A message from the most bombed nation on earth

Ian Zabarte speaking at a press conference at a Nuclear Forum event he organized at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 2016.More than 900 nuclear tests were conducted on Shoshone territory in the US. Residents still live with the consequences.

A videotaped interview with, and written column by, Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, published by Al Jazeera.

Learn more about the Western Shoshone, nuclear weapons testing on their land, high-level radioactive waste dumping targeted at their land, and more, at the Native Community Action Council website. Ian Zabarte serves as NCAC secretary.

Beyond Nuclear comments to the New Mexico Environment Department, opposed to the expanded Forever WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant)

See Beyond Nuclear's public comments, posted at our Repositories website section.

See the backgrounder, "WIPP History: The Forever WIPP Expansion & the New Shaft Permit Modification," dated July 20, 2020, posted at the CCNS (Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety) website.

The WIPP site is only 16 miles from the proposed Holtec/ELEA highly radioactive waste consolidated interim storage facility (CISF). And just 40 miles from there, is the Waste Control Specialists national "low" level radioactive waste dump, and propsed CISF, in Andrews County, west Texas, immediately upon the New Mexico border at Eunice. This attempt to turn the majority minority State of New Mexico, and the majority Hispanic and Native American southeast of NM, into a national radioactive waste sacrifice zone, is an outrageous environmental injustice. Learn more about the CISFs at our Centralized Storage website section.

Beyond Nuclear's comments include an extended section on the environmental injustice of the Forever WIPP expansion, combined with the CISFs targeted at the same local area of this majority minority state of New Mexico.

Congressman John Lewis's votes against environmentally unjust radioactive waste dumps

As the Honorable U.S. Representative John Robert Lewis (Democrat-Georgia-5th) was laid to rest in power yesterday, it is fitting to remember his good environmental justice votes against radioactively racist high-level radioactive waste dumps in the past.

On May 10, 2018, Congressman Lewis voted against H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018. He was one of only 72 U.S. Reps. to vote against the bill on the House floor; 340 U.S. Reps. voted for it.  H.R. 3053 would have greased the skids for the opening of the permanent repository for highly radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- Western Shoshone land. In addition, it would have authorized so-called consolidated interim storage facilities targeted at a majority Hispanic region of the New Mexico/Texas borderlands, not far from the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate never took up the legislation that session, so it did not become law. (Learn more about the House floor vote, and the legislation, here.)

However, a nearly identical bill, H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, did pass subcommittee and full committee on the U.S. House side last year. Although it has not (yet) gone to the House floor for an up or down vote, it has been taken up on the Senate side (S. 2917). We must remain vigilant and resist its passage into law. (Learn more, here.)

And on May 8, 2002, Congressman Lewis voted against Joint Resolution 87, the override of Nevada's veto against the Yucca Mountain dump. (See the NIRS press release from that day, here.) Only 117 U.S. Reps. voted against the override; 306 voted in favor of it. The U.S. Senate followed suit, voting 60 to 39 to override Nevada's veto on July 9, 2002. Despite this, the Yucca Mountain dump has been staved off, led by the resistance of the Western Shoshone and a thousand environmental groups, as well as the efforts of the State of Nevada and its U.S. Congressional delegation. The Obama administration cancelled the Yucca Mountain dump early on; efforts to revive it since have not succeeded, but eternal vigilance is required.

Also, as Mustafa Ali, former head of EJ at US EPA, and now serving at the National Wildlife Federation, pointed out on Democracy Now! in early September 2019, the high-level radioactive waste shipments to such dumps in the Southwest, whether by road, rail, or waterway, would themselves be a large EJ burden on people of color and/or low income communities.

As the nation honors the iconic life and work of Congressman John Lewis, we express our thanks for his environmental justice votes in 2002 and 2018, in resistance to high-level radioactive waste dumps targeted at people of color communities, and the large-scale, high-risk Mobile Chernobyl shipping campaign the opening of any one of these dumps would launch.

Half of Oklahoma Is “Indian Country.” What If All Native Treaties Were Upheld?

As reported by The Intercept.

The Nevada National Security Site (formerly known as the Nevada Test Site), where the U.S. and U.K. governments "test" detonated more than 900 full-scale nuclear weapons between 1951 and 1992 (and sub-critical nuclear weapons testing have continued there since), as well as the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump, are located on Western Shoshone land. The U.S. government acknowledged this when it signed the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshoe in 1863. Treaties are the highest law of the land, equal in stature to the U.S. Constituition itself. The U.S. government's genocidal radioactive racism is not only illegal, it is unconstitutional. For more information, see: <http://www.nativecommunityactioncouncil.org/>.

Lawmakers oppose Lake Huron high-level nuclear waste storage

As reported by MLive, a bipartisan, bicameral resolution opposing high-level radioactive waste dumping near the shoreline of the Great Lakes has been introduced in Congress. The initial sponsors include U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, both Democrats from Michigan, as well as U.S. Representatives Dan Kildee (Democrat-Flint Twp., MI) and (John Moolenar, Republican-Midland, MI).

See the Congress Members' press release, here.

It reports: The resolution is supported by other Democrats and Republicans in the Michigan delegation, including Congressman Fred Upton (MI-06), Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02), Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence (MI-14), Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12),  Congressman Paul Mitchell (MI-10), Congressman Jack Bergman (MI-01), Congresswoman Haley Stevens (MI-11), Congressman Andy Levin (MI-09), Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin (MI-08), and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-13).

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, comprised of Canada's three nuclear power utilities, has narrowed the list to three remaining candidate sites for the national high-level radioactive waste dump: two neighboring communities, Huron-Kinloss and South Bruce, near the Lake Huron shore, not far (20-some miles) from Kincardine, Ontario, "home" of the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station's nine reactors, the biggest nuclear power plant on Earth.

Similarly, a growing bicameral, bipartisan "caucus" of congressional Great Lakes protectors -- also led by Stabenow and Kildee, mentioned above -- has for several long years, opposed a Canadian nuclear power industry proposal to bury so-called "low" and highly radioactive "intermediate" level radioactive wastes on the Lake Huron shoreline, at the BNGS itself.

On January 31st, the very nearby Saugeen Ojibwe Nation (whose territory "hosts" BNGS) will vote in a referendum on whether or not to accept Ontario Power Generation's offer of $150 million. If SON accepts the $150 million, OPG will expect the tribal First Nation community to "host" -- forevermore -- the "low" and highly radioactive intermediate level nuclear wastes from 20 reactors across the province.

On October 19, 2018, the Detroit Free Press published a feature length article about the 60,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste putting the Great Lakes at risk, on both sides of the border.

On January 13, 2020, the Chicago Tribune ran a major article about Ojibwe views regarding the sacredness and fragility of their Great Lakes homelands, as well as the radioactive risks they face.

See 2013 and 1990 maps, depicting the radioactive risks to the Great Lakes from most stages of the uranium fuel chain, including dozens of atomic reactors along their shores.

Don't Waste Michigan and other grassroots environmental watchdog groups have opposed these Great Lakes shoreline radioactive waste dumping schemes since they were first floated in 2001. Beyond Nuclear has opposed them since its founding in 2007, including repeated rounds of testimony before Canadian federal nuclear and environmental regulatory agencies over the course of many years.

Learn more about these issues at the website of Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump.