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Flowers, Drums, Aerial Art: Fighting Energy the California Way

Flowers, Drums, Aerial Art: Fighting Energy the California Way

(Bloomberg) -- Edison International is working on relocating the nuclear waste at its San Onofre power plant north of San Diego, now that the complex has been retired. Some environmentalists and neighbors are concerned about just how that’s happening.

So what are a bunch of concerned Californians to do about this? Use their bodies to create aerial art on a nearby beach, of course. And plant flowers. Lots of flowers. A group called Public Watchdogs plans to distribute and plant 1 million sunflower seeds to protest what it called Edison’s “waste dump.” And on Saturday, hundreds of people are expected to join the Acjachemen Nation to create a “work of living aerial art” calling for the safe storage of San Onofre’s nuclear waste.

Flowers, Drums, Aerial Art: Fighting Energy the California Way

You can’t really get much more California than that. Except you can. Here are a few other flower-power ways that folks in the Golden State have protested energy projects:

  • In October, indigenous groups brought a Changing Spirits drum to Hollywood and held a prayer session to protest major fossil-fuel projects such as the Keystone XL, Trans Mountain and Line 3 oil pipelines. A group organized a gathering at Oakland’s City Hall, too, for a dance and prayerful walk.
  • Last January, a group gathered at San Jose City Hall to sing songs, pray, burn sage and bang drums to protest the Dakota Access pipeline.
  • Back in November 2016, Occupy Oakland planned a training session to teach people headed to the Standing Rock protest how “to be an effective water protector.” The event included a potluck spread.

For what it’s worth, Edison said in a statement that it’s committed to safely storing the used nuclear fuel at the San Onofre site until the federal government can come up with a long-term solution. The company noted that this is becoming a national issue as more reactors retire.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lynn Doan in San Francisco at ldoan6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Will Wade

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