How Piketon Became A Potemkin Village
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Categories: Corporate Accountability / Workers' Rights, Economic Fairness and Security, Honest and Ethical Government, Environment and Conservation, Public Infrastructure / Transportation, Energy Policy
Categories: Corporate Accountability / Workers' Rights, Economic Fairness and Security, Honest and Ethical Government, Environment and Conservation, Public Infrastructure / Transportation, Energy Policy
By Geoffrey Sea
When the Russian czarina toured war-ravaged Crimea in 1787, she viewed hundreds of hollow buildings and false fronts, populated by jovial village actors. Her minister, Grigori Potemkin, had engineered the grand theatrical production to boost his own political career. Hence the term Potemkin village - the mock display of a boomtown that is really bust.
Politicians now tour the ravaged lower Scioto Valley, to perennially announce grand new atomic projects, guaranteed to bring many thousands of new jobs.
In 2004, it was USEC's American Centrifuge Plant, stewarded by a company acknowledged to have run a technology scam once before, in the hollow shell of a project that had failed in the 1980s.
Spin, gas and vaporware, but no jobs.
By election time in 2006, USEC was already a year overdue in demonstrating the commercial viability of its gargantuan centrifuges. To distract attention, politicians of both parties (area Democrats teamed with congressional Republicans) signed off on "the American Recycling Facility," never defined as to exactly what it was.
Two or four or six thousand jobs would supposedly come from the nebulous nothing - those numbers pulled from the nether regions of Cleveland politician and "entrepreneur" Dan Moore. Moore received $674,000 in federal "study money," half of which went to AREVA, the national nuclear company of France. "Volume 1, No. 1" of a project newsletter appeared, containing a rather bad "typo" mixing up uranium and plutonium. There has been no newsletter No. 2.
Ohio Congressman David Hobson asked the Department of Energy for additional money for Moore, saying that only one "community" has "offered to host" centralized storage of spent nuclear fuel without a production plant - that one being Piketon.
Ted Strickland, who had campaigned against waste storage or reprocessing here, promptly reversed his position once in office as Governor, and also appealed to the Energy Secretary on Moore's behalf. Strickland had received at least $10,000 for his gubernatorial campaign from Dan Moore, but was unable to identify Moore's occupation on contribution reporting forms, which the Cleveland Plain Dealerfound odd.
Congress ended 2007 by slashing funds for new reprocessing and canceling any siting plans. However, Congress also instructed DOE to pursue centralized waste storage on the basis of hosting offers already received. Because of the application submitted by Moore and partners, the number of identified host sites stands at one, this one.
With the 2008 election year, facades are starting to fall. Despite deceptive press releases, USEC is thirty months past deadline on demonstration with none in sight; cost estimates have doubled; and USEC stock is down 83 percent from its high last May, losing almost 10 percent of value Friday.
But have no fear. Strickland, on the stump with Bill Clinton in Portsmouth, said he wants the USEC lease terminated, acknowledging the project is a flop. Since Clinton is the culprit who privatized USEC in 1998, with disastrous results, the occasion of the announcement was appropriate.
However, Strickland wants the Piketon site handed over to AREVA, so AREVA can build a new uranium enrichment plant instead.
So let's review. No American Centrifuge Plant and no American Recycling Facility - domestic projects advertised as patriotic. But we will get a French centrifuge plant on U.S. government land, offered in covert negotiations by the governor of Ohio. The operator will be the same French company that already ran away with half the U.S. funds provided for the "study" of the Piketon site by Strickland's big campaign contributor.
And by the way, AREVA is more interested in a site in Idaho.
Back in Potemkin, Ohio, the village actors are looking less jovial. Given the fake promises, DOE had jumped to the conclusion that it didn't really have to clean up the site. Near-term jobs and long-term industry depend on cleanup.
Hoping to make Piketon a waste dump, Department of Energy decided it didn't need a real Citizens Advisory Board representing residents, workers and American Indian tribes, as required by law. So Piketon, alone among the major DOE sites in the country, has never had a citizens advisory board. Grigori Potemkin himself could not have engineered a grander display of public deception.
A comprehensive and chartered citizens advisory board would empower the community to demand and disseminate real information about what is happening under the hollow shells.
It is federal land. It belongs to us, the American people. The proprietary rights are ours and do not belong to companies from Cleveland or governments in France or self-selecting local leaders or any of the politicians they employ.
When a chartered citizens advisory board is established, federal law bars any individual with a clear conflict of interest from serving on it. That applies especially to Gregory Simonton and associates. Simonton directs SODI, the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, which by partnering with Moore subjected our area to the possibility of becoming a nuclear waste storage dump.
Southern Ohio Neighbors Group will host a community meeting on these issues 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday at the OSU Endeavor Center West on Shyville Road in Piketon. The Department of Energy will sponsor a public meeting on cleanup and public participation immediately following, 6 to 8 p.m. at the Endeavor Center East.
Bring torches and pitchforks, figuratively speaking. A little revolt by the real villagers is long overdue.
Sea is a writer who lives on the fence line of the Piketon federal reservation and is a co-founder of Southern Ohio Neighbors Group.
Originally published In
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803170314
When the Russian czarina toured war-ravaged Crimea in 1787, she viewed hundreds of hollow buildings and false fronts, populated by jovial village actors. Her minister, Grigori Potemkin, had engineered the grand theatrical production to boost his own political career. Hence the term Potemkin village - the mock display of a boomtown that is really bust.
Politicians now tour the ravaged lower Scioto Valley, to perennially announce grand new atomic projects, guaranteed to bring many thousands of new jobs.
In 2004, it was USEC's American Centrifuge Plant, stewarded by a company acknowledged to have run a technology scam once before, in the hollow shell of a project that had failed in the 1980s.
Spin, gas and vaporware, but no jobs.
By election time in 2006, USEC was already a year overdue in demonstrating the commercial viability of its gargantuan centrifuges. To distract attention, politicians of both parties (area Democrats teamed with congressional Republicans) signed off on "the American Recycling Facility," never defined as to exactly what it was.
Two or four or six thousand jobs would supposedly come from the nebulous nothing - those numbers pulled from the nether regions of Cleveland politician and "entrepreneur" Dan Moore. Moore received $674,000 in federal "study money," half of which went to AREVA, the national nuclear company of France. "Volume 1, No. 1" of a project newsletter appeared, containing a rather bad "typo" mixing up uranium and plutonium. There has been no newsletter No. 2.
Ohio Congressman David Hobson asked the Department of Energy for additional money for Moore, saying that only one "community" has "offered to host" centralized storage of spent nuclear fuel without a production plant - that one being Piketon.
Ted Strickland, who had campaigned against waste storage or reprocessing here, promptly reversed his position once in office as Governor, and also appealed to the Energy Secretary on Moore's behalf. Strickland had received at least $10,000 for his gubernatorial campaign from Dan Moore, but was unable to identify Moore's occupation on contribution reporting forms, which the Cleveland Plain Dealerfound odd.
Congress ended 2007 by slashing funds for new reprocessing and canceling any siting plans. However, Congress also instructed DOE to pursue centralized waste storage on the basis of hosting offers already received. Because of the application submitted by Moore and partners, the number of identified host sites stands at one, this one.
With the 2008 election year, facades are starting to fall. Despite deceptive press releases, USEC is thirty months past deadline on demonstration with none in sight; cost estimates have doubled; and USEC stock is down 83 percent from its high last May, losing almost 10 percent of value Friday.
But have no fear. Strickland, on the stump with Bill Clinton in Portsmouth, said he wants the USEC lease terminated, acknowledging the project is a flop. Since Clinton is the culprit who privatized USEC in 1998, with disastrous results, the occasion of the announcement was appropriate.
However, Strickland wants the Piketon site handed over to AREVA, so AREVA can build a new uranium enrichment plant instead.
So let's review. No American Centrifuge Plant and no American Recycling Facility - domestic projects advertised as patriotic. But we will get a French centrifuge plant on U.S. government land, offered in covert negotiations by the governor of Ohio. The operator will be the same French company that already ran away with half the U.S. funds provided for the "study" of the Piketon site by Strickland's big campaign contributor.
And by the way, AREVA is more interested in a site in Idaho.
Back in Potemkin, Ohio, the village actors are looking less jovial. Given the fake promises, DOE had jumped to the conclusion that it didn't really have to clean up the site. Near-term jobs and long-term industry depend on cleanup.
Hoping to make Piketon a waste dump, Department of Energy decided it didn't need a real Citizens Advisory Board representing residents, workers and American Indian tribes, as required by law. So Piketon, alone among the major DOE sites in the country, has never had a citizens advisory board. Grigori Potemkin himself could not have engineered a grander display of public deception.
A comprehensive and chartered citizens advisory board would empower the community to demand and disseminate real information about what is happening under the hollow shells.
It is federal land. It belongs to us, the American people. The proprietary rights are ours and do not belong to companies from Cleveland or governments in France or self-selecting local leaders or any of the politicians they employ.
When a chartered citizens advisory board is established, federal law bars any individual with a clear conflict of interest from serving on it. That applies especially to Gregory Simonton and associates. Simonton directs SODI, the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, which by partnering with Moore subjected our area to the possibility of becoming a nuclear waste storage dump.
Southern Ohio Neighbors Group will host a community meeting on these issues 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday at the OSU Endeavor Center West on Shyville Road in Piketon. The Department of Energy will sponsor a public meeting on cleanup and public participation immediately following, 6 to 8 p.m. at the Endeavor Center East.
Bring torches and pitchforks, figuratively speaking. A little revolt by the real villagers is long overdue.
Sea is a writer who lives on the fence line of the Piketon federal reservation and is a co-founder of Southern Ohio Neighbors Group.
Originally published In
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803170314
