Qualla: The Hole in the Head https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: The Hole in the Head https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant The Hole in the Head: Introduction https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant/ On Memorial Day 1963, fifteen hundred helium balloons drifted over a small fishing village on the Northern California coast. Each carried the same message: 'This balloon could represent a radioactive molecule of strontium 90 or iodine 131.' The balloons were a protest -- vivid, theatrical, impossible to ignore -- organized by citizens of Bodega Bay against Pacific Gas & Electric's plan to build a nuclear reactor on Bodega Head. The proposed site sat two miles west of the San Andreas Fault. Bodega Head itself rests on the Pacific Plate; the town just across the harbor sits on the North American Plate. What PG&E envisioned as the nation's first commercially viable nuclear power plant became instead the birthplace of the American anti-nuclear movement, and the abandoned foundation pit near the tip of the headland -- partially filled with water, ringed by wildflowers -- is still known as the Hole in the Head.

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant-wp/9qb3-the-hole-in-the-head-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Hole in the Head: A Reactor on a Fault Line https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant/ Pacific Gas & Electric announced its plan in 1958, and the conflict was immediate. Bodega Bay was a fishing village fifty miles north of San Francisco, a place where residents valued their isolation and fishermen depended on clean, undisturbed waters. PG&E's proposal threatened b...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant-wp/9qb3-the-hole-in-the-head-a-reactor-on-a-fault-line.mp3 0:06 2 full The Hole in the Head: Fishermen, Farmers, and the Sierra Club https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant/ Opposition came from unexpected quarters. This was not a protest organized by national advocacy groups and dropped onto a rural community. It grew from the community itself -- fishermen who feared for their catch, dairy farmers worried about contamination of grazing land, and res...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant-wp/9qb3-the-hole-in-the-head-fishermen-farmers-and-the-sierra-club.mp3 0:06 3 full The Hole in the Head: Fifteen Hundred Balloons https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant/ The balloon release in June 1963 was a masterstroke of protest theater. Strontium 90 and iodine 131 were already in the public vocabulary, made familiar by the fierce national debate over fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. By tying those isotopes to something as in...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant-wp/9qb3-the-hole-in-the-head-fifteen-hundred-balloons.mp3 0:06 4 full The Hole in the Head: The Pit That Remains https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant/ By 1964, the fight was over. The Atomic Energy Commission issued a negative review of the site, and PG&E withdrew its application. But the company had not waited for approval before beginning work. Near the tip of Bodega Head, a large pit had already been excavated for the reacto...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant-wp/9qb3-the-hole-in-the-head-the-pit-that-remains.mp3 0:06 5 full The Hole in the Head: Echoes Along the Coast https://qualla.com/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant/ Historian Thomas Wellock traces the birth of America's anti-nuclear movement directly to the Bodega Bay controversy. The tactics pioneered here -- community organizing, scientific argument, media spectacle, appeals to multiple levels of government -- became the template for nucle...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-bay-nuclear-power-plant-wp/9qb3-the-hole-in-the-head-echoes-along-the-coast.mp3 0:06 6 full