Environmental Justice

July 26, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Manufacturing Consent: Creation of Cultural Triage to Take Yucca Mountain

By Shoshone artist Jack Malotte. Used with permission.

By Ian Zabarte

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

The Shoshone have lived in the Great Basin, home to Yucca Mountain, for more than 12,000 years. The Shoshone primary use of the land and water is their identity.

By the time nuclear weapons testing ended, over 1,000 nuclear tests were conducted on Shoshone land and people. In 1992, the Shoshone began to investigate their radiation exposure.

The Native Community Action Council (NCAC) was created to investigate and found, after review of the 1990 Department of Energy (DOE) Off-site Radiation Exposure Review, that Indian tribes received significantly higher radiation dose in fallout than non-Indians. Higher risk of exposures was found based on lifestyle differences that include: diet, mobility and shelter. The NCAC found increased exposure: 15 times greater for adults, 30 times for youth, and 60 times greater in utero. The results were used as a contention at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing of Yucca Mountain for a deep geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste.

Despite spending $10 billion, the administration failed to meet the licensing requirements of the NRC under 10 CFR 960 121.12 OWNERSHIP. Even with the Bureau of Land Management master title plats, the DOE could not prove ownership to Yucca Mountain because the Treaty of Ruby Valley is controlling and, in “full force and effect.” Shoshone title remains unextinguished.

The DOE’s 1990 Yucca Mountain Cultural Resource Study created a study protocol of cultural triage.* Triage is appropriately used in natural disasters to determine where limited resources are used to maximize survival. Cultural triage is defined as, “a forced choice situation in which an ethnic group is faced with the decision to rank in importance equally valued cultural resources that could be affected by a proposed development project.” In Shoshone country, there is no natural disaster to invoke triage; there is no development project that justifies requiring the Shoshone to choose whether water or land is more important. As said earlier, water and land are Shoshone identity. What the Shoshone people experience with the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste proposal is a deliberate act to dismantle Shoshone living lifeways in relation to the land—an ethnic cleansing—for the benefit and profit of the nuclear industry.

The DOE-funded research, organizing the Consolidated Group of Tribes and Organizations in 1988, paving the way for this cultural triage. Tribes unwittingly participated, manufacturing consent for the Yucca Mountain project by their consultation. The tribes involved include the Pahrump Paiute Tribe, an invented tribe, and the Las Vegas Indian Center, an urban social-welfare organization. Both entities were directed by the same individual who is not an Indian enrolled in any tribe. The remaining 14 federally recognized Indian tribes created by the US are “incompetents” under the guardianship of the Department of Interior. Federally recognized tribes, due to their dependency, are unable to give consent to involvement, research on them, or research outcomes.

The Consolidated Group of Tribes and Organizations has a new name, meeting as the Nuclear Energy Tribal Working Group at the National Conference of State Legislatures. It includes the fabricated tribe that misleads federally recognized tribes to this day with the funding and support of the DOE.

The Shoshone seek collaborators in the persistent struggle to create understanding of the health disparities and to mitigate the cascading effects suffered from radioactive fallout exposure. The Shoshone do not consent to Yucca Mountain or any other part of Shoshone country being used for nuclear waste disposal.

* Native American Cultural Resource Studies at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, 1990, Richard Stoffle

—Ian Zabarte is Principal Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians and Secretary of Native Community Action Council.

July 26, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Public Weighing in on Environmental Impact of Holtec and ISP CIS

By Leona Morgan

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

Holtec International in partnership with Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) is currently seeking to license, build and operate a “temporary” dump for high-level radioactive waste—used reactor fuel rods. Their proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) anticipates waste storage for 40 years initially, with 80 years of renewals, totaling 120 years of operation. Since the application for the Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) facility in southeast New Mexico was submitted in March 2017, opponents have been raising their voices against it.

Completing the licensing application and becoming permitted to operate a CIS is a long procedure. Nonetheless, Holtec has met legal resistance at every step. Recently, the application has been before the Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB), which functions under the NRC. Aside from the ASLB process, Holtec’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) evaluation is also moving forward.

Six separate petitioners submitted over 50 arguments to the ASLB opposing the project. These entities formally challenged the legitimacy of Holtec’s application and raised “contentions” about nation-wide waste transports, risks to water, integrity of canisters, legality of the license, exposure to radiation, and environmental justice, to name a few. The NRC/ASLB judges denied all the original contentions. Appeals to intervene by the petitioners were also denied (See “NRC Okays Unlawful Licensing Language in Planned NM Radioactive Waste Site”). Another round of appeals will be filed and a few contentions may be considered. One in particular relates to safety concerns over the proximity of oil and gas production to the dump site. The issue was raised by New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, who also informed the NRC that Holtec neglected to communicate with the State Land Office and misrepresented its ownership of the site.

As part of the NEPA assessment, Holtec’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement was recently published, and the NRC is currently accepting public comments. However, there are no clear plans for public hearings. Community members are concerned that the NRC may hold webcast meetings in lieu of in-person hearings, silencing the voices of the area residents who are most impacted. People of color, mostly Hispanic, would be disproportionately affected if the proposal moves ahead—a clear example of environmental racism.

Terry Lodge, attorney for a national coalition of organizations that was denied intervention by the ASLB, says, “The Draft Environmental Impact Statement answers nearly none of the questions raised by the seven grassroots groups who intervened from across the country. The evidence shows that Holtec may hold [waste reactor] fuel indefinitely, counted as multiple centuries, not 100 years. If there is no final underground repository licensed, Holtec—sitting there with shallow-buried ‘forever’ waste—is it. New Mexico must not lose this fight.”

Two applications for CIS are currently going through the NEPA process. Interim Storage Partners’ application is facing a time line and pattern of opposition similar to Holtec.

Take Action: New Mexico’s and national groups opposing both proposals urge everyone to send public comments by their respective deadlines: September 22, 2020 for Holtec/ELEA, and Sept. 4, 2020 for Interim Storage Partners (Waste Control Specialists/Orano USA). Holtec: E-mail comments to: Holtec-CISFEIS@nrc.gov. Please include the Docket Number—docket ID NRC-2018-0052—in your email subject line, as well as in the text of your emailed comments. See sample comments here. Waste Control Specialists (Interim Storage Partners): WCS_CISF_EIS@nrc.gov. The Docket ID, NRC-2016-0231, should be included in the subject line of comments.

— Leona Morgan works with Nuclear Issues Study Group and Halt Holtec in New Mexico.

January 10, 2020 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

On Navajo Nation, Uranium Poisoning Found Generations After Mine Closures

Nukewatch Winter Quarterly 2019-2020

By Kelly Lundeen

One of the field researchers for the Navajo Birth Cohort Study was told by a mother that she uses tap water to mix her baby’s formula, a harmless routine for most parents.

This is not the case in the Navajo Nation where uranium was mined to build bombs beginning in 1944, leaving behind mountains of radioactive waste material that is still impacting newborn babies today, 75 years since mining started and over 20 years after the last uranium mine was shuttered.

One-quarter to one-third of Diné (also known as Navajo) women and men and some infants have radioactive uranium levels “that exceed those found in the highest 5% of the US population.” That is the finding of Dr. Loretta Christensen, Chief Medical Officer of the Navajo Area Indian Health Service, who gave preliminary results of an ongoing study at a Congressional hearing Oct. 7 in Albuquerque, New Mexico called “America’s Nuclear Past: Examining the Effects of Radiation in Indian Country.”

In a November 7 interview with KUNM radio, Dr. Christensen discussed some of the study’s early findings. “Obviously we’re very concerned about looking at environmental contamination in moms and babies, because we’re saying, ‘Is this passing on? Is it now showing up in our babies?’ And, unfortunately … it appears it is.”

Uranium mimics the hormone estrogen, which is elevated during pregnancy, and calcium, replacing nourishing calcium with radioactive uranium. It can take years for inhaled uranium to leave the lungs. Ingested uranium will end up in the bone, kidneys and liver, but can be absorbed faster in a newborn’s digestive system. Iron deficiency, which is more common during pregnancy, increases the rate of uranium absorption.
—Graphic is by the Radiation Monitoring Project, and the data is courtesy of Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear.

Health impacts potentially related to radiation exposure in children and identified by the Navajo Birth Cohort Study, included delayed brain development especially around 10 months of age; elevated or increasing levels of uranium contamination through age five; language development delays for children ages three to five; and higher rates of autism spectrum disorder.

Radioactive uranium contamination is not only present, but impacting newborns who are one or two generations away from the time of active uranium mining operations. Dr. Christensen said, “Our hope is that we can mitigate the effects of that by keeping them healthy, by checking kidney function, by helping with childhood development, [and] by screening for cancer so that if it does occur we catch it very early. We do know now we can help in some ways to mitigate worsening of disease by being very proactive.”

Radiation-related health impacts come as no surprise to those living near the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines or the 1,100 uranium contaminated sites on the Navajo Nation alone. Cancer rates doubled in the Navajo Nation between the 1970s and the 1990s. Even the United States Public Health Service conducted an infamous and illegal study in 1950, without consent of Diné uranium miner subjects, that linked the radioactive radon gas in mines to lung cancer. The scandal was described in the 1996 book The Human Radiation Experiments: Final Report of the President’s Advisory Committee. Yet, it wasn’t until 2009 that Congress required a health investigation resulting in the Navajo Birth Cohort Study.

The ongoing study is being conducted simultaneously with the Environmental Protection Agency’s current “Five Year Plan.” The EPA is carrying out its third “Five-Year Plan,” which began in 2008, to investigate and cleanup abandoned uranium mines. But one-third of the mining companies have closed or gone bankrupt, leaving taxpayers holding the bill.

“In Navajo communities the perspective of cleanup of uranium mining is more holistic than the government’s focus on containment. It includes: general community wellness, human health, the health of plants and animals, water quality, and the whole ecosystem that was impacted. That is what we are talking about when we say cleanup,” said Leona Morgan, who works with Diné No Nukes and Nuclear Issues Study Group.

The results of cleanup efforts may be questionable due to revelations highlighted by private investigator Susie Nielson who reported in High Country News October 17. The EPA’s choice for a major $85 million mine contamination assessment contract is TetraTech EC’s parent company. Two of TetraTech EC’s former company supervisors were each sentenced to eight months in prison for falsifying records of clean up at Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco after they’d asked subcontractors to submit clean soil samples, replacing potentially radioactive samples.

The Navajo Nation is one of many targets of environmental injustice where the production of nuclear weapons, not to mention the fallout from bomb test detonations, has caused death and disease for generations. Meanwhile, the Navajo Birth Cohort Study continues, and the Navajo Nation has built its first cancer clinic which opened in September.

—KUNM radio, Nov. 7; High Country News, Oct. 17; Dr. Loretta Christensen Indian Health Service Testimony on Radiation in Indian Country, Oct. 7, 2019; Final Report of the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Oxford Univ. Press, 1996, p. 358

October 29, 2019 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Radiation and Colonialism Leave a Permanent Stamp on New Mexico—Part II

(See Part I)

July 16—New Mexico’s Day of Infamy

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2019

By Leona Morgan of Nuclear Issues Study Group

July 16th is a day of infamy for New Mexico, as it is the anniversary of the world’s largest uranium spill near Churchrock in 1979, and of the Trinity test, the first atomic weapon detonation in 1945.

Hibakusha & Internationals Commemorate July 16

In 2016, organizers in uranium-impacted communities called for an international day of action every July 16, to spotlight the unaddressed consequences of the Churchrock Spill and the ongoing global genocide of indigenous peoples from nuclear colonialism. The first to respond were organizers [Nukewatch and Nonviolent Action for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, Germany] protesting the deployment of US weapons at the German military base in Büchel in 2017. In 2018, solidarity events took place in the US, Germany, Spain, England, and France. This year, the local group Red Water Pond Road Community Association held its 11th annual day of remembrance of Churchrock. More than 200 folks attended from as far away as Japan.

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) hosted a town hall meeting and its 10th annual candlelight vigil to remember the lives lost due to the Trinity Test. Participants called out the names of all those lost to cancer, and read statements of support from Congressional offices and allies. Tina Cordova of TBDC reported that they “called out around 800 names. The list grows every year. We also held a tribute in memory of all the children that were lost as a result of the Trinity Test or were stillborn. This is such a horrible legacy! Children died and the government still lied.”

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium remind us that before Hiroshima, there was Trinity.

Toshiya Morita, a second generation Hibakusha (people affected by the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), traveled from Kyoto, Japan to take part in both the Churchrock and Tularosa events. Morita recalls, “When I went to New Mexico I saw a lot of Hibakusha. Most of them are Indigenous people by uranium mines… [and] other Hibakusha by nuclear tests. I feel all of Hibakusha in the United States are one of my family… I want to walk with all of you to the no nuclear world!”

Exposed Communities Demand Compensation

Also on July 16, Representative Ben Ray Lujan, D-NM, introduced the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2019 (H.R. 3783). The bill would extend much-deserved compensation to all who have been impacted by the US military’s use of uranium weapons. The bill includes an apology, an extension of the fund until 2045 (beyond the current 2022 sunset date), and expansion of compensation to uranium mill and mine workers who worked after 1971 (up to 1990) and to nuclear weapons test downwinders in additional locations—including Tularosa Basin and Guam. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate on March 28, 2019 by Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho (S. 947).

Opposition to Centralized Waste Dump Continues

Today, the same region of Trinity’s radioactive fallout is being threatened by two proposals for consolidation of high-level waste nuclear fuel from reactors. Although New Mexico does not have any commercial nuclear power reactors, and such a waste dump would not be legal, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proceeding with the National Environmental Policy Act process for license applications from both Holtec International and Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP). ISP is a partnership between Waste Control Specialists and Orano—formerly Areva Corp. Scoping for both dumps was completed in 2018, and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Holtec is expected in March 2020, while ISP’s is expected in May 2020. Both proposals are being legally challenged within the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB). The ASLB hearing for ISP took place in Midland, Texas, on July 10 and was well attended by community folks opposing the so-called “Consolidated Interim Storage” facility.

—Leona Morgan works with the Nuclear Issues Study Group in New Mexico.

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By Ian Zabarte

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

By Leona Morgan

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2020

Nukewatch Winter Quarterly 2019-2020

By Kelly Lundeen

Nukewatch Winter Quarterly 2019-2020

(See Part I)

July 16—New Mexico’s Day of Infamy

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2019

By Leona Morgan of Nuclear Issues Study Group

Hibakusha & Internationals Commemorate July 16

Exposed Communities Demand Compensation

Opposition to Centralized Waste Dump Continues

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