comments."
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Dragon's Take on Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
I always like the Dragon's 'tude when he posts. Plus Anthony Bourdain kicks ass. Word up to Tod and his chef buddies in Seattle for turning me onto his delectable culinary arts and nefarious wit. Oh, and Dragon? Don't ever mention Borders again or we'll dismember you and flavor some sea water with yer bones. Arrrrhhh!
...By way of explaining my personal aesthic to other creative friends, I use to say that I wanted to be the love child of Captain Kangaroo and William S. Burroughs. I want to synthesize a certain sense of whimsy, with a darker, edgier side. In the culinary arts, Alton Brown represents the geeky, playful side of that equation. The edgier, more punk side is best represented by Anthony Bourdain. And fortunately for me, Borders had his Les Halles Cookbook in stock.
Now, I've never really had any aspirations to master French cuisine. I always viewed it as hoity-toity and pretentious. My predilictions have always been towards simple, basic peasant fare, with perhaps a little something extra added, but built on a solid working class foundation. Of course, the more I have managed the kitchen in our household, the more this working class frugality has led me to do things like save every bone that comes off a plate. I'm using more and more stock in my cooking, and it seems ridiculous to pay the exorbitant prices grocery stores ask for what tastes like sea water with a hint of meat flavor...Read More...
Thanks Honky Tonk Dragon!
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Big Postal Changes Don't Sit Well With This Independent Bookseller
This does not bode well for the independent book world, good old HR6407, Bush's Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act: Bush's Postal Signing Statement - Great, so now they can just open our mail without a judge's warrent?
" No letter of such a class of domestic origin shall be opened except under authority of a search warrant authorized by law, or by an officer or employee of the Postal Service for the sole purpose of determining an address at which the letter can be delivered, or pursuant to the authorization of the addressee.
The intent of Congress seems to be to ensure that domestic mail remains a private communication. But in the signing statement, President Bush said he would ignore the law and 'conduct searches in exigent circumstances.'
What is an "exigent circumstance"? It's a legal term, and it means, in lay terms, "emergency." Interestingly, Attorney General Gonzales noted in 2005 that only in a rare circumstance could the government open mail in 'an emergency.' "
Could you be a little more confusing?
More here: Fight Bush & management's attacks on postal workers!
Add to that Boing Boing's disturbing/funny reportage of the sudden absence of clocks in 37,000 of our nation's post offices and I smell an over-arching conspiracy. Or maybe my girls just have shit in their diapers again.
But I've always considered postal employees to be the pinnacle of government workers and members of the least corrupt and most efficient government organization on the planet. No wonder Bush wants to take power away from them too, he must be jealous!
Seriously though, when my rebellion gets rollin' I'm recruiting all the postal employees right off the bat. Get them and the dock workers and the young parents and you've got yourself a revolution!
" No letter of such a class of domestic origin shall be opened except under authority of a search warrant authorized by law, or by an officer or employee of the Postal Service for the sole purpose of determining an address at which the letter can be delivered, or pursuant to the authorization of the addressee.
The intent of Congress seems to be to ensure that domestic mail remains a private communication. But in the signing statement, President Bush said he would ignore the law and 'conduct searches in exigent circumstances.'
What is an "exigent circumstance"? It's a legal term, and it means, in lay terms, "emergency." Interestingly, Attorney General Gonzales noted in 2005 that only in a rare circumstance could the government open mail in 'an emergency.' "
Could you be a little more confusing?
More here: Fight Bush & management's attacks on postal workers!
Add to that Boing Boing's disturbing/funny reportage of the sudden absence of clocks in 37,000 of our nation's post offices and I smell an over-arching conspiracy. Or maybe my girls just have shit in their diapers again.
But I've always considered postal employees to be the pinnacle of government workers and members of the least corrupt and most efficient government organization on the planet. No wonder Bush wants to take power away from them too, he must be jealous!
Seriously though, when my rebellion gets rollin' I'm recruiting all the postal employees right off the bat. Get them and the dock workers and the young parents and you've got yourself a revolution!
An Organic Recipe for Development
Published on Monday, December 18, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
An Organic Recipe for Development
by Stephen Leahy
Organic agriculture is a potent tool to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but also to alleviate poverty and improve food security in developing countries, many experts now believe.
Organic agriculture's use of compost and crop diversity means it will also be able to better withstand the higher temperatures and more variable rainfall expected with global warming.
0
The University of New England (Australia) is offering a new unit of study that will prepare people in rural industries for one of the most important developments of twenty-first-century farming: organic agriculture.
"Organic agriculture is about optimising yields under all conditions," says Louise Luttikholt, strategic relations manager at the International Federation of Organic Agriculture (IFOAM) in Bonn, Germany. IFOAM is the international umbrella organisation of organic agriculture movements around the world.
For example, a village in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia that had converted to organic agriculture continued to harvest crops even during a severe drought, while neighbouring villages using conventional chemical fertilisers had nothing, Luttikholt told IPS.
Because compost is used rather than chemical fertilisers, organic soils contain much more humus and organic carbon -- which in turn retains much more water.
"They can also absorb more water faster which means they are less likely to flood," she said.
It took more work to make the conversion to organic but it paid off when the drought stuck in the third year, according to Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, director general of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia.
Tewolde, who pioneered the organic revolution in a number of communities in northern Ethiopia as a way of ensuring food security, reported that the early success has prompted government agricultural departments to adopt organic techniques.
Organic and other forms of sustainable agro-ecology do not depend on chemical fertilisers, so they must find other ways to enrich soil and keep it that way. That also means there are more minerals and other nutrients in the soil so yields are generally good and food quality high.
And the added benefit is that organic soils hold much more carbon than soils farmed with conventional methods.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is the principal cause of global warming. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air and can put it more or less permanently into the soil under the right conditions.
In a 23-year side-by-side comparison, the carbon levels of organic soils increased 15 to 28 percent while there was little change in the non-organic systems, according to the Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trials conducted in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
If just 10,000 medium-sized farms in the U.S. converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, Rodale reported in 2003.
And there's more.
Making chemical fertilisers like nitrogen requires huge amounts of energy, and tractors also consume large amounts of fossil fuel. In the United States, organic farming systems use just 63 percent of the energy required by conventional farming systems, David Pimentel of Cornell University in New York State found.
Going organic also offers a number of other environmental benefits, including waterways free of chemical pollution and improved biodiversity. In North America and European farming regions, expensive systems must be used to remove agricultural chemicals from drinking water.
"Those external costs of conventional agriculture have to be paid by someone," said Volkert Engelsman, the CEO of Eosta BV, a European distributor of organic fruits and vegetables.
"Organic brings a wide range of social and economic benefits, making it a much better and more efficient way of farming," Engelsman said in an interview from Eosta's head office in Waddinxveen, Holland.
For low-income countries, that means more jobs because organic farming is labour-intensive. It also values local expertise and traditional knowledge. That makes more economic sense than being dependent on the technical expertise of Western corporations, he said.
Engelsman has just returned from India where organic farming is undergoing "explosive growth".
Faced with rapidly depleting soils, the Indian government is now supporting organic techniques because no amount of chemical fertiliser can improve the soil. In addition, water shortages, increased disease problems and higher costs of chemicals and hybrid seeds have forced India to rethink its agricultural strategy, he said.
"It is more economically sustainable to invest in the soils of your land than to make the chemical companies richer," Engelsman told IPS.
The problem of global hunger is not about food production -- it is about poverty and food distribution, since the world already produces enough food, he said.
Engelsman agrees with the noted Indian scientist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva that research into ecologically-friendly agriculture has proved that it is highly productive and is the only solution to hunger and poverty.
That view, once considered radical, is beginning to gain wider acceptance as hunger has increased under the globalised food production system.
Ten years after the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, where countries pledged to halve the number of hungry in the world by 2015, there were more hungry people in the developing countries today, said the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FA , Jacques Diouf, in a statement.
"Far from decreasing, the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing -- at the rate of four million a year," Diouf said from Rome.
And finally the FAO is looking to organic to play a role in reducing hunger and alleviating poverty and will host a major conference in May 2007 in Rome. Many countries request FAO's assistance to develop organic agriculture, said Alexander Müller, assistant director-general of FAO, in a statement.
"There is a need to shed light on the contribution of organic agriculture to food security," Müller said.
Many countries are already moving in that direction.
Brazil's Minister of Agriculture Roberto Rodrigues has said he wants organic farming to grow from three percent of the country's agricultural output to 20 percent in the next five to six years.
Last month, 308 delegates from the Philippines' farming sector agreed to shift to organic production, in part because it can help poverty alleviation in rural communities.
Studies done by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a U.N. agency set up to assist the rural poor to overcome poverty, have shown that organic agriculture reduced poverty. In almost all of the countries where the IFAD evaluations were carried out, small farmers needed only marginal improvements to their technologies to make the shift to organic production.
"Everyone is embracing organic agriculture now. And climate change will only boost that interest," Engelsman said.
(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)
An Organic Recipe for Development
by Stephen Leahy
Organic agriculture is a potent tool to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but also to alleviate poverty and improve food security in developing countries, many experts now believe.
Organic agriculture's use of compost and crop diversity means it will also be able to better withstand the higher temperatures and more variable rainfall expected with global warming.
0
The University of New England (Australia) is offering a new unit of study that will prepare people in rural industries for one of the most important developments of twenty-first-century farming: organic agriculture.
"Organic agriculture is about optimising yields under all conditions," says Louise Luttikholt, strategic relations manager at the International Federation of Organic Agriculture (IFOAM) in Bonn, Germany. IFOAM is the international umbrella organisation of organic agriculture movements around the world.
For example, a village in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia that had converted to organic agriculture continued to harvest crops even during a severe drought, while neighbouring villages using conventional chemical fertilisers had nothing, Luttikholt told IPS.
Because compost is used rather than chemical fertilisers, organic soils contain much more humus and organic carbon -- which in turn retains much more water.
"They can also absorb more water faster which means they are less likely to flood," she said.
It took more work to make the conversion to organic but it paid off when the drought stuck in the third year, according to Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, director general of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia.
Tewolde, who pioneered the organic revolution in a number of communities in northern Ethiopia as a way of ensuring food security, reported that the early success has prompted government agricultural departments to adopt organic techniques.
Organic and other forms of sustainable agro-ecology do not depend on chemical fertilisers, so they must find other ways to enrich soil and keep it that way. That also means there are more minerals and other nutrients in the soil so yields are generally good and food quality high.
And the added benefit is that organic soils hold much more carbon than soils farmed with conventional methods.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is the principal cause of global warming. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air and can put it more or less permanently into the soil under the right conditions.
In a 23-year side-by-side comparison, the carbon levels of organic soils increased 15 to 28 percent while there was little change in the non-organic systems, according to the Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trials conducted in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
If just 10,000 medium-sized farms in the U.S. converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, Rodale reported in 2003.
And there's more.
Making chemical fertilisers like nitrogen requires huge amounts of energy, and tractors also consume large amounts of fossil fuel. In the United States, organic farming systems use just 63 percent of the energy required by conventional farming systems, David Pimentel of Cornell University in New York State found.
Going organic also offers a number of other environmental benefits, including waterways free of chemical pollution and improved biodiversity. In North America and European farming regions, expensive systems must be used to remove agricultural chemicals from drinking water.
"Those external costs of conventional agriculture have to be paid by someone," said Volkert Engelsman, the CEO of Eosta BV, a European distributor of organic fruits and vegetables.
"Organic brings a wide range of social and economic benefits, making it a much better and more efficient way of farming," Engelsman said in an interview from Eosta's head office in Waddinxveen, Holland.
For low-income countries, that means more jobs because organic farming is labour-intensive. It also values local expertise and traditional knowledge. That makes more economic sense than being dependent on the technical expertise of Western corporations, he said.
Engelsman has just returned from India where organic farming is undergoing "explosive growth".
Faced with rapidly depleting soils, the Indian government is now supporting organic techniques because no amount of chemical fertiliser can improve the soil. In addition, water shortages, increased disease problems and higher costs of chemicals and hybrid seeds have forced India to rethink its agricultural strategy, he said.
"It is more economically sustainable to invest in the soils of your land than to make the chemical companies richer," Engelsman told IPS.
The problem of global hunger is not about food production -- it is about poverty and food distribution, since the world already produces enough food, he said.
Engelsman agrees with the noted Indian scientist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva that research into ecologically-friendly agriculture has proved that it is highly productive and is the only solution to hunger and poverty.
That view, once considered radical, is beginning to gain wider acceptance as hunger has increased under the globalised food production system.
Ten years after the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, where countries pledged to halve the number of hungry in the world by 2015, there were more hungry people in the developing countries today, said the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FA , Jacques Diouf, in a statement.
"Far from decreasing, the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing -- at the rate of four million a year," Diouf said from Rome.
And finally the FAO is looking to organic to play a role in reducing hunger and alleviating poverty and will host a major conference in May 2007 in Rome. Many countries request FAO's assistance to develop organic agriculture, said Alexander Müller, assistant director-general of FAO, in a statement.
"There is a need to shed light on the contribution of organic agriculture to food security," Müller said.
Many countries are already moving in that direction.
Brazil's Minister of Agriculture Roberto Rodrigues has said he wants organic farming to grow from three percent of the country's agricultural output to 20 percent in the next five to six years.
Last month, 308 delegates from the Philippines' farming sector agreed to shift to organic production, in part because it can help poverty alleviation in rural communities.
Studies done by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a U.N. agency set up to assist the rural poor to overcome poverty, have shown that organic agriculture reduced poverty. In almost all of the countries where the IFAD evaluations were carried out, small farmers needed only marginal improvements to their technologies to make the shift to organic production.
"Everyone is embracing organic agriculture now. And climate change will only boost that interest," Engelsman said.
(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
My mom's kick ass letter to the City of Walla Walla
Yeah, my mom pretty much rules. -Sky
February 7, 2007
TO: Walla Walla Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee members
Kim Lyonnais, Director, Walla Walla City Development Services
Walla Walla City Council Members
Peter J. Smith & Company, Consultants
FROM: Judith Cosby, Walla Walla, Washington
IN RESPONSE TO: Your letter of December 28, 2006:
“Dear Neighbor: We need your help in creating the future of Walla Walla. Please join us in January and share your ideas about our city and its future.”
Thank you for your invitation. I took you up on it. I went on two guided walks, two private walks, one private drive, and the trolley tour Saturday, January 27. I attended the Central Historical Neighborhood Public Meeting at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on January 16. I also attended the grassroots community forum, “How Will the Valley Weather the Wave of Change?” at the Central Christian Church.
Dear City of Walla Walla: Your “Dear Neighbor” letter assures me that the City’s Comprehensive Planning process will “guide city government around issues including population, roads, housing, parks, natural resources, business development, locations of public services and safety for the next 20 years.” You promise me that “this plan will build on our community’s core values, its sense of place, and its relationship to the rest of the Valley.” You tell me that “our planning will focus on what we want to retain as well as what we want to improve.”
Thank you for assuring me that my contribution is welcome and that my voice will be heard.
I have lived in Walla Walla for 44 years. I am a homeowner, taxpayer, and voter. I attended Pioneer Junior High and “WA-HI” and graduated from Whitman College. I am a parent and former teacher (Birth to Six and K-12) and for 20 years was a partner in a Main Street family business. I shop almost exclusively at locally owned stores: attended support local cultural events; most of the art in my home is by local artists; the restaurants and coffee shops I go to are also locally-owned. I have a financial and emotional investment in Walla Walla. This is my home, my hometown, my homeland.
Past choices the City has made that I endorse and thank you for: Curbside Recycling, Yard Waste (and Park Waste, Composting, Bicycle Lanes, the Walla Walla Trail Project,
Heritage Park, Farmers’ Market, Historic Preservation—both public and private, Downtown Art, wheelchair (and baby stroller) accessible sidewalks and crossings downtown, Walla Walla’s beautiful parks and trees, the City Urban Forestry Commission.
Many thanks to Walla Walla 2020 for their nearly two decades of advocacy and hard work, without which, much of the above list would not have happened. I especially appreciate Walla Walla 2020’s lovely Xeriscape Demonstration Garden at Rose and Isaacs streets. I am grateful to local taxpayers and the school district for the beautiful restoration and compatible new construction of Sharpstein and Green Park schools. I am very grateful to the City for the two aquifer recharge wells. I agree with John Winter’s article in the Union-Bulletin January 15, 2007 that water for Illahee should be supplied by the City rather than the Port.
THIS IS MY WISH LIST:
1. Street repair and maintenance * * *
2. Affordable entry level housing * * *
3. Sidewalks—especially to and from schools.
4. Trees! Trees! Trees! Saving healthy trees we already have, planting trees to replace cumulative loss, requiring trees for new development—residential, business districts, public spaces and parking lots, any new—and most old—industrial sites.
5. Naturalize Mill Creek as much as possible, even if in patchwork pieces and over the long term. Partner with Whitman College Science Department and with Walla Walla Community College’s new Water and the Environment program.on this and other water issues.
6. Emphasize and encourage Xeriscape landscaping and gardening—both public and private.
7. More native wildflowers, please.
8. I like the idea of extending Mill Creek Trail from Rooks Park to Whitman Mission.
9. Reinstate Board of Adjustment—local citizen representation.
10. I would like to praise the new condos on Eagon Street and recommend them as a model for “In Fill”, new compatible construction within the city limits.
11. Eastgate: A more attractive entrance to town (partially in progress now).
12. Downtown: Encourage window boxes and hanging plants. Encourage murals. Parking garages—I would prefer two or three three-story garages to one or two taller structures. Behind Macy’s would be one excellent site, as would be Rose Street lot and the lot at 2nd and Sumach (across from the Post Office). Encourage roof-top gardens on any tall new buildings.
13. South Side: Streams are an asset! Are meandering sidewalks and bike paths possible? The incorporation of public green spaces for any new developments?
14. Establish, incorporate into the city building code, and enforce community historical and new compatible construction standards for residential, business and public buildings. Especially for the Historic Center, but as much as possible city-wide. Already present eyesores: The huge residential garage at Poplar and Alder (across from the back of Carnegie Center); the downtown Subway Shop sign; the canary yellow tasting room downtown; the atrocious garish green color of the new Public Library addition. (The new apartment/duplex across from Green Park School looks better than I thought it would.) I appreciate the community and volunteer effort that went into the Pioneer Park playground, but the colors of the new playground equipment at Sharpstein School (tan and dark green) would have been much more appropriate to our Victorian gem of a park. Possibly partner with Art Walla and our Historical Society for future projects.
15. I would rather see development to the north (and taller buildings on the north side of Isaacs, for example) and save as much of our eastern and southern view of the Blue Mountains and foothills as possible.
16. An impossible Dream? A car-free Main Street pedestrian and bicycle esplanade park from Boyer Street to Second Street with a small trolley or golf-cart busses for the elderly and for handicapped access. (Boyer Street to Farmers’ Market would be even better!)
QUESTIONS
Q: A couple of presentations on Floods, Geology and the Walla Walla Valley have been at Whitman College, part of which discussed Mill Creek’s natural channel through town. John Winter (now retired in Hawaii), Kevin Pogue and Bob Carson were among the presenters. Is it possible to get copies of their presentation (especially visuals) and recommendations into the hands of this planning committee, the City, and any consultants that are hired?
Q: Re: Illahee’s golf course. Can the City/County require a chemically free and or Xeriscape golf course? After all, it’s our groundwater.
Q: Why not Blue Mountain Mall and parking lots for a second High School and campus? It would be easy to close off (as fire doors) all entrances but the two main ones, (a major concern of our current campus is security). You’ve got ready-made parking lots and wiring that would accommodate a school cafeteria. A possible partnership with Walla Walla and College Place school districts? If not as a high school, how about a Community Center?
Q: Is an organic community garden possible on top of a parking garage? If not, is it possible somewhere within city limits? Maybe two or three community gardens??
Q: I have read Walla Walla 2020’s White paper on Economic Development and endorse it. Does Walla Walla City Development Services have an economic development policy or mission statement? Please forward me a copy in the enclosed self-addressed envelope.
Q: Is the Port answerable to anyone? Please know I am very enthusiastic about the new rail project! Is there any way for the City to request that the Port focus on the railroad, the airport, and industrial development only and stop all the “promotional” wheeling and dealing”?
Q: I have many questions re: Tourism. One is: I wish fewer advertising dollars were spent trumpeting Walla Walla to the outside world. Is there any way to reallocate the taxpayer dollars portion of these funds to Infrastructure Repair?--at LEAST until we get our streets paved and our bridges replaced??
Q: Outside consultants: Is there any way the City can choose local contractors and consultants instead of the required “lowest Bid”? Investing profits on projects locally re-circulates and helps keep those dollars here at home.
Mistakes outside consultants have brought us in the past:
Walla Walla High School—Energy inefficiency as an art form with its California open campus design totally incompatible with Walla Walla weather realities. (Yes, it’s “pretty”).
Blue Mountain Mall in a Wetlands Area. Don’t even get me started. Yes, it’s pretty , too. (Well, at least inside. But the meadow was prettier and the Mall is practically a ghost-town now.)
Q: Donald Snow is Whitman College’s Environmental Sciences professor. Have City Council members/City Development staff read his article, “Round the next Bend—Economic Opportunity in Rurbia” in the Fall/Winter 2006 journal Oregon Humanities? oregonhum.org
Q: Is it possible to propose a Community Center and/or Homeless Shelter for if/when Wal-Mart, Big 5, ShopKo, Sears, K-Mart or a big-box furniture store move out of town?
Q: The height and size of SUV’s block visibility at many intersections. The Birch Street entrance/exit to St. Mary’s Hospital is a dangerous intersection with very poor visibility due to parking. We need yellow lines, especially eastside of 5th, both sides would be nice. Another example is my own street corner—Juniper at Howard and Park. The southwest corner of Sharpstein (Park and Whitman Streets) needs yellow lines and a four-way stop.
When was the last time these sightlines were assessed by an engineer or a safety inspector?
Q: What are the challenges we encounter in working together to do a better job of Environmental and Natural Resources Protection?
Q: How do we sustain a 20-year plan, or any vision for the future, through repeated staff changes, both elected and hired employees ??
Q: Tell me again why the local Catholic Church had to file an Environmental Impact Statement to tear down and rebuild one building—and yet a 365-acre proposal (resort, hotel, golf course, and 300 houses is exempt ? ? ?
Please know I don’t believe that we can discuss our local economy without also addressing Environmental and Natural Resources Protection, Community Infrastructure (maintenance, repair and replacement), and Social Justice and Fairness. I would strongly encourage active partnerships with Whitman College, Walla Walla Community College and Walla Walla University science departments on all issues pertaining to water and environmental and natural resources protection.
Again and again at your January events I heard people say they wanted neighborhoods with three-lined streets, entry level housing, infrastructure—especially street repair. Many people asked for neighborhoods that reflect our diversity, old-fashioned human-scale houses, protecting our old trees and planting many more trees, more family-owned businesses, locally-owned businesses, protected farmland, value-added crops, more organic farms, a sustainable homegrown economy.
I’d also like to submit the following for your deliberation: “Cut Up the World” from the book Earthsearch, by John Cassidy:
"Cut an apple into quarters.
Put aside three of the quarters. What do these represent? THe oceans of our world, the Blue Planet.
The fraction left is 1/4. Slice it in half. Set aside one of the halves. This is the part that people can't live or work on. The poles, deserts, swamps, high mountains, etc.
What's left? 1/8. This is where the humans live, but not necessarily where they grow their food.
Slice your 1/8th piece into four sections. Put aside three of them. What's left? 1/32.
The three pieces you set aside represent the places wher the soil is too poor to farm - where it's too rocky, wet, cold or steep to produce food. They also represent the cities, houses highways, shopping malls, schools, parks, factories, parking lots, and miniture golf courses where people live, play and work - but do not grow any food.
Take your 1/32 piece that's left. Carefully peel it. Look at this scrap of apple peel. It represents the farmable surface topsoil of the planet, the thin skin of the thin skin of the Earth's crust upon which humankind totally depends. It is less than 5 feet deep and it is quite a fixed amount of food-producing land.
You may now eat the rest of the apple, but carefully save this tiny piece of apple skin. Treat it as if your life depends on it."
This may be a “County” issue rather than “City”—but please, do whatever you can with local citizen groups and our County officials to protect our countryside and fertile fields.
Thank you for your time and your consideration in these matters.
Sincerely,
Judith Cosby
P.S.
About a dozen years ago I was on one of four committees working on just what you are asking for now: citizen input on a 20-year plan for our community. Growth Management Act Planning Committees devoted hours and hours to debate, research, fact-finding, discussion, compromise and consensus-building. (For details, contact Darcy Fugman-Small) The committees consisted of farmers, homeowners, environ-mentalists, real estate agents, fishermen, County Planning Commission and Port of Walla Walla.
We had a 20 year plan. After 10 to 15 years and mostly behind our backs, all of that changed with a wink and a handshake; our (formerly) mutually-agreed-upon Urban Growth Boundary was ignored and completely redrawn to accommodate the Illahee resort/luxury homes/golf course development by Bend, Oregon’s Pennbrook Homes.
Also, Michael Murr’s luxurious vacation home/retirement home and vineyard are all welcome in our agriculture-exclusive area, but our “Community Leaders” should have insisted that at least his tasting room belonged downtown. Michael Murr knew what the zoning was on that parcel when he bought it, but he gambled that his wealth, power, and prestige would buy him a variance.
Turns out he was right.
The 2007 Public Meeting coordinators remind me that “that was then, this is now” and “that was the County, this is the City”—but you need to understand that hundreds of loyal long-term residents and citizens feel betrayed by the actions of the Port and our elected officials.
I have a simple request: that all committee members and hired consultants read Walla Walla 2020’s White Paper on Economic Development and WW2020’s list of major accomplishments. Please listen.
Not only to Walla Walla 2020, but also to our Citizens for Good Governance, the Grandmothers’ Roundtable, our Children’s Forum, and Walla Walla Watershed Alliance.
All along we’ve been giving you citizen input . . . What we need now are decision-makers who pay attention.
Thank you for your publicity about these on-going events and for encouraging greater community involvement.
cc: Citizens for Good Governance, Grandmothers’ Roundtable, WW2020, Riding the Wave
February 7, 2007
TO: Walla Walla Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee members
Kim Lyonnais, Director, Walla Walla City Development Services
Walla Walla City Council Members
Peter J. Smith & Company, Consultants
FROM: Judith Cosby, Walla Walla, Washington
IN RESPONSE TO: Your letter of December 28, 2006:
“Dear Neighbor: We need your help in creating the future of Walla Walla. Please join us in January and share your ideas about our city and its future.”
Thank you for your invitation. I took you up on it. I went on two guided walks, two private walks, one private drive, and the trolley tour Saturday, January 27. I attended the Central Historical Neighborhood Public Meeting at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on January 16. I also attended the grassroots community forum, “How Will the Valley Weather the Wave of Change?” at the Central Christian Church.
Dear City of Walla Walla: Your “Dear Neighbor” letter assures me that the City’s Comprehensive Planning process will “guide city government around issues including population, roads, housing, parks, natural resources, business development, locations of public services and safety for the next 20 years.” You promise me that “this plan will build on our community’s core values, its sense of place, and its relationship to the rest of the Valley.” You tell me that “our planning will focus on what we want to retain as well as what we want to improve.”
Thank you for assuring me that my contribution is welcome and that my voice will be heard.
I have lived in Walla Walla for 44 years. I am a homeowner, taxpayer, and voter. I attended Pioneer Junior High and “WA-HI” and graduated from Whitman College. I am a parent and former teacher (Birth to Six and K-12) and for 20 years was a partner in a Main Street family business. I shop almost exclusively at locally owned stores: attended support local cultural events; most of the art in my home is by local artists; the restaurants and coffee shops I go to are also locally-owned. I have a financial and emotional investment in Walla Walla. This is my home, my hometown, my homeland.
Past choices the City has made that I endorse and thank you for: Curbside Recycling, Yard Waste (and Park Waste, Composting, Bicycle Lanes, the Walla Walla Trail Project,
Heritage Park, Farmers’ Market, Historic Preservation—both public and private, Downtown Art, wheelchair (and baby stroller) accessible sidewalks and crossings downtown, Walla Walla’s beautiful parks and trees, the City Urban Forestry Commission.
Many thanks to Walla Walla 2020 for their nearly two decades of advocacy and hard work, without which, much of the above list would not have happened. I especially appreciate Walla Walla 2020’s lovely Xeriscape Demonstration Garden at Rose and Isaacs streets. I am grateful to local taxpayers and the school district for the beautiful restoration and compatible new construction of Sharpstein and Green Park schools. I am very grateful to the City for the two aquifer recharge wells. I agree with John Winter’s article in the Union-Bulletin January 15, 2007 that water for Illahee should be supplied by the City rather than the Port.
THIS IS MY WISH LIST:
1. Street repair and maintenance * * *
2. Affordable entry level housing * * *
3. Sidewalks—especially to and from schools.
4. Trees! Trees! Trees! Saving healthy trees we already have, planting trees to replace cumulative loss, requiring trees for new development—residential, business districts, public spaces and parking lots, any new—and most old—industrial sites.
5. Naturalize Mill Creek as much as possible, even if in patchwork pieces and over the long term. Partner with Whitman College Science Department and with Walla Walla Community College’s new Water and the Environment program.on this and other water issues.
6. Emphasize and encourage Xeriscape landscaping and gardening—both public and private.
7. More native wildflowers, please.
8. I like the idea of extending Mill Creek Trail from Rooks Park to Whitman Mission.
9. Reinstate Board of Adjustment—local citizen representation.
10. I would like to praise the new condos on Eagon Street and recommend them as a model for “In Fill”, new compatible construction within the city limits.
11. Eastgate: A more attractive entrance to town (partially in progress now).
12. Downtown: Encourage window boxes and hanging plants. Encourage murals. Parking garages—I would prefer two or three three-story garages to one or two taller structures. Behind Macy’s would be one excellent site, as would be Rose Street lot and the lot at 2nd and Sumach (across from the Post Office). Encourage roof-top gardens on any tall new buildings.
13. South Side: Streams are an asset! Are meandering sidewalks and bike paths possible? The incorporation of public green spaces for any new developments?
14. Establish, incorporate into the city building code, and enforce community historical and new compatible construction standards for residential, business and public buildings. Especially for the Historic Center, but as much as possible city-wide. Already present eyesores: The huge residential garage at Poplar and Alder (across from the back of Carnegie Center); the downtown Subway Shop sign; the canary yellow tasting room downtown; the atrocious garish green color of the new Public Library addition. (The new apartment/duplex across from Green Park School looks better than I thought it would.) I appreciate the community and volunteer effort that went into the Pioneer Park playground, but the colors of the new playground equipment at Sharpstein School (tan and dark green) would have been much more appropriate to our Victorian gem of a park. Possibly partner with Art Walla and our Historical Society for future projects.
15. I would rather see development to the north (and taller buildings on the north side of Isaacs, for example) and save as much of our eastern and southern view of the Blue Mountains and foothills as possible.
16. An impossible Dream? A car-free Main Street pedestrian and bicycle esplanade park from Boyer Street to Second Street with a small trolley or golf-cart busses for the elderly and for handicapped access. (Boyer Street to Farmers’ Market would be even better!)
QUESTIONS
Q: A couple of presentations on Floods, Geology and the Walla Walla Valley have been at Whitman College, part of which discussed Mill Creek’s natural channel through town. John Winter (now retired in Hawaii), Kevin Pogue and Bob Carson were among the presenters. Is it possible to get copies of their presentation (especially visuals) and recommendations into the hands of this planning committee, the City, and any consultants that are hired?
Q: Re: Illahee’s golf course. Can the City/County require a chemically free and or Xeriscape golf course? After all, it’s our groundwater.
Q: Why not Blue Mountain Mall and parking lots for a second High School and campus? It would be easy to close off (as fire doors) all entrances but the two main ones, (a major concern of our current campus is security). You’ve got ready-made parking lots and wiring that would accommodate a school cafeteria. A possible partnership with Walla Walla and College Place school districts? If not as a high school, how about a Community Center?
Q: Is an organic community garden possible on top of a parking garage? If not, is it possible somewhere within city limits? Maybe two or three community gardens??
Q: I have read Walla Walla 2020’s White paper on Economic Development and endorse it. Does Walla Walla City Development Services have an economic development policy or mission statement? Please forward me a copy in the enclosed self-addressed envelope.
Q: Is the Port answerable to anyone? Please know I am very enthusiastic about the new rail project! Is there any way for the City to request that the Port focus on the railroad, the airport, and industrial development only and stop all the “promotional” wheeling and dealing”?
Q: I have many questions re: Tourism. One is: I wish fewer advertising dollars were spent trumpeting Walla Walla to the outside world. Is there any way to reallocate the taxpayer dollars portion of these funds to Infrastructure Repair?--at LEAST until we get our streets paved and our bridges replaced??
Q: Outside consultants: Is there any way the City can choose local contractors and consultants instead of the required “lowest Bid”? Investing profits on projects locally re-circulates and helps keep those dollars here at home.
Mistakes outside consultants have brought us in the past:
Walla Walla High School—Energy inefficiency as an art form with its California open campus design totally incompatible with Walla Walla weather realities. (Yes, it’s “pretty”).
Blue Mountain Mall in a Wetlands Area. Don’t even get me started. Yes, it’s pretty , too. (Well, at least inside. But the meadow was prettier and the Mall is practically a ghost-town now.)
Q: Donald Snow is Whitman College’s Environmental Sciences professor. Have City Council members/City Development staff read his article, “Round the next Bend—Economic Opportunity in Rurbia” in the Fall/Winter 2006 journal Oregon Humanities? oregonhum.org
Q: Is it possible to propose a Community Center and/or Homeless Shelter for if/when Wal-Mart, Big 5, ShopKo, Sears, K-Mart or a big-box furniture store move out of town?
Q: The height and size of SUV’s block visibility at many intersections. The Birch Street entrance/exit to St. Mary’s Hospital is a dangerous intersection with very poor visibility due to parking. We need yellow lines, especially eastside of 5th, both sides would be nice. Another example is my own street corner—Juniper at Howard and Park. The southwest corner of Sharpstein (Park and Whitman Streets) needs yellow lines and a four-way stop.
When was the last time these sightlines were assessed by an engineer or a safety inspector?
Q: What are the challenges we encounter in working together to do a better job of Environmental and Natural Resources Protection?
Q: How do we sustain a 20-year plan, or any vision for the future, through repeated staff changes, both elected and hired employees ??
Q: Tell me again why the local Catholic Church had to file an Environmental Impact Statement to tear down and rebuild one building—and yet a 365-acre proposal (resort, hotel, golf course, and 300 houses is exempt ? ? ?
Please know I don’t believe that we can discuss our local economy without also addressing Environmental and Natural Resources Protection, Community Infrastructure (maintenance, repair and replacement), and Social Justice and Fairness. I would strongly encourage active partnerships with Whitman College, Walla Walla Community College and Walla Walla University science departments on all issues pertaining to water and environmental and natural resources protection.
Again and again at your January events I heard people say they wanted neighborhoods with three-lined streets, entry level housing, infrastructure—especially street repair. Many people asked for neighborhoods that reflect our diversity, old-fashioned human-scale houses, protecting our old trees and planting many more trees, more family-owned businesses, locally-owned businesses, protected farmland, value-added crops, more organic farms, a sustainable homegrown economy.
I’d also like to submit the following for your deliberation: “Cut Up the World” from the book Earthsearch, by John Cassidy:
"Cut an apple into quarters.
Put aside three of the quarters. What do these represent? THe oceans of our world, the Blue Planet.
The fraction left is 1/4. Slice it in half. Set aside one of the halves. This is the part that people can't live or work on. The poles, deserts, swamps, high mountains, etc.
What's left? 1/8. This is where the humans live, but not necessarily where they grow their food.
Slice your 1/8th piece into four sections. Put aside three of them. What's left? 1/32.
The three pieces you set aside represent the places wher the soil is too poor to farm - where it's too rocky, wet, cold or steep to produce food. They also represent the cities, houses highways, shopping malls, schools, parks, factories, parking lots, and miniture golf courses where people live, play and work - but do not grow any food.
Take your 1/32 piece that's left. Carefully peel it. Look at this scrap of apple peel. It represents the farmable surface topsoil of the planet, the thin skin of the thin skin of the Earth's crust upon which humankind totally depends. It is less than 5 feet deep and it is quite a fixed amount of food-producing land.
You may now eat the rest of the apple, but carefully save this tiny piece of apple skin. Treat it as if your life depends on it."
This may be a “County” issue rather than “City”—but please, do whatever you can with local citizen groups and our County officials to protect our countryside and fertile fields.
Thank you for your time and your consideration in these matters.
Sincerely,
Judith Cosby
P.S.
About a dozen years ago I was on one of four committees working on just what you are asking for now: citizen input on a 20-year plan for our community. Growth Management Act Planning Committees devoted hours and hours to debate, research, fact-finding, discussion, compromise and consensus-building. (For details, contact Darcy Fugman-Small) The committees consisted of farmers, homeowners, environ-mentalists, real estate agents, fishermen, County Planning Commission and Port of Walla Walla.
We had a 20 year plan. After 10 to 15 years and mostly behind our backs, all of that changed with a wink and a handshake; our (formerly) mutually-agreed-upon Urban Growth Boundary was ignored and completely redrawn to accommodate the Illahee resort/luxury homes/golf course development by Bend, Oregon’s Pennbrook Homes.
Also, Michael Murr’s luxurious vacation home/retirement home and vineyard are all welcome in our agriculture-exclusive area, but our “Community Leaders” should have insisted that at least his tasting room belonged downtown. Michael Murr knew what the zoning was on that parcel when he bought it, but he gambled that his wealth, power, and prestige would buy him a variance.
Turns out he was right.
The 2007 Public Meeting coordinators remind me that “that was then, this is now” and “that was the County, this is the City”—but you need to understand that hundreds of loyal long-term residents and citizens feel betrayed by the actions of the Port and our elected officials.
I have a simple request: that all committee members and hired consultants read Walla Walla 2020’s White Paper on Economic Development and WW2020’s list of major accomplishments. Please listen.
Not only to Walla Walla 2020, but also to our Citizens for Good Governance, the Grandmothers’ Roundtable, our Children’s Forum, and Walla Walla Watershed Alliance.
All along we’ve been giving you citizen input . . . What we need now are decision-makers who pay attention.
Thank you for your publicity about these on-going events and for encouraging greater community involvement.
cc: Citizens for Good Governance, Grandmothers’ Roundtable, WW2020, Riding the Wave
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)