Nuclear Free Zones

HOW TO HELP


**Get Nuclear Free Zone Passed by tribal governments

**Prevent the acceptance of high-level radioactive waste on Indian Lands

**Work with local activists and Indian groups to inform tribal membership about radioactive hazards

**Make presentations at appropriate conferences

**Support efforts in Congress and U.S. federal agencies to do away with the public or private program of seeking MRS sites on Indian lands.

Prairie Island

Prairie Island's main claim to fame is one no one would really like to have. Northern States Power, main electrical supplier for Minnesota and much of Wisconsin, in the early 1970's built a nuclear electrical generating plant just a few hundred yards from the small reservation separated by impoundment waters of the Mississippi Lock and Dam Number 2 nearby which are used for cooling the nuke. This photo shows the two large cylindrical containment domes. The Prairie Island plant contains two nukes (reactors).

The spent (very radioactive) fuel rods of this nuke were stored for a while in a kind of big swimming pool inside the domes. By the early 1980's, this storage was no longer adequate. Northern States Power trucked away -- in secret trucks during the night -- some of the spent fuel rods. And they made plans to build a "temporary" storage facility, just 500 yeards from the reservation's Day Care Center. Using revenues from their successful casino, Prairie Island retained experts to study the situation, and eventually sued to halt this operation. They won, but the court simply said the state legislature must decide, not the Public Utilities Commission (which, like most, is in NSP's pocket). A local alliance grew from the issue: the American Indian Movement (AIM), environmental groups, concerned Minnesotans, and other environmentalists began to support the small tribe. There were demonstrations and lobbying -- the amateurs vs NSP, which spent more money lobbying this issue in a year than has ever been spent before at the rather sleepy Minnesota state legislature.

Skull Valley

The United States brief experience with commercial nuclear power has left the country with a long-term problem- disposing of the highly radioactive reactoe fuel that nuclear utilities produce. It is estimated that the hundred plus commercial nuclear reactors will, within the next 40 years, generate approximately 85,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. Because the spent nuclear fuel will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years, the most effective means of safe disposal is to bury the fuel permanetly in an underground repository. Due to the lobg-term planning required for disposal and the political sensitivity that revolves around radio active waste, the development of a permanent repository has been slow.

several nuclear facilities have joined together to develop a temporary centralized storage facility in which to place spent fuel until a permanent repository is available. Hoping to derive various economic benefits from the development, the Skull VAlley Band of Goshutes, an American Indian tribe native to Utah, has agreed to lease a portion of their reservation to host the facility.
In exchange for these benefits, the Goshutes will be helping nuclear utilities adress the variou problems created by the accumulation of spent fuel at the utilities' reactor sites. The Goshutes efforts at leasing the land for the facility has attracted opposition from environmental groups, the State if Utah, and members of their own tribr, all of whom are concerned by the dangers posed by radiation.

Navajo Land and The Uranium Miners

In September, 1990, a meeting was held at the Cove Chapter house of the Navajo Indian Nation. In the 1940's and 1950's, American Indians from the local community mined uranium ore from the hills around Cove for the atomic weapons program of the United States. Now the area is the location of a cluster of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases related to uranium.

For two days inside the Chapter house the Navajo's listened to testimony from former miners and relatives of miners who had died. The United States Congress had just passed a law authorizing cash payments to some of the miners or their family members who could prove the miners had received a certain level of exposure to radiation in the mines and who then subsequently developed lung cancer or one of several other respiratory diseases.

The meeting was conducted almost entirely in the Navajo language. In addition to testimony from surviving miners, there were also presentations by the Navajo Nation's Abandoned Minelands Reclamation Project and also the tribe's Office of Navajo Uranium Workers. They were attempting to deal with the aftermath of uranium mining in the area, including identifying hundreds of mining sites in the area, compiling a registry of all tribal mine and mill workers, assisting with the complicated claims process for compensation, and improving health services for the many sick and injured people.

Honor the Earth

Honor the Earth is an organization that is giving a voice to those not heard.

Their mission is to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media, and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard.

Honor the Earth was created to meet the needs of a growing Native environmental movement. How could we let the public know that many of the key environmental battles being waged in North America actually emanated from Native lands and Peoples? We felt it was critical to break from our geographic and political isolation, where our struggles remained invisible or marginalized, and develop a base of allies and financing that would help support change. We wanted to raise our voices, and we wanted to leverage the support of people and groups who might not know of our communities or issues.

It was a prayer and a dream, born of years of organizing work. We met Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers backstage at a 1992 Earth Day Rally in Massachusetts, and they offered to help by headlining a small concert tour for Native environmental issues the following year, in 1993. From that first tour, Honor the Earth has grown into a flourishing national Native environmental initiative and grant making organization.

Native Americans And The Environment

MAIN GOALS:
1. to educate the public on environmental problems in Native American communities

2. to explore the values and historical experiences that Native Americans bring to bear on environmental issues

3. to promote conservation measures that respect Native American land and resource rights

National Environment Coalition of Native Amrericans

NECONA is a group that is wroking with public leaders to bring change to the conditions NAtive Americans are living in.

The goals of the group are:

* to educate Indians and Non-Indians about the health dangers of radioactivity and transportation of nuclear waste on America's rails and roads.

* To network with Indian and Non-Indian environmentalists to develop grassroots counter-movement to the well funded efforts of the nuclear industry.

* To declare Tribal NUCLEAR FREE ZONES across the nation.