Western Shoshone to White House -- Stop Funding Nuclear

November 30, 2022

Comments to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Committee

Provided by:

Principal Man Ian Zabarte of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, Secretary of State of the Western Shoshone National Council, Secretary of the Native Community Action Council, 2017 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Appointee to the Licensing Support System Advisory Review Board.

Our country stretched from the Mojave Desert in the south to the Snake River in the north defined by the Treaty of Ruby Valley (Consolidated Treaty Series Volume 127-1863)

Nuclear issues threaten the Western Shoshone People. Radioactive fallout from indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction, secret shipments of plutonium into our country, low-level nuclear waste facilities exploding from rainwater intrusion at the Beatty dump and licensing of Yucca Mountain for high-level nuclear waste repository inflict conditions intended to bring about the destruction of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians. Much nuclear risk we experience has been done in secret and demonstrates ill intent. The US nuclear weapons industry is lawless and unaccountable. The US must join the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is International Law.

Remembering our Heroes: Reporter Cate Gilles and Dine' Leroy Jackson

Photo by Cate Gilles. Big Mountain and Black Mesa protest at Navajo Nation Council chambers.
Dine' protested the genocide by the Navajo Nation government, which signed leases with Peabody Coal to mine coal and use the water on Black Mesa for Peabody's two coal mines. The Navajo government also signed the lease for the Navajo Generating Station, the coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation near Page, Arizona, that used the coal. The power plant was one of three coal-fired power plants on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico that supplied electricity to Southwest cities that the Navajo government received royalties from -- while many Dine' were left living without running water and electricity.

Remembering our Heroes: Reporter Cate Gilles and Dine' Leroy Jackson

Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Censored News would not be what it is today without the lives, and deaths of two people, news reporter Cate Gilles and Dine' Leroy Jackson. Cate was a reporter covering relocation and Black Mesa and exposed radiation dangers from uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.

Cate was working in public relations for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe when she was found dead hanged by her dog chain. Her death was ruled a suicide. However, just before her death, she told news reporters that she had documents on corruption, involving a casino, that she was taking to the authorities.

Defenders of the Sacred on the Frontlines: With Thanks from Censored News

Defenders of the Sacred: Through the years, defenders of the sacred, on the frontline, have shared their stories with us. Here are a few of them. James Main, Chief Johnny Jackson, and Thomas Banyacya gathered on the Navajo Nation in Dilkon and gave birth to a new movement upholding inherent rights and defending the sacred. Robert Free, shown on horseback on left at Wounded Knee, brought heating oil to Indian country from Venezuela. It was Robert's tipi on Alcatraz. Red Warrior Debra White Plume, Lakota, gave the Lewis and Clark Expedition a symbolic blanket of smallpox in South Dakota, as the American Indian Movement told the pretenders to leave. Carter Camp, Ponca, at Wounded Knee. Kahentinetha, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and Thomas Square, Mohawk Warriors on the southern border.

Border Nation featured in Environmental Film Festival

Border Nation featured in the Environmental Film Festival

 Brenda Norrell

Censored News

'Border Nation' is featured in the powerful Environmental Film Festival in Washington. The film follows Ofelia Rivas from her home on the Tohono Oodham Nation to the United Nations, as she describes the abuse by the U.S. Border Patrol and the construction of spy towers in her community, built by Israel's Elbit Systems.

Ofelia is the longtime founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall, and spokesperson for traditional O'odham elders protecting the culture and sacred places.

Watch 'Border Nation' by Jason Jaacks, and other great Indigenous environmental films, free and online at

https://dceff.org/watchnow/