Abalone Alliance
Formation | 1977 |
---|---|
Type | Nonviolent civil disobedience group |
Purpose | Opposition to nuclear power |
Headquarters | San Luis Obispo & San Francisco |
Location |
|
The Abalone Alliance (1977–1985) was a
The Abalone Alliance staged blockades and occupations at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant site between 1977 and 1984.[1] Nearly two thousand people were arrested during a two-week blockade in 1981, exceeding Seabrook as the largest number arrested at an anti-nuclear protest in the United States.[2]
History
The Diablo Canyon controversy started in 1963 when PG&E scrapped its attempt to build the Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant at Bodega Head, 71 miles north of San Francisco. The Bodega struggle started in 1958, but was opposed by a group led by a University of California professor and young Sierra Club activist named David Pessonen. This was the first anti-nuclear power campaign in the US. The main reason that the facility wasn't built was due its location less than 1,000 feet from the fault zone that struck San Francisco in 1906.
Rather than face public opposition at Diablo Canyon, PG&E approached the Sierra Club's president and cut a deal with certain board members where Diablo would be chosen rather than the
The Sierra Club president forbade any chapter from opposing Diablo Canyon, so The San Luis Obispo Chapter formed the Shoreline Preservation Conference to oppose the construction on the grounds that the area had been proposed as a state park, was a sacred Chumash Indian site, had some of the largest oak trees on the West Coast, was located on the second-to-last coastal wilderness area in California, and could be sitting on the fault that lightly shook Santa Barbara in a 1927 earthquake. The internal dispute over Diablo Canyon was a primary reason for the split-up of the Sierra Club, that led to the formation of Friends of the Earth by David Brower.[3][5]
In 1965, the Shoreline Preservation Conference demanded that regulators investigate the danger of faults near the proposed site, but was ignored. In 1972 a Los Angeles reporter discovered a report by
Diablo Canyon protests
During the late 1970s, the Abalone Alliance organized protests in San Luis County and regularly picketed PG&E offices across the state. The Alliance published a newspaper, It's About Times, which provided a forum for activist debate. Separate groups within the Abalone coalition "developed their own foci and protest styles".[6]
On August 7, 1977, 1,500 people demonstrated at the gate of Diablo Canyon, resulting in 47 arrests. The next year, 5,000 people rallied and 487 were arrested. On September 10, 1981, the Abalone Alliance occupied the site, leading to 1,960 arrests. Nearly 30,000 people showed up in support. The protest motivated lawsuits seeking damages from the protest organizers.[7]
At the end of the ten-day action in 1981, a 25-year-old engineer discovered a mirror image reversal in the seismic blueprints. PG&E was forced spend $3 billion and three additional years of repairs before reopening.
See also
- Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
- Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
- Shad Alliance
- Anti-nuclear protests in the United States
- Diablo Canyon earthquake vulnerability
- Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament
- Mothers for Peace
- Musicians United for Safe Energy
- List of articles associated with nuclear issues in California
References
- ^ Diablo Canyon Timeline Part II
- ^ Daniel Pope. Conservation Fallout (book review), H-Net Reviews, August 2007.
- ^ a b Diablo Canyon Timeline Part I
- ^ Conservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo Canyon, John Wills, pIX
- ^ DAVID BROWER by Montgomery Brower PEOPLE WEEKLY April 30, 1990 Archived July 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 9780874176803.
- ^ Turner, Wallace (14 February 1982). "NUCLEAR PROTEST LEADS TO LAWSUIT". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
- ^ Gray, Dean M. "Wake Me When Doomsday Arrives". Desert Vortex News. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
Films
Dark Circle, Dir. Chris Beaver, Ruth Landy and
A Question of Power, Dir. David L. Brown, Prod. by David L. Brown, Tom Anderson and Jane Kinzler, 1986
No Nukes Dir. Daniel Goldberg, Anthony Potenza Prod. Julian Schlossberg, 1980
Further reading
- Brown, Jerry and Rinaldo Brutoco (1997). Profiles in Power: The Anti-nuclear Movement and the Dawn of the Solar Age, Twayne Publishers.
- ISBN 0-88410-602-0
- Natti, Susanna and Acker, Bonnie (1979). No Nukes: Everyone's Guide to Nuclear Power, South End Press.
- Ondaatje, Elizabeth H. (c1988). Trends in Antinuclear Protests in the United States, 1984–1987, Rand Corporation.
- Price, Jerome (1982). The Antinuclear Movement, Twayne Publishers.
- Smith, Jennifer (Editor), (2002). The Antinuclear Movement, Cengage Gale.
- Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, University of California Press.
- ISBN 0-299-15850-0
- Wills, John (2006). Conservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo Canyon, University of Nevada Press.
- Rayl, Salley (1981). On D-Day at Diablo Canyon, It Was Jackson Browne If by Land and Robert Blake If by Sea, People Magazine.