Nuclear Safety Expert To Discuss Fukushima Disaster

03:33PM / Wednesday, July 06, 2011Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Robert Budnitz, a nuclear engineer at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, will present "The Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Accident: What Happened and What Does It Mean?" on Monday, July 11, at 7 p.m., at Williams College. The talk will be in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall and is free and open to the public.

Budnitz will provide technical details in laymen's terms about what happened at the Fukushima reactors during the March earthquake and tsunami, explain the radioactive releases that followed, and illustrate the consequences of the disaster for Japan. In addition, he will elaborate on the event's potential impact on America's current nuclear power programs and future energy aspirations. The 45-minute presentation will be followed by a Q-and-A session moderated by Williams physics professor Tiku Majumder.

Having spent most of his professional career in the field of nuclear energy and its waste management, Budnitz became involved with the Fukushima events immediately after they occurred. President Obama placed Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in charge of coordinating the U.S. response. Chu, in turn, named five advisers, including Budnitz, to provide the scientific expertise needed to guide the department's efforts.

Budnitz graduated from Yale and received his Ph.D. at Harvard in experimental physics. He was born and raised in Pittsfield and graduated from Pittsfield High School.

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Williamstown Board Hears Concerns About 'Hometown Heroes' Banners

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:32AM / Wednesday, September 16, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Kurt Durocher told the Williamstown Select Board that he had received nothing but positive feedback from the North County communities where he proposed participation in the Hometown Heroes banner program.

Then Williamstown residents started to weigh in.

Durocher was before the board Monday evening to seek its blessing to put banners recognizing living and deceased military veterans on utility poles in Williamstown, an initiative that has been embraced in all but one of the other municipalities in the district where he serves as Veterans' Service Officer.

"The only negative I've had right now, and it's not really negative, [the Town of ] Florida doesn't want banners to go on Route 2, the Mohawk Trail, for safety reasons, understandably," Durocher said. "So we're trying to figure out an alternate way to make that work in Florida."

By and large, though, the reception to the program has been encouraging, Durocher said.

"I'll use Adams as an example," he said. "They've had a program for many, many years, but it's only for [military personnel] killed in action. Now that I've been allowed to take over that program … there's been a huge outpouring of support, because now we get living veterans on the poles as well.

"The only negative I've had is certain people want their banners in certain locations. So what we did in North Adams is we just did a random draw. I can't please everybody. I've got people who want a banner in a certain location, but three other people want that same location.It was a straight random draw for them."

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