Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

December 5, 2007

Western Shoshone: Halt nuclear waste genocide at Yucca Mountain

Alert from the Western Shoshone Defense Project:

Please do what you can to oppose this project – a major assault on the Western Shoshone Nation – we will be sending further details with ways you can voice your opinion. Public Hearing today in D.C. – written comment deadline January 10th. Please do what you can. Please let your voices be heard!
The Department of Energy’s website, as well as the color glossy environmental impact reports on the Nuclear Waste Repository and Transportation plan, sugar-coats this deadly proposed operation. Health and environmental impacts of this massive transportation and dumping plan will be felt across the nation and especially in the tribal and poor communities. Many concerns are not addressed, beginning with the fact that this is not U.S. land. It is Western Shoshone land, recognized by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, which the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has recently mandated that the US must freeze, desist and stop any further destructive activities on Shoshone lands. Until the past is corrected and the present stage of land rights is settled, no licenses should be issued for future operations. Furthermore, there is no procedure nor funding specified for the inevitable "accidents" inherent in transporting this deadly material across the nation and storing it in a mountain moving on active fault lines over a major aquifer. Talking points and further information is available at: www.h-o-m-e.org/Yucca/index.htm.
To review Yucca Mountain history, read Cheney's "Nuclear Fuel management and Disposal Act" submitted to Bush on April 5, 2006. The legislation to construct this travesty has already been passed. We each need to contact our Congress people to insist that this be repealed. The action in question today is to stop the issuing of the license to proceed with the construction and implementation of this madness!
For more information select here. For new information on the entire nuclear chain and your health, go to www.h-o-m-e.org/Index. Also, check out http://www.inyoyucca.org/ for their excellent recent impacts assessment report and Matt Gaffney's article in E Magazine.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1.TODAY – Wednesday DECEMBER 5th, 2007:
The Dept. of Energy is concluding its round of hearings for public comment on both the Yucca Mountain repository and the rail/trucking transportation system for highly dangerous radioactive waste.
The hearing is today from 2:00 - 5:00 pm (EST) at:
The Marriott at MetroCenter
775 12th St.
NW Washington, DC
Fax questions &/or comments to: (800) 967-0739
Call in to: (800) 967-3477
Questions and comments may also be posted on the Radioactive Waste Management website: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/
Submit written comments on or before Jan. 10, 2008. Talking points, Yucca Mtn. for Dummies and contact info are available at: www.h-o-m-e.org/Yucca/index.htm.
Request extensions of time to study and submit reports – see attached extension request from the State of Nevada.
Pass Tribal Council, City Council or State legislative actions reflecting your opinion – send them to the DOE.

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