|
 | |
Toxic Spill in Salt Lake City
by Deanna
Monday March 14, 2005 at 09:14 PM
Thousands of gallons of toxic acids spilled from a railroad car in Salt Lake City, UT on Sunday, March 6, 2005. This incident resulted in approximately 8,000 evacuations, emergency response snafus, and other community disruptions.This incident serves as another grim reminder of what could happen in the event of an even more catastrophic accident involving the release of other hazardous material- for example, high-level nuclear waste.
Reports of this incident raise questions of community preparedness, emergency response capacity, and other critical issues related to hazardous materials transportation.
Specifically, this incident, and the events surrounding it, gives particular urgency to the Private Fuel Storage, high-level nuclear waste project proposed for the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, in Utah.
If this project goes through, it could bring thousands of potentially deadly shipments of radioactive waste through 43 states, 109 cities with populations of over 100,000, thousands of small rural communities, over the lands rivers and other water-ways, and through Americas agricultural bread basket as they make their way across the country to Skull Valley.
Over one-third of the U.S. population lives near these highway routes. For cities like Salt Lake City the danger is even greater, as all of these shipments would pass close to schools, businesses and homes- with hundreds of thousands of residents exposed to a potential radioactive disaster.
Our communities are already sensitized to the risks posed by this proposed shipping campaign. This chemical spill serves as another urgent reminder of our need to continue working together to protect our communities and serve environmental justice.
People are urged to continue resisting this dump in favor of more progressive energy, waste management, and economic development solutions.
Information on solution ideas:
Shundahai Network is a non-profit organization dedicated to breaking the nuclear chain by building alliances with indigenous communities and environmental, peace and human rights movements.
Honor the Earth works with Native American communities engaged in progressive, sustainable, economic and energy development projects.
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, provides accessible information on radiation exposure. It also offers ideas for on-site containment of high-level radioactive waste, and for preventing the need to ship America's High-level nuclear waste to the Great Basin.
Nuclear Information Resource Service provides fact sheets and analysis on domestic and international efforts to develop progressive, environmentally just alternatives to nuclear power and short-sighted waste management options.
(Thanks to Shundahai Network for providing this informaiton.)
www.shundahai.org
LATEST COMMENTS ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Listed below are the 10 latest comments of 1 posted about this article.
These comments are anonymously submitted by the website visitors.
| TITLE |
AUTHOR |
DATE |
|
Tanka |
Tuesday September 26, 2006 at 06:03 AM |
|
|
|
|
|
