The Clamshell Alliance is an anti-nuclear organization founded in 1976 to oppose the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. The alliance has been dormant for many years.
The group was co-founded by Paul Gunter, Howie Hawkins, Howard Morland, Harvey Wasserman, Guy Chichester, Robert "Renny" Cushing, Jeff Brummer, Anna Gyorgy, Kristie Conrad, Kate Walker, Robin Read, and other activists in 1976. The Granite State Alliance, a social-change organization, had launched PEP, the People's Energy Project, several years earlier, in opposition to the proposed Seabrook nuclear power plant. The Clamshell Alliance's coalescence began in 1975 as New England activists and organizations began to respond to U.S. President Richard Nixon's "Project Independence", which sought to build 1,000 nuclear power plants by 2000.
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. The Clamshell Alliance opposes all nuclear power in New England.
Activities
The alliance conducted non-violent demonstrations in the late 1970s and 1980s. Clamshell protesters occupied the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant construction site with multiple protests to delay construction.
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.
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.
On May 1, 1977, over 2,000 protesters occupied the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant construction site. 1,414 of these activists were arrested. Republican Governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr. convinced the district judges not to release them on their own recognizance and made the bail $500. The defendants refused to pay the bail as a form of bail solidarity. They were held in jails and National Guard armories for up to two weeks. On May 13, 1977, 550 demonstrators were released without having to post bail because the cost of the imprisonment was costing New Hampshire tens of thousands of dollars. At the time it was one of the largest mass arrests in United States history. The number of arrests was three times more than the New Hampshire prison system capacity. Clamshell activists used this detention for training and networking, and long considered the detention a blunder on the part of the governor.
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 fines. 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 New Hampshire 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:"