Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues, April 26-30

NATIVE NUCLEAR FORUM

5-Day Speaker Series, April 26 to 30

The Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues focuses on the impacts that nuclear has on Native American communities across the country, including uranium mining and milling, nuclear weapons production and testing, atomic reactor operation, radioactive waste transport and dumping, etc. Join them from 5 to 7pm PT each day (8 to 10pm ET; 7 to 9pm CT; 6 to 8pm MT). Speakers include Winona LaDuke, Steve Newcomb, Carletta Tilousi, Dr. Tommy Rock, Manny Pino, Myron Dewey, Joe Kennedy, and Ian Zabarte. Featured artists and performers include Jack Malotte, Sarah Caligiuri, and Bryan Hudson. This virtual event is brought to you by Native Community Action Council in partnership with Native Americans for Restorative Stewardship. Pre-registration is required for each day's session.

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This land is sacred to the Apache, and they are fighting to save it

Native Americans want to protect Oak Flat, a sacred site 60 miles east of Phoenix, from a mining operation

As reported by the Washington Post.

As the article reports:

Kevin Allis, former chief executive of the National Congress of American Indians, the largest lobbying group for tribes in the country, said lawmakers, federal agency officials and private businesses often overlook that tribes are land-based people and that where they’re from has a “spiritual significance” that is “not transferrable.”

“Our ancestral traditions and customs are tied to special places that are unique to that community,” said Allis, who is also a tribal member of the Forest County Potawatomi Community in Wisconsin and now runs Thunderbird Strategic, a consulting firm for tribes. “You can’t move that somewhere else. You can’t say move Oak Flat to Utah, Chicago or Kansas and it have the same significance.”

“When you want to mine for copper or uranium or poke holes for gas, you’re going to destroy that community,” Allis said. “Any alteration is a permanent scar on that spot that is so sensitive and sacred to that tribal community.

“You destroy it, and it’s forever gone.”

[Emphasis added]

Haaland confirmed by Senate as first Native American to lead Interior

As reported by the Washington Post.

Deb Haaland, who has served as a Democratic U.S. Rep. from northern New Mexico since Jan., 2019 (one of two Native American women elected that congressional cycle, the first in U.S. history), has been outspoken against the Holtec International high-level radioactive waste consolidated interim storage facility targeted at southeastern New Mexico. She is from Laguna Pueblo, in northwest New Mexico, site of the world's largest open pit uranium mine (till recently surpassed in size by Olympic Dam, Australia, located on Aboriginal land), with significant health impacts on her community for the past many decades.

The New York Times has also reported on this story.

Update on March 17, 2021 by admin

See Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman's March 3rd article in Truthout, about other Biden Cabinet members' unfortunate and inappropriate pro-nuclear advocacy.

Nuclear Watchdog Alarmed By Trump's Push To Deregulate Uranium Mining

Beyond Nuclear has appeared on Sputnik Radio's program By Any Means Necessary.

In this segment of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, to talk about the Trump administration's new attempts to deregulate uranium mining amid the pandemic, why indigenous populations are likely to bear the brunt of such a move, and why the global energy glut renders the continued operation of these nuclear facilities unnecessary.

Listen to the audio recording here.

Trump’s Atomically Misguided Giveaway to the Dangerous Uranium Mining Industry

The White House is using the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason to propose relaxing environmental safeguards on uranium mining, which could open a mine near the Grand Canyon.

See the NRDC Action Fund blog.