Winona LaDuke Among 7 Women Arrested Today at the Shell River; ENBRIDGE TO DRILL LINE 3 UNDER THE SHELL RIVER IN ANISHINAABE TREATY LANDS

Winona "No Nukes" LaDukeAs reported by Honor the Earth.

For a very long time now, Winona "No Nukes" LaDuke (pictured) has worked with Beyond Nuclear, NIRS, and others to block high-level radioactive waste dumps targeted at Native American reservations and treaty lands, such as Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah, Mescalero Apache in New Mexico, and Yucca Mountain on Western Shoshone land in Nevada. See the NIRS/Public Citizen backgrounder about the targeting of Native American communities and lands for high-level radioactive waste dumps.

This threat may well be rearing its ugly head again, as President Biden's Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, has recently spoken repeated about "financial incentives packages" to entire "Native American tribal governments" to consider "consent-based siting" for high-level radioactive waste consolidated "interim storage" facilities on their lands. As Keith Lewis, environmental director for the Serpent River First Nation, said in the mid 1990s, "There is nothing moral about bribing a starving man with money." Serpent River was ravaged by the radioactive and toxic contamination resulting from a half-century of uranium mining and milling near Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada.

Decades ago, LaDuke did groundbreaking work in opposition to uranium mining and milling on Indigenous lands, and has exposed the nuclear power industry's targeting of Native sacred sites for facility construction and operation.

Last January, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps traveled out to northern Minnesota, after Winona LaDuke put out the call for folks to stand in solidarity with the Water Protectors.