Clamshell Alliance

The Clamshell Alliance was an anti-nuclear organization co-founded by Paul Gunter and others in 1976 in order to oppose construction of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in New Hampshire. It opposed all nuclear power in New England.

Activities

The alliance conducted non-violent demonstrations in the late 1970s and 1980s. In April, 1977 over 2,000 protestors occupied the Seabrook construction site. 1,414 of these activists were arrested and held in jails and National Guard armories for up to two weeks after refusing bail. Clamshell activists used this detention for training and networking, and long considered the detention a blunder on the part of Republican Governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr..

Richard Asinof wrote:

The overwhelming success of the Clamshell Alliance's occupation can be attributed to three factors; the planning and leadership of the Clamshell Alliance itself; the strength of the affinity group and the spirit and discipline of the occupiers; and the strong impact that women in key leadership roles exerted on the events. [1]

In later years, New Hampshire authorities minimized the impact of mass civil disobedience at the Seabrook plant by treating activist trespass as a violation, and allowing community service in lieu of fine. Actions were still media events capable of swaying public opinion, but their larger impact was limited. Clamshell Alliance members attempted to have their actions taken more seriously by the courts, and began staging sit-ins of the office of Republican Governor Judd Gregg. While this action resulted in jail time for criminal trespass, the local courts would not rule on the question of "competing harms" or the "Right of Revolution" granted by the New Hampshire Constitution. Rye, New Hampshire activist Guy Chichester eventually sawed down a Seabrook Station emergency warning siren pole, resulting in charges of "criminal mischief", a Class B felony. Although there was no doubt that he had cut down the pole, Chichester was acquitted. In his appeal Chichester's lawyer Patrick Fleming argued that according to article 10 of the N.H. state constitution, any citizen has a right to act to protect his or herself when the state fails to do so, which is known as the Right of Revolution:

[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

The Clamshell Alliance was an inspiration to other communities who wished to organize opposition to nuclear power plants. Hundreds of groups with similar names, such as the Abalone Alliance in California, adopted similar non-violent organizing techniques to oppose nuclear power and nuclear weapons around the country and internationally.

Aftermath

Public Service Company of New Hampshire, the utility with majority ownership of the Seabrook Station, was bankrupted by the project. Governor Hugh J. Gallen had signed legislation prohibiting the utility from billing consumers for the costs of construction work in progress (CWIP), and the accident at Three Mile Island had increased awareness and added the requirement for an evacuation plan prior to commissioning. In the end, only one of the two planned reactors went on line.

In 2007, veterans of the Clamshell Alliance are marking the 30th anniversary of its founding with the creation of a website called, "To the Village Square: Nukes, Clams and Democracy", which relates the story of the Clamshell Alliance and why it matters today. In addition, a book and a travelling exhibit are planned.

Popular culture

In the 1997 film Grosse Pointe Blank, a Clamshell Alliance poster hangs on the bedroom wall of Minnie Driver's character. The poster was created in 1980 by a group member of the Clamshell Alliance called the Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook (CDAS), which was committed to a view of non-violent direct action that sanctioned some destruction of property at Seabrook (e.g. cutting of fences.) At the time, this view was considered very controversial by other members of the Clamshell Alliance.

The Clamshell Alliance is humorously referenced in Arlo Guthrie's song "The Story of Reuben Clamzo and His Strange Daughter in the Key of A" released in 1978 on the album One Night as an organization of citizens fighting off invasions of gigantic walking clams in Colonial America.

External links

• Clamshell Alliance website History and current activities
• University of New Hampshire collection of Clamshell Alliance papers
• Peacework Magazine: Clamshell Special Issue, July 1996 Intro & Editorial
  • Peacework Magazine: Clamshell Special Issue, July 1996 Table of Contents
• Ecologia newsletter "Clamshell Alliance: Thirteen Years of Anti-Nuclear Activism at Seabrook", by Paul Gunter

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