Beyond Nuclear challenges DOE's targeting of First Nations for radwaste dumps

Beyond Nuclear staffers attended the Sep. 15 DOE public meeting on "Consent-Based Siting" of high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps. Paul Gunter spoke out against DOE's dubious attempt to rebuild public trust, pointing out that DOE is an agency explicitly promoting nuclear power, while never having sought consent for the generation of radioactive waste in the first place. 

 

Kevin Kamps challenged the environmental injustice of DOE's longtime, and continuing, targeting of Native American reservations for radioactive waste dumps. This flies in the face of President Obama's own proclamation honoring Native American activist Grace Thorpe's remarkable work to protect her own reservation, and many others, against just such DOE parking lot dumps in the past. DOE's targeting of Native American reservations for radioactive waste dumps comes despite other Obama administration agencies (Interior, Army Corps of Engineers, and Justice) having acknowledged the need for a long overdue reset on relations with tribal nations, in light of the historic Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposition to the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline, now supported by 280 other tribes, and many thousands of Native American land and water protectors on the front lines.

Learn more, and see what you can do to help the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, at Beyond Nuclear's Human Rights website section.

 

Beyond Nuclear strongly opposes these high-risk parking lot dumps (so-called centralized interim storage sites), which the DOE will continue to push for with the new Congress and President next January.  Proposed dumps include one targeted at Waste Control Specialists, LLC in Andrews County, west Texas (above the Ogallala Aquifer).