NRDC Reverses position on Diablo seismic surveys

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NRDC Reverses position on Diablo seismic surveys

by David Gurney

In a sharp break from its position one month ago of mitigated approval for PG&E’s seismic testing plans off the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, the Natural Resources Defense Council has changed course, with a mitigated mitigation recommendation.

NRDC senior analyst Karin Garrison’s latest position statement includes the stipulation: “If the project goes forward, all possible steps should be taken to minimize to harm to the marine environment, and to mitigate impacts that are unavoidable.”

Some of the “mitigations” suggested if seismic testing goes through, include forcing PG&E to fund “monitoring” efforts for recently created MLPAI “Marine Protected Areas,” including the Point Bushon State Marine Reserve that would be destroyed by the air-cannon blasting.

The MPLA “Initiative” was a corrupt, corporate funded project that was heavily supported by Garrison and the NRDC. Article below.

NRDC Calls for Stop to PG&E Seismic Test, Urges Coastal Commission to Deny Permit

by Ed Ochs Sept 20, 2012 on The Rock

In a significant, eleventh-hour break from the State Lands Commission (SLC), the lead state agency permitting PG&E’s controversial offshore California Central Coast 3D seismic test, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the influential national environmental organization, has withdrawn its support for the test it only recently endorsed. Furthermore, it has asked the California Coastal Commission to deny PG&E a coastal permit to conduct the test.

Less than a month ago, the NRDC worked closely with SLC staff to craft the mitigation measures for significant impacts to marine protected areas as result of PG&E’s high-energy high-decibel test of the fault lines around and under the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in Avila Beach. Although the NRDC’s action is belated — as the test is set to begin November 1 — their reversal of support could cause a ripple effect through upper state government circles and throughout the international environmental community, which is already solidly lining up against the test and its EIR-certified “significant and unavoidable” consequences. (See GROUPS LINE UP article.)

In a September 17 memo from Karen Garrison, a senior policy analyst with NRDC’s oceans program and co-director of its ocean program, to NRDC staff, she stated: “In summary, we have concluded that the survey will provide only marginal additional informational information that will not affect the safety of the Diablo plant.”

Read Article HERE: http://www.rockofthecoast.com/2012/09/20/nrdc-calls-for-stop-to-pge-seismic-test-urges-coastal-commission-to-deny-permit/

For a copy of Garrison’s ‘Mitigation Memo’, go HERE: http://www.rockofthecoast.com/files/092012/NRDCMemo-091712.pdf