Manhattan Wetlands and Wildlife Association, is a grass roots community based organization operating in Northern Manhattan. MWAWA was established in 2010 to clean, restore and protect area rivers and it's wetlands, rehabilitate wildlife, and educate on environmental issues, with out tax payers funds. Is Indian Point Nuclear Power Generation Facility actually safe? Can that be proven? If not, should it be made safe before continuing to operate? If it can not, should elected officials do the right thing, shut it down? MWAWA has started the petition to ensure the people's voice is heard. Not special interest groups. Indian Point only provides 4% of area electricity, which can be made up simply though energy efficiency. So the nuclear power plant is not even needed. By signing this petition you as well give the elected officials the political cover to close the plant if it is not safe. Please this petition now to say that you the public want our elected officials to ensure we are ALL safe. This is very reasonable.

On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami tragically crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing structural damage, equipment failures, nuclear reactor meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials. Since that horrific accident, reports about Fukushima's status and leaking radiation into the Pacific Ocean and atmosphere have continued to be shocking and contradictory; facts about the facility's actual deterioration have been withheld from the public. NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) is tracking a deadly plume of radiation in the Pacific that's heading toward the U.S. West Coast; elevated levels of radiation have already been detected across the U.S. This has become a global crisis that will impact generations into the unforeseeable future. We must act NOW to prevent irreversible planetary catastrophe.

I started this petition with Change.org. Sign there or here. http://www.change.org/petitions/federal-state-and-local-governments-grid-the-roads-install-solar-cells-above-all-public-roads This project would have massive benefits for the US economy, its citizens, and the Earth as a whole. The idea is simple - install solar (photovoltaic) arrays above all public roads. This provides a huge range of benefits! To list some: *For brevity, let's call these installations PVAs - for photovoltaic arrays. The PVAs could (first) reduce or perhaps eliminate the electricity needed to light the roads at night, or in cloudy weather. Electricity generated during the daytime could be stored in large capacitor holding stations for use after dark or when needed. *So called 'excess' electricity could be fed back into the existing electrical grid. This would have many powerful benefits. *Doing so would reduce the cost of electricity nationwide, both for individuals and corporations. That alone would give the US economy an enormous boost. *Generating local PVA electrical power would reduce our burning of fossil fuels, thus reducing global warming. *Since PVAs are a sustainable/renewable energy source, we greatly reduce the risk of social collapse from Peak Oil, Peak Coal, etc. *The manufacture, installation, and maintenance of the PVAs would create a fantastic number of local jobs. Jobs that could never be outsourced, or eliminated, as they have to (always) be done on a local basis. Jobs that will always be needed to maintain and expand the PVA infrastructure. After the first round of PVA installation on Federal highways, the project can be continued on state and local roads. The more PVAs we install, the lower the cost of the electricity generated. *Since the land below the PVAs is already dedicated to roads, very little additional land is needed to implement the project. Nor would land have to be seized under 'eminent domain' - the small tracts needed for capacitor holding stations could be bought or leased. *Such a national campaign would provide funding for research and development of ever more efficient PVAs. The more we do it, the better we'll get at it, and the lower the price of electricity drops. Plus, the more we do it, the less (and less) fossil fuel we need to burn for electrical power. It's a win-win that keeps on winning for everyone. *Properly designed PVAs could partially shield roads from rain and snow. This not only makes driving safer, but reduces plowing and salting costs in winter time. *PVAs could be used to provide charging stations for electric vehicles, thus helping still more to move the US toward renewable resources. *By reducing our need for oil and coal to create power, we not only reduce the pollution from burning them, we also reduce the pollution created by mining/extracting them. Further, we increase US national security by becoming less dependent on foreign oil. It could also help disaster-proof the US power grid, making it more resilient in case of natural or man-made outages. *We could eliminate the need for dangerous, non-sustainable, polluting nuclear power. *We can move beyond the conflict of government projects vs. private industry projects. The US government could work in tandem with existing power companies to create the needed infrastructure. The government could help finance construction, and then receive revenue from the power generated in the form of new taxes. Even with some tax load, the new electrical power will be cheaper than current power sources. Industry would get subsidies, just as the US government subsidized the construction of the highways themselves, along with many other historical examples. *This concept is not theoretical, it is very similar to two new projects in India. The first one is the Canal Solar Power Project that is currently working. The only real differences are the use of roads, rather than canals for the underlying right-of-way, and the scale of the project. More info is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Solar_Power_Project The second project is from the Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute (GERMI) where scientists have proposed a pilot solar power project at a Gujarat state highway. Through computer simulation the scientists believe that a solar roof cover on the 205 kilometre (km) Ahmedabad-Rajkot highway can generate 104 megawatts (MW). The GERMI scientists note that the elevated structures that would support the solar PV modules would also help in rainwater harvesting. If applied to the railway network such projects could supply power to the trains and may help reduce the dependence of Indian Railways on diesel. Read more on the second one (PVAs over roads) at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/02/indian-scientists-propose-solar-roofs-for-roads/?utm_source=Cleantechnica+News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=af255b9dd6-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN#gsc.tab=0 The second report came out a few days after I first posted this petition, so I'm close to the Zeigeist... *Historically, we have developed our infrastructure to only meet one need at a time. But more enlightened design, along with better technology, can help us create roadways that serve multiple needs, all at the same time. Just as some ecologically designed buildings sequester rain water, and harvest solar power, so too, our roads can become multi-function, multi-benefit infrastructure. Truly, this is an idea whose time has come. On an ever more crowded planet, infrastructures must be designed to provide not one, but multiple benefits. GRID THE ROADS!

Dear friends, My name is Moose Weatherman, and I am a service connected disabled veteran. I served almost 6 years in the US Navy, as a nuclear reactor operator onboard a US Navy nuclear submarine, the USS San Juan, (SSN-751). I graduated from the US Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida. I was honorably discharged and medically retired after an accident irradiated me and left me with thyroid cancer in 1989. Today, I have recovered from my illness, and I am a senior pilot for a major international airline. I have flown from the Pacific Northwest to Tokyo many times, and will resume flying those routes in the near future. Because of my education and experience as a nuclear reactor operator, I follow with great interest and concern the situation unfolding at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, located less than 150 miles northeast of Tokyo. My fellow citizens, I believe that while the seriousness of the ongoing and worsening situation at Fukushima is just starting to be noticed by the major media outlets, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) and the Japanese Government continue to downplay, procrastinate and actually mislead the world about the continued leakage from the plant, and more importantly, about the status of the three destroyed and melted-down reactors, and the leaking and rubble-filled spent fuel storage pool at reactor 4. The reactor "coriums," or melted reactor cores, for reactors 1, 2 and 3, have breached containment and are in the subterranean water table below the plant, as evidenced by the radioactive effluent from the plant into the ocean, and the steam rising from the shattered reactors, 2 years after the initial accident. The spent fuel pool at reactor 4 is precarious at best, and threatens to release 14,000 times the radioactivity released by the Hiroshima bomb... and that pool is leaking water continuously. The imminent destruction of the reactor 4 spent fuel pool will be the worst nuclear disaster in human history, and will make much of Northern Japan uninhabitable. These are the assessments of many leaders of the world's scientific community, not mine. Though today, years after my service ended, I can not claim to currently be an expert in the field of nuclear engineering, I do have enough education and experience to know that if the situation continues to follow it's current path of deterioration, millions of people.. including many of us in the Pacific Northwest, will die or be sickened. Our economy will be devastated as seafood becomes inedible, rain becomes toxic and crops will be radioactive. Friends, I urge you to educate yourself on the situation, and to petition the United States Government to move to intervene immediately to stabilize the situation at Fukushima. The Japanese Government has washed it's hands of the situation. At first, the GoJ allowed TEPCO (now bankrupt) to make all decisions and efforts at the plant, which they did in a meager and ineffective, financially constrained way. Today, they pledge to step in; however, Japanese Prime Minister Abe seems interested only in the continuation of the lie that won Tokyo the 2020 Olympics... namely, that all radiation is contained, the situation is under control, and there is no danger. While there is widely ranging opinion on exactly how bad the danger is, there is consensus among the brightest minds in science today that TEPCO and the Japanese Government have badly mismanaged the crisis, are lying on a daily basis, and that the situation is incredibly serious and becoming more grave on a daily basis. I urge you, my fellow citizens, to pursue intervention. The fate of millions of lives depend on whether or not the situation is stabilized. Syria, al Qaeda, the war on drugs, the economic crisis... none of it is as important as stabilizing Fukushima. Because if Fukushima goes, none of the rest of it will matter. Yours very respectfully, Captain James "Moose" Weatherman

Like me, over 40 million Americans live within 30 miles of a nucear waste storage site, and 116 million Americans live within 50 miles of a waste storage site. Sign this petition that tells the NRC to require that radioactive waste be stored in much safer, more secure concrete and steel dry casks. Also you can attend an NRC meeting by finding locations here: http://1.usa.gov/16kxqx1 Like the nuclear reactors themselves, spent nuclear fuel storage pools contain large amounts of radioactive material. An accident or terrorist attack resulting in a rapid loss of cooling water from a pool could lead to a fire and the release of a massive quantity of radiation—with potentially grave human, environmental, and economic consequences. These pools have become de facto nuclear waste storage sites. Rather than invest in dry casks, plant owners continue to fill them to well beyond what they were designed for, creating unnecessary risks for Americans. Simply put, spent fuel pools are overcrowded and incredibly dangerous if electricity "goes out." Concrete and steel dry cask storage, on the other hand, are so much safer and do not require electricity because they are passively cooled by natural air flow. The dry casks at the Fukushima plant in Japan, for example, went relatively unscathed after the March 2011 disaster there. Independent experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists and elsewhere agree that radioactive waste that has cooled sufficiently should be transferred to dry casks. Even the Sierra Club said that "Overcrowding in irradiated/spent fuel pools is an unacceptable risk to the public. Hardened on-site casks should become the choice for storage." As the waste must eventually be transferred to dry casks in order to be shipped offsite, why not demand that this happen sooner rather than later and improve safety right now?

After pressure from Big Oil & Gas, the Environmental Protection Agency shut down three different investigations into fracking-related water contamination in Dimock, PA, Pavillion, WY, and Parker County, TX. I’m from Scranton, PA, a town just down the road from Dimock, where whistleblowers revealed that the EPA shut down its investigation despite its own preliminary findings (based on 4.5 years of data) that fracking had caused “significant damage” to drinking water. It's outrageous, and we have to make sure the EPA re-opens these investigations and provides residents with safe drinking water. Next Wednesday we will deliver these petition DIRECTLY to the EPA with residents who have been directly impacted. Please help us build our voice louder than Big Oil & Gas.

I am harassed with chemicals and it is getting very intense for me and my friends in this senior building I called for help and I was not taken seriously. I was taken to the psychiatrist ward at the hospital and the doctor thought I was paranoid. I am afraid of calling the Police for help. These chemicals get into the Respiratory System, then according Dr. Singer, a Neurologist, it gets into the Nervous System to cause excruciating pain and disability. Plus, it focuses on any Vital Organ to disable and cause death to those that are vulnerable. The creators of these chemicals have discovered the Pathway from the lungs to all parts of the body. These chemicals are focused to any part to disable and cause death to Human Beings and animals. It is urgent to stop the creators and harassers from this behavior to destroy life and pollute the environment. This is for Humanity and the younger generation The authorities have more information on this. Now, is the time to do a proper investigation to get these chemicals to test and assess. Thus, stopping this chemical harassment here in Minneapolis, MN and every where else in USA and the World.

After 50+ years of fluorosilicic acid being added to our water supply, our citizens have paid the consequences. Many have dental fluorosis, gum disease, IQ deficiencies, genetic defects, increase uptake of lead, thyroid dysfunction, tooth and bone damage, and even bone cancer. We have the opportunity to turn this around, and remove this from our water supply. Ingestion of fluoride has never been proven to reduce the incidence of cavities, only topically has there shown results. We do not want so called "experts" such as the CDC, Bureau for Public Health, and American Dental Association to push us around any longer with their hidden agendas. The truth has been exposed. Despite fluoridation, WV still consistently ranks no. 1 in poor oral health in the nation. WHEN IN DOUBT, GET IT OUT!!

The danger of huge radiation releases from Fukushima 4 has taken on a new dimension; the world community must step in!

Genetically engineered foods have not been adequately tested; it's unethical to be putting an experimental technology into the food we feed our families. I am concerned about the rise in allergies and gastrointestinal problems in children. I believe GMOs need to be labeled so that we the consumers can make our own choices. We have a right to know what we are eating and feeding our families.

Public health concerns have been raised about the oil exploration process termed "Hydraulic Fracturing". The City of Lubbock Board of Health was asked to investigate this practice and after almost one year of article review, meetings with a variety of experts in oil exploration, and gathering "best practice" recommendations, the board presented their recommendations to the City Council. Following this the council appointed an Oil and Gas subcommittee to independently review the recommendations and prepare their own submission for council. Despite having had only two meetings this committee, whose membership is heavily weighted with representatives from those companies who stand to profit by no operational restrictions, now is preparing their final report to the council. We believe that this lack of review by those who stand to profit is in error to the public health interests of our community. We are asking citizens to provide input on this petition so that other voices can be heard.

Over the past year, the Obama Administration has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to shut down one fracking-related water contamination investigation after another. When early results of investigations in Dimock, Pennsylvania, Parker County, Texas and Pavillion, Wyoming showed that the EPA had evidence linking gas drilling and fracking operations to groundwater contamination, your administration chose to "see no evil" and abandon the investigations -- and the communities suffering the impacts of oil and gas development as a result. We want to remind President Obama that he represents the American people, not the oil and gas industry.