Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

Ten years after being founded by Physicians for Social Responsibility's international federation (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War), the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their successful efforts to establish the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

Join us Sunday, October 15th at 3pm for "What Unites Us," a Portland Gay Men's Chorus concert uplifting the work of social justice organizations including Oregon PSR, the NAACP of Portland, and more.

Breaking news! We're celebrating a huge victory today. As a co-director of the Power Past Coal coalition, I'm thrilled to thank each of you for working so hard to defeat the proposed Millennium Bulk Terminal project, the largest coal export facility in the country. Your hard work, connected to the work of health professionals and activists from the mines to the ports, helped convince the State of Washington to deny a key permit today. This dirty and dangerous coal facility cannot be built! 

Huge piles of coal on the banks of our Columbia River, with dangerous coal dust contaminating our river and our neighborhoods? Diesel pollution damaging our health?

That’s what we could be looking at – uncovered piles of coal 8 stories high and 16 mile-long, uncovered coal trains barreling every day of the year along the Columbia River, through our neighborhoods, threatening our air quality, water quality, and public safety.

John Oliver, formerly of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," tackled the expansive issue of nuclear waste and its dangers on his HBO show "Last Week Tonight." The episode aired on August 20th, 2017 (content warning: explicit language). The comedian made some very good points (and jokes) about the health impacts of this frequently hushed-up issue. We take a look at what Mr. Oliver and his team did well, and what wasn't quite right.

On August 10th, 2017 Susannah Frame of King 5 News in Washington State published an in-depth look at nuclear waste transport violations at the Columbia Generating Station near Richland, WA. The report was based on a tip provided by our Nuclear Power Program. Because of multiple errors in its shipping of radioactive waste, The Washington State Department of Health has suspended indefinitely the shipment of radioactive waste from the nuclear plant.

A westbound 120-car coal train derailed at approximately 11:00 pm on Sunday, August 13th about 10 miles west of Noxon, Montana. Thirty of the 120 uncovered rail cars, each fully loaded, dumped dirty and dangerous coal next to and into the Cabinet Gorge Reservoir of the Clark Fork River. There were no injuries. Crews are working to clean up the mess and hope to finish on Wednesday. The track is closed.

On Wednesday, August 9th, 2017, Oregonians gathered in downtown Portland on a hot summer evening to commemorate the tragedy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II in 1945. This year marks the 72nd anniversary of the horrifying loss of tens of thousands of lives as the United States' military deployed its nuclear arsenal. This memorial event came one month after 122 countries voted in the United Nations to approve a historic ban treaty on nuclear weapons. It also occurred in the midst of the US' current embroilment in nuclear threats with North Korea.

The Columbia Generating Station at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, WA.

On July 26, 2017, quietly and with no reporting to the media, the State of Washington’s Department of Health found that Energy Northwest vastly under-reported the radioactivity of a July 20, 2017 low-level radioactive waste shipment. As it had after a previous similar incident in November, the Department of Health indefinitely revoked the nuclear utility’s right to ship radioactive materials to the state’s licensed disposal site.

Oregon PSR and 350 Salem after the Metro Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee heard testimony in opposition to sending 200,000 tons of the Portland area's trash to the Covanta Marion Waste-to-Energy incinerator in Brooks, OR.

On August 8th, health, environmental justice, and community groups celebrated as the Metro Council voted to proceed no further with a proposal to send 200,000 tons of waste per year to the Covanta Marion incinerator in Brooks, OR. The amount equals one-fifth of the tri-county area’s solid waste, and waste-to-energy plants produce even more pollution and global warming emissions than coal plants per unit of electricity produced. Fifteen organizations including Oregon PSR, the NAACP Portland Branch, and Neighbors for Clean Air sent a letter to the Metro Council last week urging them to abandon the proposal.