I received this email today:
It’s inspired our poets and painters for centuries, and still provides a haven of unspoiled beauty and calm for millions of visitors every year.
But if we don’t act, our iconic and beloved Lake District could soon be known as something else:
the UK’s newest nuclear waste dump and the largest toxic dump in the world. [1]
We’re not making this up. And if this plan goes ahead, it’s not only radioactive waste we’d be dumping: we’d likely be kissing goodbye to tens of thousands of jobs and wiping billions of pounds off our tourist industry as well.
We don’t have much time - decision-makers meet tomorrow. But they’re under heavy pressure already - experts have condemned the plans, local people have been up in arms and thousands have signed a 38 Degrees petition to stop the nuclear dump. A late surge of signatures could be all we need to push them over the edge - and stop this crazy plan once and for all.
Click here to sign the petition:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/stop-lakes-nuclear-dumpA few years ago, the government asked local councils to volunteer to store the country’s nuclear waste. Cumbria County Council responded, lured by the prospect of new jobs in construction. Now councillors are meeting tomorrow to vote whether to start investigating potential dump sites - either next to or actually inside the borders of the national park.
They’re actually considering this. Radioactive waste. Inside our largest national park.
Eminent scientists like Stuart Haszeldine of the University of Edinburgh are already warning that if a dump is built, radioactive gas could leak to the surface within 60 years. But you don’t have to be a geology professor to work out that this plan is a monumentally bad idea. [2]
If we can show local officials their dumping plans are likely to cause a national outcry, they’ll be much more likely to quietly drop them at their vote this Wednesday. Sign the petition now:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/stop-lakes-nuclear-dumpWhen David Cameron’s government tried to sell off our forests, we didn’t let them sweet-talk a few local decision-makers with promises of economic gain. We banded together as a nation and said, ‘no way - this history, this heritage, this space for wild beauty and freedom belongs to all of us.’
Well, the Lake District is a national treasure. It employs 55,000 people in tourism alone - but how many people are going to want to visit a national park scarred by a Channel Tunnel-sized construction project? Who’s going to go on holiday to a toxic waste dump the size of a city? This is going to cost jobs - and far more than will ever be created by turning the Lake District into the UK’s newest dumping ground. [3]
Most of the country still has no idea this is happening - and we only have 24 hours to spread the word far and wide. Click here to sign the petition - and share it with your friends:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/stop-lakes-nuclear-dumpThank you for standing up for something so special,
Hannah, David, Marie and the 38 Degrees team
Comments
Radioactive waste is lethal.
And given that we currently dump it in the third world maybe it is time we dealt with our own mess.
I saw that Finland are investing a large amount of money on a nuclear storage facility which will be in a deep rock bed that will be totally safe so I guess that's what we need to do. It can also be a good thing in creating jobs we all know that nothing is 100% safe but the alternative is sitting in the cold and in the dark.
"The most earthquake prone part of the country" Quick everyone, get under the kitchen table, yeh right!
Thing is, we have had nuclear power generation for over 50 years, we require a safe place to "STORE" the waste and are looking at solutions. One of these options is to store it underground in a controlled fashion and just so happens that Cumbria fits the bill apparently. Until someone tells me otherwise, as someone who really knows diddly squat other than the basics, I think I will trust the experts, not a bunch of reactive hill huggers, who can only bring delay to the process.
I'm with you on this one Soapy.
You can't make an omelete without breaking eggs..............
I am a geologist, although not one working in the field of nuclear waste disposal. Nuclear waste disposal was covered in one of my university modules and based in what I learnt then and since I would seriously question if there is anywhere particularly well suited to underground disposal of nuclear waste. Nowhere is remote enough, at least certainly not on the mainland.
Read up on the Yucca Mountain project. That is a controversial enough idea in itself there is nothing nearly as suitable in the UK.
Some of the waste will be hazardous for longer than humans have existed as a species and for a decent chunk of time even by geological standards. No one can have an accurate idea if what conditions the waste may
and we cant use oil, gas, coal or nuclear but no one has any answer to how 80/75% of our energy will come from.
We should do as the French did build 20/30 Nuclear power stations and sell that energy to other countries as well as supplying ourselves.
They dont have a n issue with it and as "good europeans" why not copy them
hydrogen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
There again, Chernobyl buggered up the lamb!
1] We have a shitload of Uranium that we currently can't sell to a couple of key markets (India, China) for political reasons, one of which is over what these places will do with the nuclear waste.
2] Australia - especially South Australia - wants to become a 'nuclear waste treatment centre' and start charging people to dump their nuclear waste in the huge and uninhabited SA outback - this is something of a controversial idea as you can imagine!