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West Lake Landfill

AllanaRoss

What does 'reflective' mean? Impacts are seen by those who live/work there on the ground, in the dirt, in their yards...raising children, being in proximity day in/out. Like a farmer knows their land. These people recognize and acknowledge the (physical existence of ) impact, but may have different perceptions of what that impact actually is. These people are worrying and thinking. 

It seems that the people who have the power to do anything about the situation are physically removed from it and thus have a very different perception of the impact. The mound itself remains relatively unseen, or very rarely seen, and cursorily acknowledged if at all. 

West Lake Landfill

AllanaRoss

Land use: extraction: Pits. Fill: mounds.

quarry to farm to landfill

practices: extraction, cultivation, disposal.

public participation is discouraged at sites engaged in these practices. Landfill has always been private property (what does that mean when the contents of 'private property' are regularly distributed into public property downstream?). Public participation is organized solely by the public, met with resistance by most public officials, and disdain/scorn/disbelief by PRPs. 

West Lake Landfill

AllanaRoss

-Republic Services (land owners)---priority: $$$ for shareholders

-PRPs (land owners, past and present, and companies who dumped)---priority:avoiding losing $$$

-Government organizations (from AEC to EPA)---priority: competing pressure from lobbyists and citizen activists

-Citizen organizing (Just Moms etc)---priority: neighborhood health and safety

-Civil servants (at behest of one of the above)---competing pressure from lobbyists and citizen activists, retention of power

Feedback

AllanaRoss

Feedback: I wish I had had more time to talk to other participants, to digest and process our experiences. Most interesting/productive components: museum visits, interactive experiences with other participants, group projects. Suggestions: Somehow not cramming so much information into so little time! It was a bit like drinking from a fire hydrant without a moment to catch my breath. I don't know if that can be done, though, I wouldn't want to sacrifice any of the experiences. 

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Jacob Nelson

The main point of the article is to report a conflict of opinions between the NRC and the Disaster Accountability Project on the safety of the communities surrounding the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. The NRC and the company running the plant, Entergy, state that those communities within a 10 mile radius are required to have emergency evacuation plans in place should a nuclear emergency occur; those outside this radius, however, are not at as large of risk. The nonprofit, however, cites the NRC's report on the Fukushima disaster, where it recommended the US citizens within 50 miles of the plant should evacuate the area, and suggests that communities within a 50 mile radius of Indian Point have specific nuclear emergency plans at hand and prepared for use. Entergy says that the radius "provides a robust safety margin", and the NRC replies to the Disaster Accountability Project's statement by saying that the incident at Fukushima is not comparable to any nuclear power cite in the US, due to the size and number of reactors in the Fukushima plant.

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Jacob Nelson

"The risk for commuicable disease transmission after disasters is associated primarily with the size and characteristics of the population displaced, specifically the proximity of safe water adn functioning latrines, the nutritional status of the displaced population, the level of immunuty to vaccine-preventable diseases..., and the access to healthcare services"

"...natural disasters (regardless of type) that do not result in population displacement are rarely associated with outbreaks"

"When death is directly due to the natural disaster, human remains do not pose a rise for outbreaks"

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Jacob Nelson

The author contacted both the NRC and the nonprofit Disaster Accountability Project for statements and information on the safety of the plant and if emergency plans were in place. The NRC gave statements and information on their discussions with the Disaster Accountability Project, and the nonprofit described their process of sending freedom-of-information requests to 20 jurisdictions in NY, NJ, and CT located up to 50 miles from Indian Point, in order to determine if they had emergency plans related to the power plant and what they might be