Citizens Awareness Network

At A Glance

Location: 

Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts

Primary Issue Area:

  • Environmental Health

Active since:

1991

Grants Received In:

  • 2004
  • 2001
  • 2000
  • 1999
  • 1997
  • 1996

Core volunteers:

18

Community Size:

25,000

  • Franklin County Fair Parade in Greenfield, MA
  • Fourth of July Parade Brattleboro
  • Deb Katz interacting with Students at the Science Fair at UMASS
  • "Will Nukem" and "Skeleton" acting in the Parade
  • CAN's "Mock Nuclear Waste Cask" in front of the MA Statehouse

Our Purpose

Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) is a grassroots environmental organization working to end the production of unaffordable dangerous nuclear power. We envision a future of safety, prosperity, and health for all—where sustainable energy sources are the bedrock of our energy future in MA. We are committed to a unified regional strategy to oppose nuclear power as a solution to address climate disruption. We are working to empower people to participate in the democratic process for a just energy future. We advocate for a democratically led, environmentally just, and scientifically sound solution for nuclear waste. Our work focuses on the problems that we face in dealing with Gov. Healey pressing for a nuclear revival while the high level nuclear waste is trapped at six sites surrounding MA. We expose the nuclear industry’s false solutions, environmental racism, and polluting of our environment. We must ensure that the right to clean water, land, air, and a safe place to live is the bedrock of energy policy. The needs of people and the planet must be upheld through a democratic and environmentally just process! Nuclear’s vulnerability to climate disruption has the potential to build alliances within the climate movement. A fractured environmental movement helps the nuclear industry, as well as other polluting industries, avoid accountability and promote false solutions. This must change by educating communities about their vulnerabilities regarding nuclear power. 

Summary of Projects

To support the 1999 Northeast Action Camp II, a week of activist training to give citizens the knowledge and tools to confront issues related to nuclear generation, waste disposal and decommissioning of the region's aging nuclear power plants.

for its Nuclear Free New England Campaign.

To fund implementation of CAN's Radioactive Waste Caravan project which will bring attention to many of the public health and environmental justice issues shipping high level radioactive wastes across public transp0rtation routes raises. As operating nuclear power plants come to the end of their functional lives and are decommissioned, this issue will become more pressing. CAN is one of only a few grassroots groups nationally addressing these concerns.