Don't Dump Nuclear
Waste Way Out West
by Jacqueline Binger*, October 15, 2002
Originally Published in the Daily
Nexus
Last Friday, four students left Santa Barbara and
traveled the 420 miles to Mercury, Nev. I did not know exactly
where I was going or what I was going to, but I did know that
I had to go. What I ended up at was the Action for Nuclear Abolition
Peace Camp on Western Shoshone Nation lands.
I had thought that I was going to a protest against
nuclear testing and dumping on the Shoshone land, but what the
activists at the camp are involved in is more than just a protest;
it is a nonviolent direct action. They are protesting the re-introduction
of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site 65 miles north of Las
Vegas as well as the takeover of the Shoshone land for the test
site.
Twice a year for the last 14 years, on both Mother's
Day weekend and the week prior to and including Indigenous Peoples
Day, organizations and individual activists from all over the
country have converged on the Nevada Test Site. They join with
the members of the Shoshone Tribe to protest and "cross the
line" into the site as a symbolic way of showing that they
consider that land Shoshone land. This year, the organization
that I am involved in, UC Nuclear Free, and members from the Environmental
Affairs Board decided to join the fight.
On Saturday night, we joined with the other activists
and walked down the highway from the peace camp to the entrance
to the Nevada Test Site, cheering and chanting. When we arrived
at the line separating the site from the Shoshone land, people
spoke out against the dangers of nuclear testing and the movement
of nuclear waste. As people continued to speak, others, with permits
to be on the Western Shoshone land in their hands, began to walk
across the line into the site and into the waiting hands of the
police. I stood by and watched as the police began to drag people
away, and I realized that this was not about getting arrested
or about crossing a line; it was about saving lives.
Over the last year the U.S. government has passed
some alarming bills that will endanger the lives of not only the
Shoshone people, but us all. In July the Senate approved the Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste dump and committed to the shipment of over
50,000 "mobile Chernobyls" to the mountain on the Nevada
Test Site. In January, the Pentagon released its "Nuclear
Posture Review," calling for increased spending on nuclear
weapons, continued subcritical experiments and a possible resumption
of full-scale nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site.
In August, a defense official stated that full-scale nuclear tests
will happen in the near future.
We cannot keep quiet about this any longer. To
protect the Native Americans who live in the area where the tests
will happen, and to protect ourselves from the nuclear waste that
is slated to travel through Santa Barbara on trains and barges,
we need to speak out. I encourage all of you to attend the next
protest at the Nevada Test Site on Mother's Day weekend of this
year and to get involved in the fight against nuclear development.
For more information on the Nevada Test Site and
the fight against it, go to http://www.shundahai.org.
*Jacqueline Binger is a senior law and society major as well as
a volunteer at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
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