Judith Johnsrud

A for­mer “pro­fes­sor” of geog­ra­phy, she sac­ri­ficed her own aca­d­e­m­ic advance­ment, health, and finan­cial well-being to write, speak and tes­ti­fy about the dan­gers of radi­a­tion. Con­sid­ered by many to have been one of the best informed nuclear oppo­nent in the U.S., Judy called for increas­ing radi­a­tion pro­tec­tion stan­dards, the con­trol of radioac­tive waste and an end to nuclear elec­tric generation. 

Her many decades of activism includ­ed work on the geog­ra­phy of nuclear pow­er and its entire sys­tem of pro­duc­tion, uti­liza­tion, and waste iso­la­tion; radi­a­tion impacts on humans and the envi­ron­ment; and the prob­lems of seques­tra­tion of “high-lev­el,” “low lev­el,” and recy­cled radioac­tive wastes.

Begin­ning with her first anti-nuclear involve­ment in 1967, suc­cess­ful­ly fight­ing against Project Ketch (an Atom­ic Ener­gy Com­mis­sion pro­pos­al to explode 1,000 atom­ic bombs under­ground in north­ern  Penn­syl­va­nia to cre­ate  con­tain­ments for nat­ur­al gas — and the first time in U.S. his­to­ry that a cit­i­zens’ coali­tion suc­cess­ful­ly halt­ed such a fed­er­al project) to her cre­ation of the Envi­ron­men­tal Coali­tion on Nuclear Pow­er in 1970 and that group’s orig­i­nal inter­ven­tion against the sit­ing and licens­ing of Three Mile Island, to her active involve­ment in a mul­ti­tude of projects over the decades, the breadth of Judy’s con­tri­bu­tions is tru­ly astounding. 

In what is a very par­tial list of “cit­i­zen nuclear suc­cess­es” in Penn­syl­va­nia alone, Judy was a key play­er in the defeat of the Project Ketch Plow­share Project; the Meshop­pen  Liq­uid Met­al Fast Breed­er Reac­tor; the New­bold Island reac­tor; Ful­ton 1 & 2 reac­tors; and the Ener­gy Park pro­pos­al (10 can­di­date sites: 20,000 megawatts, 10 coal plants and 10 nuclear reac­tors); the decom­mis­sion­ing of the Que­han­na, Waltz Mill, and Sax­ton Exper­i­men­tal reac­tors; the halt of the Quak­er­town Hat­field food irra­di­a­tor and the Park Town­ship plu­to­ni­um fuel fab­ri­ca­tion and rad­waste incin­er­a­tor; and the clo­sure of the Kis­ki Val­ley Water Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Author­i­ty incin­er­a­tor ash lagoon.  She was also instru­men­tal in cham­pi­oning leg­is­la­tion, both in Penn­syl­va­nia and nation­al­ly, con­cern­ing the stor­age and mea­sure­ment stan­dards for nuclear waste prod­ucts, tes­ti­fy­ing reg­u­lar­ly before con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tees.  Judy was very mod­est and hum­ble and so few peo­ple knew of her accomplishments.

Judy devot­ed her life to fight­ing for the end of the era of nuclear pow­er, wor­ried deeply about the future of our species in an ever-thick­en­ing of the radi­a­tion envi­ron­ment.  As an expert on the bio­log­i­cal and health effects of radi­a­tion expo­sure, she trav­eled twice to Chernobyl’s dam­aged Unit 4 com­plex and wit­nessed first-hand the wide range of health prob­lems — not just the can­cers and leukemia — affect­ing the region’s res­i­dents, espe­cial­ly the chil­dren, and did all she could to expose the lie of a “safe” lev­el of radi­a­tion exposure.

An excel­lent speak­er and edu­ca­tor, she spoke to groups large and small through­out the Unit­ed States, as well as abroad, about the prob­lems of radi­a­tion in gen­er­al and, more specif­i­cal­ly, of nuclear pow­er, food irra­di­a­tion, nuclear waste, and relat­ed sub­jects.  If an indi­vid­ual or group want­ed her to speak, Judy was there, fre­quent­ly at her own expense.  In addi­tion to tes­ti­fy­ing before the U.S. Con­gress, she was also a guest speak­er for par­lia­men­tary bod­ies and sym­posia in Europe, Japan, the for­mer Sovi­et Union, Swe­den, and oth­er coun­tries through­out the world. 

Judy fought not just against the releas­es of radioac­tive mate­ri­als into our envi­ron­ment from nuclear pow­er plants and incin­er­a­tors, but also against their being recy­cling into prod­ucts – from children’s toys to coins in our pock­ets to larg­er items to be found around us every day that con­stant­ly expose us to mul­ti­ple sources, addi­tive and cumu­la­tive radi­a­tion dos­es, with unknown, pos­si­bly syn­er­gis­tic, effects.

Among her many posi­tions, Judy was chair­per­son and board mem­ber for the Nation­al Solar Lob­by in Wash­ing­ton D.C.; an active mem­ber of the New Eng­land Coali­tion against Nuclear Pol­lu­tion; a mem­ber of both the Sier­ra Club state board and Sier­ra Club Nation­al Nuclear Waste Task Force and their Radi­a­tion Com­mit­tee; as well as for­mer chair­per­son of the board of the Nuclear Infor­ma­tion and Resource Ser­vice in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion for which she wrote the orig­i­nal pro­pos­al and grant.  In 2007 she helped found anoth­er national/international orga­ni­za­tion, Beyond Nuclear, and served on its board of direc­tors.  She was project direc­tor and board mem­ber of the orga­ni­za­tion Radi­a­tion and Pub­lic Health Project, and aid­ed in the start­up and as a board mem­ber of Food and Water, an orga­ni­za­tion fight­ing food irra­di­a­tion. Fur­ther, Judy was a mem­ber of the Pennsylvania’s Low-Lev­el Radioac­tive Waste Advi­so­ry Board from its incep­tion in the 1980s until 2011.  Nation­al­ly she was on the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Energy’s Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee for the Low-Lev­el Radi­a­tion Research Pro­gram and on the Radi­a­tion Advi­so­ry Board of the Unit­ed States Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, among oth­er fed­er­al lev­el appointments.

Over the years, Judy’s work received recog­ni­tion from numer­ous orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the nation­al Giraffe Project’s 1987 award for “Stick­ing her neck out” in writ­ing about the inher­ent dan­gers of food irra­di­a­tion.  In May, 2012 hon­or­ing her near­ly 50 years of suc­cess­ful nuclear oppo­si­tion, the Nation­al Sier­ra Club’s “No Nukes Activist Team,” stat­ed, as part of the award cer­e­mo­ny: “…Judy was an impor­tant mem­ber of our PA Chapter’s vol­un­teer lead­er­ship, right up till her retire­ment in 2009… She inspired many peo­ple, inside Sier­ra Club and beyond, to work to halt the dan­ger­ous release of radionu­clides into the envi­ron­ment.  With­out a doubt, Judy has been the most impor­tant anti-nuclear advo­cate in Pennsylvania’s history.”

Born Judith Ann Hays, she was the daugh­ter of Ernest Leroy and Gladys Set­tle Hays, she felt a cer­tain kin­ship with peo­ple with the Hays sur­name, includ­ing for­mer State Col­lege may­or Jo Hays.  She attend­ed Wit­ten­berg Col­lege, grad­u­at­ing with a B.A. from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, receiv­ing her master’s degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son, and her doc­tor­ate from the Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, all in geog­ra­phy.  She advised or taught at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Wayne State Uni­ver­si­ty, the State Teacher’s Col­lege at Oswego, New York, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, and Buck­nell University.

She was a lover of cats; dis­cov­er­er of back roads and alter­nate routes; heavy appre­ci­a­tor of Bach, Fau­re, Mozart, and Judy Collins; semi-secret devo­tee of an eru­dite mur­der mys­tery; book col­lec­tor, dan­ger­ous Scrab­ble play­er and secret fan of small-town Indi­ana bas­ket­ball.  She was a friend to her col­leagues, a deeply lov­ing grand­moth­er, and a devot­ed sister.

She was pre­de­ceased by her father in 1935, her moth­er in 1972, and her hus­band, Robert Oliv­er, in 1960.  Her broth­er, Robert F. Hays, died in 2000.  Judy had been his full-time care­giv­er for the months pre­ced­ing his death. She was also pre­de­ceased by her great friends Gladys and Wilbur Zelinsky.

She is sur­vived by her part­ner and com­pan­ion of some 45 years, Dr. Leon Gli­cen­stein of State Col­lege, PA; by her son and daugh­ter-in-law, Robert John­srud and Jen­ny Ross, of Itha­ca, N.Y. her grand­sons Ben­jamin, Drew and Theodore; dear friends Karen and Hol­lis Zelin­sky, and her cat, Kat.  She died peace­ful­ly at home, sur­round­ed by her fam­i­ly who deeply loved her.

A Memo­r­i­al Cel­e­bra­tion of Judy’s life will be held some­time, as yet unknown, in the spring. 

[Pho­to and text pro­vid­ed by Dr. Leon Glicenstein.]

• Video Clips of Judy’s speach­es on YouTube
• Speech at Unplug Salem rally
• Nuclear activist was a ‘pow­er­ful force for good’ (Cen­tre Dai­ly Times)
• Judith John­srud, July 1, 1931-March 9, 2014. Among the world’s finest people
• Beyond Nuclear board of direc­tors mem­ber Dr. Judith John­srud hon­ored by Sier­ra Club for life­time of anti-nuclear leadership
• Dr. Judith H. John­srud receives nation­al Sier­ra Club Award