OSWEGO, NY – A group of activists is undertaking a month-long No More Fukushimas Peace Walk around Lake Ontario to call attention to the presence of what they say are “dangerous, aging and polluted nuclear reactors (16 active and 2 shut down) around that ecologically precious body of water.”
They started July 12 at the Onondaga Nation and will end Aug. 11 in Buffalo.
On Saturday the group of about a dozen marched from Breitbeck Park in Oswego out to the nuclear plants in Scriba.
The walk is being led by long-time activist and peace walker, Jun-san Yasuda.
“The Fukushima nuclear disaster had a terrible impact on the Japanese people,” she told Oswego County Today. “We are walking to bring awareness and educate people so something like that will never happpen again.”
Two of the local reactors – Nine Nile 1 and FitzPatrick – are Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, the same style as the reactors that melted down during the Fukushima nuclear disaster, she pointed out.
Officials at the plants have maintained they are being operated safely and there is no danger.
The peace walkers paused at the intersection of Lake Road and County Route 29 in Scriba, just outside the entrance road to the FitzPatrick nuclear plant for a vigil Saturday afternoon.
Sue Matthews, one of the Occupy Oswego group, marched with the walkers “and made it all the way out there,” she said.
“We stopped at the church on (Route) 29 for lunch,” she said, adding, “I figured if (the walkers) could come all the way from Fukushima and Chernobyl, I should at least make it to my local nuke plant.”
The group also marched through the center of the Oswego Community Garden.
“They also like to honor and highlight what we are doing right, not just what we are doing wrong,” said Matthews who is one of the gardeners. “I was honored.”
She picked them some dinner salad greens and delivered it to St Peter’s, where the walkers were being housed for the night.
Local organizations and activists are hosting the No More Fukushimas Peace Walkers as they make they way around the lake.
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