Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

August 27, 2018

U.S. Nuclear Industry Responsible for Homicide of Western Shoshone -- says Ian Zabarte

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Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps with Western Shoshone Ian Zabarte
U.S. Nuclear Industry Responsible for Homicide of Western Shoshone -- says Ian Zabarte

By Brenda Norrell
Photo by Beyond Nuclear
Censored News

The exposure of Western Shoshone to radiation during atomic bomb blasts, and later to deadly testing at Yucca Mountain, could have been prevented, but the United States made no attempt to protect the lives of Western Shoshone.
Today, the United States is still targeting Western Shoshone's sacred Yucca Mountain for a high level nuclear dump.
Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Shoshone, is among those who was exposed to deadly silica dust during the United States testing of a tunnel at Yucca Mountain.
"The Department of Energy sent me a letter in 2002 that I was exposed in the same class as workers. I was deliberately exposed even though my exposure could have been prevented by the US Department of Energy. Still coming to terms with the deliberate intent. Every Shoshone death is a homicide until proven otherwise."
The deadly exposures from silica dust are exposed at Physics Today.
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1768668
Beyond Nuclear reports on the ongoing battle for life, ignored by most media.
"Nevada is the Battle Born state and after 30 years we still say 'No.'" Ian Zabarte (pictured above, at right, with Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, at the recent "Zero Hour" youth climate rally and march on the National Mall in D.C.), Principal Man of the Western Bands of Shoshone Indians, and secretary of the Native Community Action Council (NCAC), has achieved hard won legal standing, in opposition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing of the Yucca dump, in the biggest proceeding in the agency's history. (NCAC has also been appointed to the NRC's Yucca Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel.) The 1863 "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by the U.S. government with the Western Shoshone, is clear evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy lacks title to the land and water at the site, so cannot legally proceed with construction and operation of the $100 billion+ dump. More than a thousand environmental, and environmental justice, organizations across the U.S., including Beyond Nuclear, have joined the "we do NOT consent!" coalition opposed to the Yucca dump over the past 32 years

More:

Nevadans come out swinging in opposition to proposed Yucca Mountain dump scheme!        
As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, his State Agency for Nuclear Project's executive director, Robert Halstead, and other Silver State officials, have recommitted to yet another round of resistance in 2019 to the high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at them since the enactment of the "Screw Nevada bill" of 1987. With election day 2018 a couple months away, Nevada's U.S. Senate candidates, Dean Heller (Republican incumbent) and Jacky Rosen (Democratic challenger, currently a U.S. House member from southern Nevada), vie to prove they are the most opposed -- and most effectively opposed -- to Yucca, in a state where the vast majority of voters oppose the dump. As Judy Treichel of the environmental non-profit Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force wrote in an op-ed to the Las Vegas Sun a year and a half ago, "Nevada is the Battle Born state and after 30 years we still say 'No.'" Ian Zabarte (pictured above, at right, with Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, at the recent "Zero Hour" youth climate rally and march on the National Mall in D.C.), Principal Man of the Western Bands of Shoshone Indians, and secretary of the Native Community Action Council (NCAC), has achieved hard won legal standing, in opposition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing of the Yucca dump, in the biggest proceeding in the agency's history. (NCAC has also been appointed to the NRC's Yucca Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel.) The 1863 "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by the U.S. government with the Western Shoshone, is clear evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy lacks title to the land and water at the site, so cannot legally proceed with construction and operation of the $100 billion+ dump. More than a thousand environmental, and environmental justice, organizations across the U.S., including Beyond Nuclear, have joined the "we do NOT consent!" coalition opposed to the Yucca dump over the past 32 years. Please take action to help block this environmental injustice, targeted at a scientifically unsuitable site, by urging your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators, to oppose H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018, and any other legislation that would speed the dump's opening, increase how much waste could be buried there, launch unprecedented numbers of Mobile Chernobyl shipments through most states, etc. You can phone your Congress Members' D.C. offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. To learn more, see our Yucca Mountain website section.

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