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It will poison everything.’ Native Americans protest Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste site

TO THE WESTERN SHOSHONE NATION, THIS LAND IS SACRED. TO STORE NUCLEAR WASTE HERE IS TO PRESS A DOOMSDAY BUTTON.

Ed Komenda, Reno Gazette Journal 24 May 19,   “………..  “This is our church,” says Bobb, the 67-year-old chief of the Western Shoshone National Council. “All we have to do is pray.”

Seven tents and travelers from as far as South Dakota and Washington dot this camp less than a mile from armed men in camouflage guarding the Nevada National Security Site – a 1,360-square-mile desert patch 65 miles north of Las Vegas where scientists decades ago detonated more than 900 nuclear bombs, assaulting the horizon with mushroom clouds.

Off the Mercury exit of U.S. Highway 95 is a yellow road sign topped with flashing lights: “DEMONSTRATORS ON ROADWAY.”

Another 35 miles northwest is the reason those demonstrators are here: The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository.

The Trump administration and a bipartisan collective of congressmen contend the Nye County mountain on federal land adjacent to the test site is the solution to the country’s nuclear waste problem – but the people who roamed the west long before there was a federal government see the peaks a different way.

To the Western Shoshone Nation, this land is sacred. To store nuclear waste here is to press a doomsday button.

“It will poison everything,” the elder says. “It’s people’s life, our Mother Earth’s life, all the living things here, all the creatures; whatever’s crawling around, it’s their life too.”……

The fight to prevent federal dollars from flowing into the Yucca Mountain project runs tandem to the push to license the land as a dumping ground.

In January, Gov. Steve Sisolak promised “not one ounce” of nuclear waste would enter Yucca Mountain under his administration.

Last week, it appeared another hurdle had been cleared to help him keep that promise.  A Department of Energy funding bill released on May 14 showed no money set aside to bankroll nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain. The absent dollars marked a small victory for Nevada House Democrats – including Rep. Dina Titus, who met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week to talk about halting funding.

“This has been a long, protracted battle,” Titus told the USA TODAY Network. “Some people say it’s a marathon and not a dash – but I’d say right now we’re in a pivotal moment.”…..

The Trump administration now favors storing the nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain – and Trump has support from members of Congress looking to rid their own waste from nuclear facilities in their home districts.

“It’s get it out of my backyard and into somebody else’s,” Titus said.

In 2018, the House voted 340-72 to advance a bill directing the Department of Energy to resume the licensing process for a nuclear waste facility in Yucca Mountain.

The bill died, never making it to the Senate floor – but it made its return to the House last week.

Illinois Republican John Shimkus co-sponsored the reintroduction of the bill, pegging nuclear power as an essential component to addressing climate change…..  n an interview with the USA Today Network, Shimkus characterized Yucca Mountain as a “pretty good” and “secure” location for nuclear waste.

“If Yucca Mountain was where the capital is – yeah,” Shimkus said, “I could understand some concerns and some frustration.”……  “We’re trying to get money for that final scientific debate and argument. My friends, the Nevadans, continue to say it’s unsafe… but let’s have the science debated.”

That effort to get that money died in Washington Tuesday, when the House Appropriations Committee voted 27-25 to kill an amendment from Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, to inject $74 million for Yucca Mountain into a bill funding the Energy Department.

The outcome, Shimkus said in a statement, left him “disappointed.” https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2019/05/22/yucca-mountain-nuclear-waste-nevada-test-site/3694806002/