Clamshell Alliance - Activities

Activities

In July 1976 the Clamshell Alliance adopted a Declaration of Nuclear Resistance as a guiding set of principles in a meeting of 60-75 activists.

The alliance conducted non-violent demonstrations in the late 1970s and 1980s. On August 1, 1976, 18 New Hampshire residents were arrested for criminal trespass and disorderly conduct in Clamshell's first civil disobedience action on the Seabrook site. Three weeks later, a second occupation involved 180 New England residents who were arrested and held in a local armory overnight. In May, 1977 over 2,000 protesters occupied the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant 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.

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. 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:"

10. 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.