[From: NIRS]
High-Level Atomic Waste Dump
Targeted at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah
“There is nothing moral about tempting a starving man with money.”
- Keith Lewis, of the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario, reflecting on his impoverished community’s 50 years of working in and living near uranium mines & mills, and the health and environmental catastrophe that has resulted.
Tribal dump opponent Margene Bullcreek of OGD
Nevadans and Utahans living downwind and downstream from nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining, and radioactive waste dumping have suffered immensely during the Nuclear Age. But even in the “nuclear sacrifice zones” of the desert Southwest, it is Native Americans–from Navajo uranium miners to tribal communities targeted with atomic waste dumps– who have borne the brunt of both the front and back ends of the nuclear fuel cycle.
The tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation in Utah is targeted for a very big nuclear waste dump. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a limited liability corporation representing eight powerful nuclear utilities, wants to “temporarily” store 40,000 tons of commercial high-level radioactive waste (nearly the total amount that presently exists in the U.S.) next to the two-dozen tribal members who live on the small reservation. The PFS proposal is the latest in a long tradition of targeting Native American communities for such dumps. But there is another tradition on the targeted reservations as well%u2013fighting back against blatant environmental racism, and winning. Skull Valley Goshute tribal member Margene Bullcreek leads Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia (or OGD, Goshute for “Mountain Community”), a grassroots group of tribal members opposed to the dump. In addition to many other activities, OGD has filed an environmental justice contention before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission%u2019s (NRC) Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB).
Read more of “Environmental Racism, Tribal Sovereignty and Nuclear Waste” at NIRS
Tags: Environment, justice <BR/>