Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Jul 10, 2005 16:22:11 GMT -5
Native Americans, Allies Resist Expansion of Utah Nuke Wasteland
by Megan Tady (bio
<http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_contributor_bio&contributorID=165>
)
A small but resilient band of Indians surrounded by toxic waste sites, have
drawn a line in the sand of the Utah desert; joined by politicians and
activists, the Goshutes hope to fend off yet another waste dump in their
backyard.
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Jun 1 - In a photograph of Margene Bullcreek, she stands next to a weathered
sign that reads, "No Trespassing." She looks formidable, chin held high, proud
and protective of the land laid out behind her.
She also looks tired. The warning sign and her watchful eye, have fallen short
of warding off predators from her tribe's reservation.
The reservation was carved out of the Utah desert in 1917 for the Skull Valley
Band of Goshutes. The 124 surviving tribal members have scattered, leaving only
Bullcreek and 24 other members to defend their homestead. In some respects, the
reservation is a gated community. An invisible fence rings their 18,000 acres, a
ring of toxic landmarks.
With little outside economic opportunity and land already poisoned, the Skull
Valley Band of Goshutes became an easy target for another project that would
help the United States with its biggest hot potato: high-level radioactive
waste.
East of the reservation sits a storage facility for nerve gas. South of Skull
Valley is the coal-burning Intermountain Power Project. To the northwest sits a
low-level radioactive waste disposal site called "Envirocare." North of the
valley chugs the Magnesium Corporation Plant, deemed the country's worst
polluting plant of its kind by the Environmental Protection Agency for the
chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid it spouts into the air.
But that is not all. In 1968, the Dugway Proving Grounds tested VX nerve gas on
traditional Goshute hunting grounds, causing the death of 6,000 sheep grazing in
Skull Valley. Over 7,000 fighter jets based in the nearby Hill Air Force Base
fly over the reservation every year to drop bombs for target practice on the
Wendover Bombing Range.
With little outside economic opportunity and land already poisoned, the Skull
Valley Band of Goshutes became an easy target for another project that would
help the United States with its biggest hot potato: high-level radioactive
waste. In 1996, Private Fuel Storage, a conglomeration of eight nuclear
powerhouses, began courting the tribe to shelter 44,000 tons of irradiated
nuclear reactor fuel on their land. Touted as an interim storage site for waste
on its way to permanent storage at Yucca Mountain, a yet-to-be-built and highly
contested storage facility in Nevada, the reservation would play host to 80
percent of the country's nuclear waste for 40 years.
That same year, Leon Bear, the Washington's federally recognized chairman of the
Goshutes, signed a lease with PFS for an undisclosed but lucrative amount, and
an eight-year licensing process has ensued. Many of the Goshutes claim the lease
is illegitimate, given that Bear's leadership is consistently disputed by tribal
members. Bear has been indicted on federal charges for tax evasion and
embezzlement of tribal funds.
The nuclear power industry has strong motivations to find somewhere else to
store the waste as the country looks for alternatives to coal- and gas-fired
energy.
Bear did not respond to interview inquiries for this article. But in a 2001
interview with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), a networking
center for citizens concerned about nuclear power and radioactive waste, he
said: "We can't do anything here that's green or environmental. Would you buy a
tomato from us if you knew what's out here? Of course not. In order to attract
any kind of development, we have to be consistent with what's around us."
Now in the final stages of approval, the waste dump is edging closer to reality
as activists opposing the site launch last-ditch efforts to thwart the project.
Resistance to the waste dump has been fierce and divisive. Some members of the
tribe contest the site, while a minority of the tribe has sided with Bear to
welcome the dump, which has promised enough jobs to allow some members to come
back to the reservation.
Skull Valley is 45 miles from Salt Lake City, and Utah lawmakers have been
vociferous in their resistance to the dump. Joined by local and national public
interest groups, the opposition is citing environmental racism, ecological and
health hazards, risks to national security and the possibility that the
temporary site will become a de facto permanent dump as reasons to reject the
project. PFS, however, claims the dump would provide a revenue stream for the
tribe, as well as infrastructure, health care and local jobs.
Over 420 organizations have signed a letter urging the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), the body that will make the final decision regarding placement
of the dump, to reject PFS's license application.
"We are the caretakers of this land," said Sammy Blackbear, an outspoken leader
for tribal opposition to the dump, and a resident of the Skull Valley
reservation. "Our ancestors took care of it, and we have an obligation not to
ruin it."
In April Utah filed for a motion of reconsideration with the Atomic Safety
Licensing Board (ASLB), the judiciary arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), based on one of the last standing contentions against the site: the
possibility of an aircraft crash or stray missile into the nuclear canisters
from the F-16 flights made from the air force base.
As most, experts have deemed the chances for a crash or strike to 4 in 1
million. The ASLB ruled in favor of PFS on May 24, sending the final decision,
and the fate of the Skull Valley Goshutes, to the NRC. As though personally on
trial, Bullcreek, Blackbear and others await their sentencing, which could be
handed down any day: life with or without a radioactive backyard.
Small Pox of the Nuclear Age
The Skull Valley dump is not the first time Native Americans have been
approached to house the United States' nuclear waste, but marks a trend by the
government and the industry to target the population. In 1987, Congress created
the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator, which subsequently contacted
federally recognized tribes attempting to convince them to host the dump.
In the event of an accident, a radioactive cloud is often invisible, odorless
and tasteless, and fallout can contaminate water and food that will remain
deadly for centuries.
"The government has no place to put their waste, so they're turning to
indigenous lands as the last place they can go," Bullcreek asserted.
When the government-funded project failed, the commercial nuclear power industry
stepped in, again with the intent of finding what anti-nuclear activists call
"nuclear sacrifice zones."
Currently, nuclear waste is stored on site at the 66 nuclear power facilities
pock-marking the country. The nuclear power industry has strong motivations to
find somewhere else to store the waste as the country looks for alternatives to
coal- and gas-fired energy.
"Yucca Mountain was plan A and PFS was plan B," Kamps said. "They've put PFS on
the fast track because plan B is now plan A. The nuclear industry needs to have
the illusion of a waste solution to sell the public. They want to build new
nuclear reactors and keep using the old ones. But they have a big PR problem of
needing a place to put the waste."
by Megan Tady (bio
<http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_contributor_bio&contributorID=165>
)
A small but resilient band of Indians surrounded by toxic waste sites, have
drawn a line in the sand of the Utah desert; joined by politicians and
activists, the Goshutes hope to fend off yet another waste dump in their
backyard.
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Jun 1 - In a photograph of Margene Bullcreek, she stands next to a weathered
sign that reads, "No Trespassing." She looks formidable, chin held high, proud
and protective of the land laid out behind her.
She also looks tired. The warning sign and her watchful eye, have fallen short
of warding off predators from her tribe's reservation.
The reservation was carved out of the Utah desert in 1917 for the Skull Valley
Band of Goshutes. The 124 surviving tribal members have scattered, leaving only
Bullcreek and 24 other members to defend their homestead. In some respects, the
reservation is a gated community. An invisible fence rings their 18,000 acres, a
ring of toxic landmarks.
With little outside economic opportunity and land already poisoned, the Skull
Valley Band of Goshutes became an easy target for another project that would
help the United States with its biggest hot potato: high-level radioactive
waste.
East of the reservation sits a storage facility for nerve gas. South of Skull
Valley is the coal-burning Intermountain Power Project. To the northwest sits a
low-level radioactive waste disposal site called "Envirocare." North of the
valley chugs the Magnesium Corporation Plant, deemed the country's worst
polluting plant of its kind by the Environmental Protection Agency for the
chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid it spouts into the air.
But that is not all. In 1968, the Dugway Proving Grounds tested VX nerve gas on
traditional Goshute hunting grounds, causing the death of 6,000 sheep grazing in
Skull Valley. Over 7,000 fighter jets based in the nearby Hill Air Force Base
fly over the reservation every year to drop bombs for target practice on the
Wendover Bombing Range.
With little outside economic opportunity and land already poisoned, the Skull
Valley Band of Goshutes became an easy target for another project that would
help the United States with its biggest hot potato: high-level radioactive
waste. In 1996, Private Fuel Storage, a conglomeration of eight nuclear
powerhouses, began courting the tribe to shelter 44,000 tons of irradiated
nuclear reactor fuel on their land. Touted as an interim storage site for waste
on its way to permanent storage at Yucca Mountain, a yet-to-be-built and highly
contested storage facility in Nevada, the reservation would play host to 80
percent of the country's nuclear waste for 40 years.
That same year, Leon Bear, the Washington's federally recognized chairman of the
Goshutes, signed a lease with PFS for an undisclosed but lucrative amount, and
an eight-year licensing process has ensued. Many of the Goshutes claim the lease
is illegitimate, given that Bear's leadership is consistently disputed by tribal
members. Bear has been indicted on federal charges for tax evasion and
embezzlement of tribal funds.
The nuclear power industry has strong motivations to find somewhere else to
store the waste as the country looks for alternatives to coal- and gas-fired
energy.
Bear did not respond to interview inquiries for this article. But in a 2001
interview with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), a networking
center for citizens concerned about nuclear power and radioactive waste, he
said: "We can't do anything here that's green or environmental. Would you buy a
tomato from us if you knew what's out here? Of course not. In order to attract
any kind of development, we have to be consistent with what's around us."
Now in the final stages of approval, the waste dump is edging closer to reality
as activists opposing the site launch last-ditch efforts to thwart the project.
Resistance to the waste dump has been fierce and divisive. Some members of the
tribe contest the site, while a minority of the tribe has sided with Bear to
welcome the dump, which has promised enough jobs to allow some members to come
back to the reservation.
Skull Valley is 45 miles from Salt Lake City, and Utah lawmakers have been
vociferous in their resistance to the dump. Joined by local and national public
interest groups, the opposition is citing environmental racism, ecological and
health hazards, risks to national security and the possibility that the
temporary site will become a de facto permanent dump as reasons to reject the
project. PFS, however, claims the dump would provide a revenue stream for the
tribe, as well as infrastructure, health care and local jobs.
Over 420 organizations have signed a letter urging the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), the body that will make the final decision regarding placement
of the dump, to reject PFS's license application.
"We are the caretakers of this land," said Sammy Blackbear, an outspoken leader
for tribal opposition to the dump, and a resident of the Skull Valley
reservation. "Our ancestors took care of it, and we have an obligation not to
ruin it."
In April Utah filed for a motion of reconsideration with the Atomic Safety
Licensing Board (ASLB), the judiciary arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), based on one of the last standing contentions against the site: the
possibility of an aircraft crash or stray missile into the nuclear canisters
from the F-16 flights made from the air force base.
As most, experts have deemed the chances for a crash or strike to 4 in 1
million. The ASLB ruled in favor of PFS on May 24, sending the final decision,
and the fate of the Skull Valley Goshutes, to the NRC. As though personally on
trial, Bullcreek, Blackbear and others await their sentencing, which could be
handed down any day: life with or without a radioactive backyard.
Small Pox of the Nuclear Age
The Skull Valley dump is not the first time Native Americans have been
approached to house the United States' nuclear waste, but marks a trend by the
government and the industry to target the population. In 1987, Congress created
the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator, which subsequently contacted
federally recognized tribes attempting to convince them to host the dump.
In the event of an accident, a radioactive cloud is often invisible, odorless
and tasteless, and fallout can contaminate water and food that will remain
deadly for centuries.
"The government has no place to put their waste, so they're turning to
indigenous lands as the last place they can go," Bullcreek asserted.
When the government-funded project failed, the commercial nuclear power industry
stepped in, again with the intent of finding what anti-nuclear activists call
"nuclear sacrifice zones."
Currently, nuclear waste is stored on site at the 66 nuclear power facilities
pock-marking the country. The nuclear power industry has strong motivations to
find somewhere else to store the waste as the country looks for alternatives to
coal- and gas-fired energy.
"Yucca Mountain was plan A and PFS was plan B," Kamps said. "They've put PFS on
the fast track because plan B is now plan A. The nuclear industry needs to have
the illusion of a waste solution to sell the public. They want to build new
nuclear reactors and keep using the old ones. But they have a big PR problem of
needing a place to put the waste."