It moves in the environment much more rapidly than previously believed by the federal government. At the Nevada test-site plutonium has been found moving in a plume more than a mile away from an underground test that was set off only about 30 years ago. Previous estimates were that it would take more than 10,000 years for this deadly substance to travel this far. Like other radioactive materials, in addition to initiating cancers, plutonium is highly mutagenic and can disrupt reproductive cells. It threatens the entire web of life, upon which we depend for food, oxygen, water purification and materials for most of our products.
Many people believe it is impossible to effectively fight against the nuclear power industry.
In fact, there has not been a successful new nuclear reactor order since 1973. And the only major new atomic facility even proposed since the 1980s, a uranium enrichment plant slated for a poor, African-American community in northern Louisiana, was stopped by citizen activism in 1998. Moreover, citizens across the country have begun to actively resist existing nuclear reactors. Ten large commercial reactors have been closed, in large part due to citizen activism, in the past decade. Active and concerned people have proven they can take on the nuclear industry and win.