Clamshell Alliance - Aftermath

Aftermath

In 1978 the Clamshell Alliance split after leaders in the group agreed to call off a large disobedience planned at the power plant site that was expected to draw upwards of 20,000 people. The state government of New Hampshire feeling that a massive arrest on the site would overwhelm the state with the costs of hiring police from neighboring states and jail and also court expenses offered to let Clamshell hold a solar power fair and concert on the site. Many Clamshell members felt that the agreement was a betrayal of the democratic consensus process that was an integral part of Clamshell's organization just at the time when the state and the Public Service Company of New Hampshire appeared at their most vulnerable. The dissidents broke off to form another organization to be called the Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook (CDAS) which would take more militant but still nonviolent action on the site.

Composed of several "clusters" throughout New England and metropolitan New York that were themselves composed of smaller "affinity groups", CDAS decided using the consensus process, to attempt to occupy the power plant site. The first attempted occupation was planned for October, 1979 and activists agreed that they would be willing to tear down fencing protecting the site but avoid fighting with police when confronted and also try to avoid arrest. The new strategy was controversial and many former Clamshell members decided to not get involved once the more confrontational tactics were decided on. Many of the demonstrators would equip themselves with helmets and gas masks in anticipation of police violence against them and the critics argued that this would be too provocative.

Nevertheless, the attempted occupation drew over 3,500 activists who felt energized after growing disillusionment with nuclear power with the near meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania a few months earlier. The activists made several attempts to get through fencing and at one point entered the site but were met by state police equipped with pepper spray, tear gas, and in one case, a fire hose spraying water on them. Dozens of arrests were made. The occupation was not successful in taking over the site but drew much national media attention.

CDAS, regrouping over the following winter, again attempted an occupation on the site in April, 1980. This time, a smaller group of activists, about 2,000 met police at the fences but were also repulsed by the police.

The following year several hundred attempted to block the delivery of the first reactor containment vessel to the site but police kept the roads clear. The Coalition dissolved not long afterward after stirring a lot of debate in the anti-nuclear movement about what could be considered appropriate tactics in a non-violent movement.

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 Three Mile Island accident 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 marked 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.

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 the fall of 1976 for a Clamshell-sponsored Alternative Energy Fair near the site of the Seabrook plant. This event followed the initial Clamshell civil disobedience actions of August 1 and August 22 of that year.

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.