Natives speaking out on uranium

Natives speaking out on uranium

May 18, 2008

By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer

BRATTLEBORO — The recent spate of advertisements promoting the electric power generated at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant as "clean and green" doesn't tell the true story, said two Native Americans whose native lands are severely affected by the nuclear power industry.

Lorraine Rekmans, of the Northern Ojibwa people from Elliot Lake, Ontario, and Ian Zabarte, from Mercury, Nev., secretary of state of the Western Shoshone National Council, spoke in Brattleboro Monday night, their last stop in a weeklong visit to Vermont organized by the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance and Citizens Awareness Network.

Rekmans' home, which is located on the north shore of Lake Huron, was devastated by the pollution from 11 different uranium mines, which she said had turned 10 lakes in the area into radioactive waste sites.

For every pound of uranium, she said, there is a ton of mine waste, and the waste was dumped into lakes.

"People who get their power from nuclear plants should know that uranium doesn't just fall out of the sky," she said.

"Do Vermonters want their prosperity based on the abuse of other people?" said Zabarte, whose tribal council has gone to the United Nations to try and settle its dispute with the U.S. government.

Much of the Western Shoshone's tribal lands are now operated as the Nevada test site, and Zabarte said that it is increasingly polluted. "Safe? Clean? Reliable?" he asked.

Rekmans, whose father worked for the mining companies, is a Green Party candidate for the Canadian parliament. Her father died six years ago from exposure to the radioactive waste, she said. Her family got the $30,000 survivor benefit for her father's death from the government.

The uranium from the Elliot Lake mines was originally used for nuclear weapons for the United States, she said. The mines were opened in the early 1950s, and eventually closed in 1990, with an environment assessment by the government only launched in 1996.

"There was a boom in the 1950s, a bust in the '60s. A boom in the 1970s, and a bust in the 1980s," she said. She said the mines were operated by Denison Mines Ltd. of Toronto, and Rio Algom, of London.

Since the mines have been closed, much of the population moved away, and Elliot Lake has been turned into a low-cost retirement center.

Since the health and environmental effects of uranium mining have become better known, she said, only one Canadian province — Saskatchewan — still allows uranium mining and there are five mines there. British Columbia and New Brunswick have outright bans against such mines.

"Uranium mining causes cancer and silicosis," said Rekmans, who is the Green Party of Canada's aboriginal affairs critic. She now splits her time between Ottawa, the Canadian capital, and the Serpent River Reserve near Elliot Lake. She is a former news reporter and the former executive director of the Northern Aboriginal Forestry Association.

The uranium mining tailings look like desert sands, she said, and were a big attraction for recreation. The tailings need to be under water, to keep from becoming airborne and contaminating a bigger area, she said.

"We were never told 'don't hang out there,'" she said.

As a result, her region has a high level of health problems, and Elliot Lake is a community of 11,000 people, with 10 doctors.

The burden for nuclear power is falling disproportionately on native people, she said.

"We're bearing a disproportionate share; small remote communities," said Rekmans. "It's environmental racism. We were not aware of the risks. We were powerless to stop it."

Uranium mining was celebrated, she said. "Elliot Lake had a uranium festival. There were Radon Daughters," Rekmans said.

Rekmans said that she and Zabarte, a Western Shoshone Indian, were well-received in their talks throughout Vermont.

"Indigenous people are being exploited and victimized by this industry," she said. "But it was not in the forefront of their minds."

Zabarte, the secretary of state for the Western Shoshone National Council in Austin, Nev., said that the national nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca Mountain is on Shoshone land, and is not part of the United States.

"It's called trespass," said Zabarte, who cited a 1850s agreement, the Ruby Valley Treaty, between the Shoshone and the U.S. government as proof that the Shoshone maintained ownership of their lands. "It's called occupation. How did Hitler do it?" he asked. "We did not cede land to the US. We did not abandon our rights. Why would be give up our sovereignty?"

Zabarte said the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe of Death Valley, which is close to Yucca Mountain, has recently been certified under the Nuclear Waste Power Act as an affected party and would receive funding, the same as the state of Nevada, to investigate the Yucca Mountain proposal.

"People just forget about us — out of sight," said Zabarte, who visited the Vermont Yankee reactor Monday afternoon.

The Shoshone's land claim includes much of the eastern half of Nevada, and spills over into California, Utah and Wyoming.

Going subcritical: a nuclear test is a nuclear test is a nuclear test

by Andrew Kishner

http://www.opednews.com

In 1992, the Nevada Test Site hosted the last of over 800 underground nuclear detonations that had commenced in 1961. Five years later, in 1997, the DOE began a program of subcritical testing at the test site that has continued on through today. The philosophical differences between the two types of tests are minimal. The difference between an underground nuclear test and a subcritical experiment can be compared to the difference between firing an actual bullet as opposed to firing a blank.

You may think that the DOE isn't 'aiming' their gun at someone, and therefore no crime is committed, yet their 'gun' is in fact aimed. It is aimed at arguably the entire world. Locally, the DOE is pointing its gun at the Western Shoshone and all peoples who consume the air, the soil and water in Nevada and Utah. Critics of these tests also say that the DOE is aiming their 'gun' at any of the countries in the 'axis-of-evil,' and using these tests to send a threatening message of the U.S.'s intent to use nuclear weapons again.

Like underground nuclear tests, subcritical tests have a legacy of contamination that is stored underground. It is not impossible for the plutonium waste of subcritical tests to leach into the groundwater. The impacts to groundwater of the nearly two dozen subcritical tests conducted since 1997 have not been determined to date at the test site. Likewise, it is not impossible that subcritical tests can 'go critical' to the extent of producing some airborne fission byproducts that can eventually vent to the surface.

Since 1997, the DOE has aimed their gun and fired blanks over and over again. And the impact is no different than when a madman runs around aiming a gun at other people and firing blanks. The effect is de-stabilizing.

After the U.S. conducted its first subcritical test called 'Rebound' in 1997, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately urged the U.S. to not carry out activities that do not conform with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), saying 'We stress that all countries should faithfully abide by stipulations in the nuclear test ban treaty.' In Nevada, anti-nuclear activists did their best to stop 'Rebound': three activists traveled on bicycles onto the test site near the detonation site and seven others blocked a public highway when a media bus tried to enter the gates. Some activists even crawled under the bus but were dragged out by the Nevada Highway Patrol and Department of Energy security personnel. Similar nonviolent actions tried to halt later subcritical tests, although unsuccessfully, and in 1997 a dozen U.S. anti-nuclear organizations brought a lawsuit against the DOE to stop the subcritical tests. In late 1997, Russia first confirmed that it had a subcritical testing program dating back ‘dozens of years’ that continued after the country signed the CTBT in 1996. By 1998 a subcritical testing arms race between the U.S. and Russia was well underway. On May 11, 1998, the government of India conducted a set of three underground atomic tests followed two days later by another two such blasts. These were the first nuclear tests conducted by India since 1974. An official announcement of the second set of blasts stated: 'The tests have been carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary.' Two weeks later Pakistan joined the nuclear weapon club when it announced it had conducted five underground nuclear tests.

In early 1998, the European Parliament concluded that the United States was creating a 'crisis of confidence' in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting subcritical experiments and passed a resolution urging the United States to 'halt the series of subcritical tests' which could otherwise jeopardize the treaty's entry into force. The resolution mentioned that at least 15 countries expressed their concern or opposition to the tests, among them Iran.

Protests by anti-nuclear organizations, foreign governments and international bodies continued against U.S. subcritical testing through about 2003, when worldwide and local dissent began to soften for unknown reasons. Then came the North Korean government's first mention of a nuclear test on Sept. 7, 2006. That announcement came on the heels of the United States' successful completion eight days earlier of its 23rd subcritical nuclear experiment. In its Sept. 7th official reference to a planned nuclear test, North Korea's Central News Agency noted that a South Korean group, the National Alliance for the Country's Reunification, made a statement accusing the United States' subcritical test as an 'obvious criminal act of disturbing the global peace.'

Subcritical testing is a threat to world peace and stability, and citizens should make use of an opportunity to voice their concerns about the legitimacy, impacts to global peace and environmental consequences of these tests through May 30th. Visit www.idealist.ws/action.htm and learn how you can tell the DOE that they should initiate a new Environmental Impact Statement process for the Nevada Test Site that will undoubtedly re-vitalize and address this important issue.

Read the 1998 European Parliament resolution here: http://stopdivinestrake.com/subcritical.html