The recent catastrophe in Japan has people in western Maine recalling — and recounting — their involvement in a grassroots movement in the 1980s to thwart government plans for a nuclear waste dump. In an effort to comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the Department of Energy had decided from its geological surveys that a huge chunk of southwestern Maine would be a perfect place to dispose of nuclear waste.

Area people came together and their diligent work defeated the DOE plan. Since there is still no foolproof way of disposing of nuclear waste, my hope is that people will decide that building more nuclear plants is a bad idea.

With that memory of a successful, cooperative defeat of a U.S. government attempt to degrade our environment fresh in people’s minds, my other hope is that a similar concerted effort will prevent the Maine government from carrying out numerous plans to degrade the environment in several ways.

Joyce White, Stoneham