Radioactive Ohio House Bill 434 w/ Pat Marida and Lee Blackburn

Carolyn Harding with Pat Marida and Lee Blackburn coordinators of the Ohio Nuclear Free Network. They are highly concerned with the current Ohio HB 434, and we’ll learn what it’s about and what we can do about it. Pat Marida has been an antinuclear activist since the 1980s, when she was a Board Member of the Ohio Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. For 25 years she held volunteer positions with the Sierra Club, working on environmental issues and chairing the Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear Free Committee. She is currently a Coordinator with the Ohio Nuclear Free Network. Lee Blackburn is one of the founding members of the Ohio Nuclear Free Network and is currently working to oppose Ohio House Bill 434, a senseless bill that provides no benefits but could saddle the State with billions in losses. He is a former Chief Investment Officer for a major real estate concern that invested some $3 billion in low to moderate income housing under his purview. He became concerned about radioactive materials and its deadly legacy after becoming familiar with the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in southern Ohio where uranium was initially enriched to weapons-grade. Beginning in 1991, until its relegation to Cold Standby in 2001, PORTS, or the A-plant as it’s locally known, supplied low-enriched uranium for nuclear reactors. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Senator Sherrod Brown, The Department of Energy was required in 2008 to establish a community-based Site Specific Advisory Board to make recommendations to the Department Of Energy on clean-up efforts at the Site. Mr. Blackburn served as one of the founding members and still attends Board meetings to provide testimony as a private citizen. Ohio HB Bill 434 is relatively short, only 14 pages and YET this Bill is “Massive in Scope” - What’s in it, and why you are so concerned? https://onfn.blogspot.com https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA134-HB-434 GrassRoot Ohio - Conversations with everyday people working on important issues, here in