This past Sunday, weekend travelers to Cape Cod were greeted by a group of 70 anti-nuclear protesters, who held a rally at the foot of the Sagamore Bridge. Heavy congestion leading onto the bridge due to Mother’s Day traffic gave the protesters, most of whom were a part of Occupy Cape Cod.
Paul Rifkin, activist and a moderator of occupycapecod.com, said that the protest had two purposes. First, it raised awareness and garnered media attention for a larger protest scheduled for this Sunday, May 20th, at the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Second, the protest sought to teach its audience how a meltdown at the Pilgrim plant would harm Cape residents.
“We considered doing civil disobedience at the bridge; we had people ready to stand in front of traffic, [as] a symbolic demonstration of the fact that that’s what will happen in the event of a meltdown.” Rifkin, and many others opposed to the continued operation of the Pilgrim plant, reason that because the Cape lies outside of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) 10 mile ‘evacuation zone’ around a nuclear meltdown, those living on the Cape would have few options if attempting to escape from nuclear radiation, which could be spread up to fifty miles around the area of a meltdown.
Photos by Paul Rifkin.
We should ALL be concerned, as we are as protestors who are hoping to bring attention to the situation existing right at our doorstep. Entergy is NOT CONCERNED at all for their workers and for those who are literally paying to keep them in their “ivory towers” receiving unbelievable sums of money to maintain a lifestyle and peace of mind that none of us have.