Heart of America Northwest Featured in CNN National News Report!

A recent CNN Report featured Hanford Expert and Activist, Gerry Pollett and his organization Heart of America NW. He points to concerns with how funds are being spent with Recovery Act dollars. Heart of America's message is "Clean It Up First".

The Hanford site is located in close proximity to the Colombia River and was the site which developed the components for the first atomic bombs and nuclear energy technologies.

Heart of America Northwest Featured in

CNN National News Report!

CNN national news report on Hanford features Heart of America Northwest and Gerry Pollet!!!

CNN news is running a special report on Hanford based on research we provided and featuring an interview alongside the Columbia River with me.

The story features really interesting footage of CNN's Patrick Oppman suiting up in protective gear to go inside Hanford 's massive and highly contaminated Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), which is being cleaned out and readied for demolition using stimulus funding.

Here is the link:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/01/27/oppmann.nuclear.stimulus.cnn?iref=allsearch

This would never have happened without Heart of America Northwest's organizing and legal work. In the 1990's, USDOE wanted to restart processing of Plutonium for weapons at PFP. We forced shutdown of the plant - which dumped its untreated liquid wastes straight into soil ditches - with a lawsuit and two straight years of organizing turnout to hearings (with Washington State, at the time, actually opposing our efforts).

CNN is posting additional interview footage with me and other background on its website.

This coverage is a wonderful start for our push to generate news coverage of USDOE's plans to use Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump and NOT to cleanup the High-Level Nuclear Waste leaked from Single Shell Tanks for the hearings on USDOE's "Tank Closure and Waste ManagementEIS" running through March 8^th.

USDOE's own analysis shows that its plans will cause the Plutonium level entering the Columbia River to increase to 300 times the Drinking WaterStandard over the next thousand years!!! That equates to an adult fatal cancer risk of 3% for any adult drinking that water... and children are 3 to 10 times more susceptible to cancer from the same dose than an adult.

The cancer risk from drinking groundwater will be ten times worse if USDOE gets to import and bury 3 million cubic feet of radioactive waste! This is USDOE's own analysis buried in the 6,000 page EIS.

Hanford is the single largest recipient of stimulus funding in the nation, with $2 billion. We are concerned that USDOE is not using any stimulus funds to get waste out of the leaky Single Shell High-Level Nuclear Waste tanks faster; despite this being the USDOE's proclaimed top priority for safety and the environment. The day Patrick Oppman joined me out at Hanford, USDOE responded to my analysis that they were inflating their claim of jobs created with stimulus funding by announcing a 50% reduction in the number of jobs USDOE claimed have been created at Hanford with stimulus funds.

Please plan to join me at the hearing nearest you to add your comments opposing USDOE's plans to use Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump. All hearings begin at 7 PM, and we will hold pre-hearing workshops at 6PM: Feb. 9 Hood River BW Hotel; Feb 10 Portland Doubletree Lloyd Center ; Feb. 22LaGrande OR; Feb. 23 Spokane Red Lion at the Park: March 1 Eugene, OR Hilton; March 8^th Seattle Center Northwest Rooms.

We are also holding pre-hearing workshops in Portland on Monday, Feb 1^st (at Whole Foods, Fremont at 7:30 PM) and with Hanford Challenge in Seattle on Saturday March 6^th in the morning at 10:30 AM (Hugo House). We'll be at Spokane Community College on Feb. 17^th, and at the Eugene U of O Public Interest Environmental Law Conference on Feb. 27^th.

This is an intense organizing effort for we are trying to raise the $10,000 needed to mail our four page Citizens' Guide to 20,000 households and support our travel and organizing for the workshops and hearings. Please consider making a tax deductible contribution on-line (secure at www.hoanw.org) or by mail ( 1314 NE 56^th St. #100 ) to help us raise the funds needed to print and mail the Citizen's Guides on time.

As always, please call me if you have questions or suggestions. I hope to see you at one of our workshops and hearing.

Gerry

Gerry Pollet, J.D.;

Executive Director,

Heart of America Northwest

"The Public's Voice for Hanford Clean-Up"

(206)382-1014

gerry@hoanw.org