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On July 9, the US Senate voted to give the green light to a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. This vote is disappointing, however, the struggle is not over. Ongoing issues with Yucca Mountain that must be addressed include:
1. It is unclear whether enough money will be appropriated for Yucca Mountain to come to fruition. Already the government has spent $7 billion on this white elephant; today's total cost estimate is $58 billion and tomorrow's cost will be more.
2. The Department of Energy (DOE) has not released the routes it would use to ship the nuclear waste to Nevada. This has enabled the administration to avoid the wrath of concerned lawmakers who may not yet know that these mobile Chernobyls could be coming through their districts. When routes are finally laid out, expect a huge amount of opposition from affected communities and their representatives.
3. The DOE has estimated that nearly 300 crashes could occur while this dangerous waste is being shipped to Nevada. Yet, it is unlikely that emergency workers would be prepared to adequately handle such potential disasters. Further, the transportation casks have not been fully tested to ensure they could withstand realistically severe crashes. Also, the waste will make a tempting terrorist target as it rolls across the country; the Yucca Mountain scheme calls for scattering dirty bombs all over the United States.
4. Even the government's own scientists confess they cannot demonstrate that the proposed repository will not leak and contaminate the environment and drinking water supplies.
5. Yucca Mountain will not solve our waste problems because the irradiated fuel must cool onsite for years before being moved. Whether or not Yucca Mountain is built, nuclear waste will always be scattered at nuclear reactors throughout the country as long as reactors continue to operate. Further, the total volume of this country's high-level nuclear waste is expected to exceed capacity at Yucca Mountain before the repository can open.
(List borrowed from WAND, http://www.wand.org)
**In October, Native activists are planning an action at Yucca Mountain to show resistance to the Senate vote and the commitment to continue the struggle. For more information, visit http://www.shundahai.org
See how close nuclear waste will travel to your community by road, rail or barge: http://www.mapscience.org
Sign the online petition to fight the waste dump at Yucca Mountain: http://www.yuccapetition.org
Indigeneous Environmental Network's May 9, 2002 Press Release on Yucca Mountain
Yucca Mountain is called 'Serpent Swimming West' in the Shoshone language, a name borne out by scientific evidence that this highly seismic mountain in Nevada is, in fact, moving. Despite this evidence, and many more facts that show Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to store nuclear waste, the U.S. government is moving fast to approve Yucca Mountain as a federal repository.
Yucca Mountain is the only site under study for the permanent disposal of high level nuclear waste. Congress is going to make a critical decision this spring on the future of Yucca Mountain. Native peoples need your support and your voice to stop Congress from approving a radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain!
Yucca Mountain, a high ridge near the Nevada Test Site, is a place of deep spiritual and religious significance to the Western Shoshone and Pauite tribes, a place where the people gathered and continue to gather traditionally in the spring and fall to worship. Yucca Mountain is also on land guaranteed the Western Shoshone by treaty. Treaties are agreements between two sovereign governments and considered by the U.S. Constitution to be the "Supreme Law of the Land." Like almost every treaty the United States has entered into with Indian Nations, the treaty with the Western Shoshone has been violated again and again. The Nevada Test Site was carved out of their territory and today, the Western Shoshone Nation is the most bombed nation on earth. The United States has detonated more than 1,200 atomic bombs in their territory. High rates of cancer and illness related to atomic fall-out plague the people, who suffer from this historic injustice without any government health assessment, rectification or medical aid.
To add insult to injury, for the past twenty years the Department of Energy (DOE) has occupied Yucca Mountain and spent billions of our taxpayer dollars to study whether the mountain could serve as a federal nuclear waste dump. If George W. Bush and the DOE get their way, they would turn a sacred site into a radioactive parking lot for 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste and confirm that our Constitution can be overlooked to serve corporate needs.
In February of this year, President George W. Bush issued a letter to the United States Congress approving Yucca Mountain as a permanent, federal repository for high level nuclear waste. Bush and his energy buddies in the industry and Congress have Yucca on the fast-track. Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn on Monday, April 8th vetoed the use of Yucca Mountain as nuclear waste repository - but Congress now moves towards a vote to either override Nevada's veto or sustain it. The outcome of that vote will be dependent on whether the public takes action. Political analysts agree the vote will be won or lost in the Senate and the Senate now has 90 legislative days to debate the issue and a vote is expected in July!
As early as April 16, Congress could vote on accepting Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository. Yucca Mountain is not acceptable because of severe scientific flaws with the site and its location on sacred Western Shoshone treaty land. Furthermore, the large majority of Nevadans do not support the project as it is based on politics, not science. Moreover, approximately 50 million people in 43 states would be in danger from unprecedented numbers of nuclear waste shipments as these shipments traveled by train to Nevada.
Call, Fax, Write and Email your Senator with an urgent message: No Nuclear Waste At Yucca Mountain -- No Nuclear Waste on Native Lands!
How you can do it:
(1) Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202/224-3121 (to request a Senator's office directly)
(2) Visit http://www.senate.gov and click on "List Senators by State" to determine who your Senator is - get the Senator’s phone, fax and email contact info online.
(3) Write your Senator on this issue at:
Office of Senator _________
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Click here for a SAMPLE LETTER TO YOUR SENATOR developed by Honor the Earth for you to use in writing your elected officials.
(2) Courtesy of the organization Public Citizen, you can send an auto-fax to your senators opposing Yucca Mountain by clicking on this link and following the directions:
(link removed at it is no longer active)
(3) Visit the links below to the organizations on the front-lines of this work. Learn more and support the work they are doing to protect and preserve Yucca Mountain and the Western Shoshone people. Many of these organizations have petitions, talking points, additional sample letters to Senators and officials, common questions & answers about Yucca Mountain, and other helpful information on the issue. Please visit all of these groups’ sites to learn more and continue to take action on this critical issue!
Nuclear Information Resource Service: http://www.nirs.org
Citizen Alert: http://www.citizenalert.org
Shundahai Network: http://www.shundahai.org
WAND: http://www.wand.org
Honor the Earth: http://www.honorearth.org
Indigenous Environmental Network: http://www.alphacdc.com/ien
Public Citizen: http://www.publiccitizen.org
Read more on the Fight Over Yucca Mountain in the April 8 online issue of The Nation: http://thenation.com/failsafe/
Sign the online petition to fight the waste dump at Yucca Mountain: - http://www.yuccapetition.org
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