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Trident celebrations ignore Aboriginal victims of British nuclear weapons testing

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/trident-celebrations-ignore-aboriginal-victims-british-nuclear-weapons-testing, Linda Pearson, April 26, 2019 Issue 1218, Scotland   

THE Royal Navy’s plan to hold a “national services of thanksgiving” at Westminster Abbey to mark 50 years of Britain’s submarine-based nuclear weapons has provoked condemnation from senior clergy and peace campaigners.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) General Secretary Kate Hudson said the plan is “morally repugnant” and the organisation is urging supporters to convey their opposition to Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson. Two Bishops and more than 20 priests have called on Westminster Abbey to cancel the service, which is set to take place on May 3……

The rhetoric of “deterrence” and “defence” is routinely invoked by nuclear-armed states to obscure the horrifying truth about nuclear weapons and justify national security doctrines that rely on them. Nuclear weapons are unique in their destructive power; “designed to indiscriminately kill and destroy thousands of innocent civilians”, as the Bishop of Colchester told The Times last week. This reality was recognised by most of the world’s countries, which voted to ban nuclear weapons in 2017.

Britain’s nuclear weapons program has already destroyed the lives of countless innocent civilians. More than 1200 Indigenous Australians were exposed to radiation during British nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s, while many others were displaced. The effects continue to be experienced by their families today. Some are now calling on the British government to apologise for the testing, instead of celebrating Trident.

Nuclear testing in Australia

Britain conducted 12 major nuclear weapons tests in Australia at the Montebello Islands, and at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia.

After securing the agreement of the Australian government, the British established a permanent test site at Maralinga in 1955. Seven major and several hundred “minor” tests were carried out there, releasing 100kg of radioactive materials into the surrounding area.

The British and Australian governments of the day demonstrated a callous disregard for the lives of Aboriginal people that is characteristic of the settler-colonial mindset. Permission to conduct the testing was not sought from Aboriginal landowners and the Australian government decided they should not be informed of the risks.

When an Australian scientist asked British authorities about the potential danger to local Aboriginal people, the response was that “a dying race couldn’t influence the defence of Western civilisation”.

Many Aboriginal people were forcibly removed from their land prior to the tests, destroying their way of life. Others experienced serious health issues as a result of their exposure to radiation.

Yankunytjatjara man Yami Lester went blind after a “black mist” from the explosions enveloped his country. Others experienced skin rashes, diarrhea and vomiting. Today, Aboriginal communities in the area experience high rates of diseases associated with the effects of radiation poisoning.

Yami Lester’s daughter, Karina Lester, and her family played a crucial role in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). They collected and shared stories from the survivors of nuclear weapons testing that were instrumental in convincing 122 states that the only safe way to deal with nuclear weapons is to eliminate them.

ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to bring about the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The historic treaty recognises “the disproportionate impact of nuclear-weapon activities on Indigenous peoples”. The British and Australian governments boycotted the UN negotiations, however, and have ruled out signing the treaty.

No cause for celebration

Karina Lester said “survivors of the British Nuclear Tests carried out on Australian soil in the 1950’s and 1960’s in South Australia’s outback are still haunted. The Indigenous communities still suffer with high numbers of deaths, cancers, respiratory illnesses and autoimmune disease.”

Several attempts to clean up the Maralinga site have been made by British and Australian governments, thanks to the campaigning of survivors like Yami Lester, but contamination at the site remains. In 1995, Aboriginal peoples received just £7.5 million for the loss and contamination of their land. Only £110,000 has been paid to five Aboriginal people to compensate for their exposure to radiation. A class action was blocked by Britain’s Supreme Court in 2013.

Karina Lester said that the affected communities “have had no apology for the wrongdoings on our traditional lands to this day. As the British Government celebrates 50 years with nuclear weapons, Australia’s Indigenous communities in South Australia wear the scars.”

Instead of celebrating, Lester said, “we Indigenous South Australians urge the British government to own up and apologise for your actions

New threat from nuclear waste dump

Aboriginal communities in South Australia now fear that they will be forced to bear the risks of radioactive contamination again. The Australian government is currently considering three sites for the location of a national nuclear waste dump, two on Barngarla land, near Kimba, and one on Adnyamathanha land at Wallerberdina Station, near the Finders Ranges.

The dump will host nuclear material currently stored at different sites in Australia, plus waste from Britain pursuant to a 2012 agreement between the British and Scottish governments. The agreement relates to waste generated by the reprocessing of Australian nuclear fuel at Dounreay. However, that waste is to remain where it is and a substituted amount will be shipped from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing and decommissioning site, located on the coast of the Irish Sea.

The views of traditional owners have been sidelined throughout the process for choosing the dump’s location and Adnyamathanha’s traditional owners say that federal government contractors have already damaged sacred sites. As a result, two separate human rights complaints are outstanding in Australian courts.

Campaigners have called on the British and Scottish governments to halt the shipment while there is a risk that it will end up dumped on Aboriginal land without the consent of the Traditional Owners. However, the British government said the shipment “will comply with all relevant international laws” and the eventual destination of the waste is “a matter for the Australian authorities”. The British Environment Agency has so far failed to respond to requests to halt the shipment of waste from Sellafield.

The Scottish government has also failed to act to stop the shipment, despite expert advice it commissioned, which states that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and, ultimately, Scottish ministers could refuse to authorise the shipment on human rights grounds.

Britain’s plans to celebrate 50 years of at-sea nukes erases the experience of Indigenous people affected by nuclear weapons testing. Those experiences should be front and centre in any discussion about nuclear weapons, as ICAN recognised.

Instead of celebrating, we should be looking at ways to redress the past and prevent future harm. Britain should apologise for its nuclear weapons testing and pay adequate compensation to those affected. The shipment of nuclear waste from Sellafield should be stopped.

But there is only one way we can prevent more lives being destroyed by nuclear weapons and that is by eliminating them altogether. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/trident-celebrations-ignore-aboriginal-victims-british-nuclear-weapons-testing

April 27, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, UK | Leave a comment

Revealingthe horror of white Australia’s massacres of Aboriginal people

March 5, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, history, indigenous issues, Reference | Leave a comment

Remembering the success of an indigenous fight against nuclear waste dumping

Fight against nuclear waste dump remembered at Ward Valley Spiritual Gathering http://www.mohavedailynews.com/needles_desert_star/fight-against-nuclear-waste-dump-remembered-at-ward-valley-spiritual/article_90eb72d6-389e-11e9-b4f7-9f6fab400ac1.html. By GENTRY MEDRANO Director, Fort Mojave Indian Tribe Public Relations Department, 25 Feb 19, 

    NEEDLES — The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe hosted the 21st annual Ward Valley Spiritual Gathering on Feb. 16.

FMIT, along with supporters from the other five tribes along the Colorado River and environmental activists and allies, gathered to commemorate a 113-day occupation that led to defeating a proposal for a nuclear waste dump at Ward Valley.

In addition to honoring the individuals and organizations for the hard work, courage and dedication they brought to the successful occupation, the event was also a remembrance filled with songs from the Fort Mojave Tribal Band, traditional Bird Singing and Dancing, a Spirit Run, tributes, recognition and a history of Ward Valley.

In 1998 the occupation of the proposed dump site by the five river tribes: the Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Quechan, Cocopah and Colorado River Indian Tribes; along with environmental activists, took place at the Ward Valley site to fight and stop the proposed dump.

The resistance efforts prevented law enforcement from the Bureau of Land Management from entering the site, effectively stopping any test drilling or development.

Protesting that the waste dump would have desecrated sacred land, the tribes and activists prevailed when the U.S. Department of the Interior rescinded an eviction notice and canceled the test drilling.

The Interior Department terminated all actions regarding the Ward Valley dump proposal on Nov. 2, 1999, ending the fight with victory for the tribes and activists.

Ward Valley is about 25 miles west of Needles along Interstate 40 at Water Road

February 25, 2019 Posted by | indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, Religion and ethics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Scotland kow tows to UK and Australian govts – rejects courageous Aboriginal appeal against nuclear waste transport

Last ditch aborigine appeal to Scotland to stop nuclear waste transfers to Australia, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17391290.last-ditch-aborigine-appeal-to-scotland-to-stop-nuclear-waste-transfers-to-australia/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR3r2Lqdv0V66rc7I8PrKJme4mkAsIx2Wtd5bv-Vy_XeT1i3GOgi_Mr    By Martin Williams  29 Jan 19, SOME of the Aborigines who live in and around a sacred burial place in South Australia can still remember the clouds of poison that were the result of Britain’s nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s.

Many of the indigenous population claimed they were exposed to radiation as a result of the post-war atomic weapons tests in the desert and received compensation from the Australian government.

But a new kind of radiation could be heading to the remote sacred area of Wallerberdina – nuclear waste. The concerns are centred over a spot 280 miles north of Adelaide, which has become a potential location for Australia’s first nuclear dump.

The movement of waste is part of a deal that returns spent fuel processed at the nuclear facility currently being decommissioned to its country of origin.

Despite campaigners’ efforts it has emerged that David Peattie, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), has insisted that there can be no change.

And now Aboriginal elder Regina McKenzie has made a last-ditch direct appeal to the First Minister for help to halt Dounreay’s dumping plans, calling for her “not to be part of the cultural genocide of Australian Aboriginal people”.

Mr Peattie said in a letter to UK campaigners who are fighting against the dumping: “The NDA does not have an option of retaining the waste in the UK.”

The Dounreay Waste Substitution Policy, agreed in 2012, sees waste from Australia, Belgium, Germany and Italy processed at the Scottish facility to make it safe for storage being returned to its country of origin.

The UK Government has previously confirmed that “a very small quantity of Australian-owned radioactive waste” is currently stored in the country.

Scottish Government policy allows for the substitution of the Dounreay nuclear waste with a “radiologically equivalent” amount of materials from Sellafield in Cumbria.

The proposed dump site is next to an indigenous protected area where Aborigines are still allowed to hunt, and is part of the traditional home of the Adnyamathanha people, one of several hundred indigenous groups in Australia. And Ms McKenzie, an Adnyamathanha woman who lives at Yappala in South Australia and leading campaigner against any dump, has told the Nicola Sturgeon in a letter that the substitution policy is “culturally inappropriate”.

Ms McKenzie, who has been trying to get a meeting with the First Minister since the start of last year, said: “Adnyamathanha people have lived and practised culture in our country since the beginning of time. We understand and have connections with our land in a way the Australian Government does not. It is our duty to care for our country, song/storylines for future generations.

“We know we have friends in Scotland and in the UK. My great grandfather was Joseph Thomas McKenzie from Aberdeen, so we have a great respect for our Scottish heritage. We ask that you do all in your power to cancel the agreement made with the British Government and send a message of support to our people that Scotland stands with us in our fight to protect our country.

“We have previously offered to crowdfund money to travel to Scotland to raise our concerns with you in person, and we extend the offer for you to visit us here on our country at the sacred women’s waterhole Pungka Pudinah so you can hear why we must protect our country, for all of our futures.

She has said the UK should not make the mistakes they did when the nuclear tests were conducted between 1956 and 1963 at Maralinga, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia.

“Please do not be a part in cultural genocide of Australian Aboriginal people, the past atrocities that were practiced on all the nations of Aboriginal people, must be something of the past and not committed further,” she told Ms Sturgeon.

“This waste facility is just that, cultural genocide, it will stop future generations’ access to a significant site.

“Again I ask please listen with your ears and heart, be a voice for my people and help stop cultural genocide on a minority group only trying to keep our culture strong and survive.”

The local Aboriginal people claimed they were poisoned by the tests and, in 1994, the Australian Government reached a compensation settlement with Maralinga Tjarutja of $13.5 million in settlement of all claims in relation to the nuclear testing.

Despite the governments of Australia and the UK paying for two decontamination programmes, eight years ago concerns were expressed that some areas of the Maralinga test sites are still contaminated 10 years after being declared “clean”.

Campaigner Gary Cushway, a dual Australian-British citizen living in Glasgow, said the new appeal came after the reached deadlock on any movement in ditching the substitution policy. He said: “My argument remains the same, that the material shouldn’t be returned, at least until the final destination is known.”

the Aborigines from supporters in the UK was turned down by the First Minister. Rory Hedderly, the diary team manager, wrote back: “Unfortunately, due to considerable diary pressures, the First Minister is unable to meet with Ms McKenzie at this time.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government believes any concerns expressed by indigenous people must be addressed and we sympathise with concerns relating to the location of the planned radioactive waste facility in Australia.

“However, this issue is a matter for the Australian authorities, who are responsible for waste arising from historic reprocessing of Australian spent fuels, carried out under contract at Dounreay.”

January 29, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste finally removed from Sequoyah Fuels site

Nuclear waste removed from Sequoyah Fuels site   Cherokee Nation, GORE, Okla. 30 Nov 18— A semitrailer quietly left the former Sequoyah Fuels Corporation site near Gore this week, hauling away the last of 511 loads of nuclear waste that has plagued Sequoyah County and its citizens for decades.

The Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma attorney general’s office worked for 18 months to ensure the off-site disposal of 10,000 tons of radioactive material were removed from the Sequoyah Fuels site. The waste was transported to a disposal site in Utah where the uranium will be recycled and reused, leaving the area near the Arkansas River free of this nuclear waste for the first time in nearly 50 years.

“It is a historic day for the Cherokee Nation and the state of Oklahoma. Our lands are safe again, now that we have removed a risk that would have threatened our communities forever,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. “This would not have been possible if the tribe and state had not worked tirelessly together in court to ensure removal of this material.”

The uranium processing plant was opened by Kerr-McGee in 1970. It converted yellowcake uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors. The plant changed ownership more than once and was eventually sold to General Atomics under the name Sequoyah Fuels Corporation.

An accident at the plant killed one worker and injured dozens of others in 1986. Another accident in 1992 injured about three dozen workers. Following that accident and years of violating numerous environmental rules and nuclear safety standards, the plant was closed in 1993.

Tons of radioactive waste remained at the facility when it closed, so in 2004 the Cherokee Nation and state of Oklahoma entered into a settlement agreement that required the highest-risk waste be removed from the site. The owners of Sequoyah Fuels Corporation announced in 2016 their intention to bury the waste on site, but a judge forced the company to comply with the original agreement. Removal of the material is now complete.
“The Cherokee Nation has been in and out of court with Sequoyah Fuels since 2004, and now this material is no longer a ticking time bomb on the banks of the Arkansas River, one of our most precious natural resources,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of Natural Resources Sara Hill said. “Decommissioning this plant was never enough to satisfy our goals for a clean and safe environment. Removal of this highly contaminated waste was our goal, and we’re pleased that goal has finally been achieved.”

The plant is located where the Arkansas River and Illinois River meet.

“Today’s announcement is another example of the strength behind the continued partnership between the state of Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation,” said Attorney General Mike Hunter. “The successful outcome is also affirmation of my office’s commitment to finding avenues of collaboration with tribal governments to ensure our state’s natural resources remain protected and our citizens and communities remain safe.”

Sequoyah County is home to 41,000 residents. Many of those residents are Cherokee and were once employed at the plant, where dozens of workers were injured over the years…….http://webtest2.cherokee.org/News/Stories/20181130_Cherokee-Nation-state-of-Oklahoma-city-of-Gore-announce-nuclear-waste-removed-from-Sequoyah-Fuels-site

December 1, 2018 Posted by | indigenous issues, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Aboriginal group’s unwavering struggle against uranium mining in Western Australia

Fighting for life in the “place of death”https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/08/27/fighting-for-life-in-the-place-of-death/ August 27, 2018 by beyondnuclearinternationa

Traditional owners won’t give up 40-year opposition to Yeelirrie uranium mine,  By Linda Pentz Gunter

In the local Aboriginal language, the name Yeelirrie means to weep or mourn. It is referred to as a “place of death.” Yeelirrie is on Tjiwarl Native Title lands in Western Australia, where it has long been faithfully protected by Aboriginal traditional owners. The Seven Sisters Dreaming songline is there. It is home to many important cultural sites. And for 40 years, due to resolute indigenous opposition, and thousands of community submissions of protest, it had been spared plans by the Canadian mining company, Cameco, to plunder it for uranium.

The earth guardians know that such a desecration would cause the extinction of multiple species of subterranean fauna. It would release death. It would destroy Yeelirrie.

Now the fate of those tiny creatures hangs in the balance, their future in the hands of three brave women, backed by environmental organizations, after the outgoing Western Australian government decided to allow the Yeelirrie uranium mine project to go forward.

That decision was made in January 2017, despite the fact that, in August 2016, the Western Australia Environmental Protection Agency (WAEPA) had recommended that the Yeelirrie project be rejected. 

The Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA), which is engaged in contesting the uranium mining permit for Yeelirrie, said the WAEPA had rejected the Yeelirrie mine plan “on the grounds that the project is inconsistent with three of the objectives of the Environmental Protection Act — the Precautionary Principle, the Principle of conservation of biological diversity, and the Principle of intergenerational equity. The EPA decision was based on the overwhelming evidence that the project would make several species of subterranean fauna extinct.”

But former Minister for Environment, Albert Jacob, threw all that aside to approve the Yeelirrie mine in the waning days of Western Australia’s Liberal government, now replaced by Labor, which came in on a mandate to end uranium mining that it now may not be able to enforce.

In February 2018, CCWA and three members of the Tjiwarl community initiated proceedings in the Western Australia Supreme Court in an attempt to invalidate the approval decision made by Jacob. The case was dismissed by the court, a decision said CCWA executive director, Piers Verstegen, that shows that “our environmental laws are deeply inadequate,” and “confines species to extinction with the stroke of a pen.”

However, while the decision was a set-back, Verstegen said, “it’s absolutely not the end of the road for Yeelirrie or the other uranium mines that are being strongly contested here in Western Australia.”

Accordingly, CCWA and the three Tjiwarl women — Shirley Wonyabong, Elizabeth Wonyabong, and Vicky Abdullah (pictured left to right above the headline) vow to fight on, and have begun proceedings in the WA Court of Appeal to review the Supreme Court decision.

“I grew up here, my ancestors were Traditional Owners of country, and I don’t want a toxic legacy here for my grandchildren,” Abdullah told Western Australia Today in an August 2017 article.

“We have no choice but to defend our country, our culture, and the environment from the threat of uranium mining — not just for us but for everyone.”

Yeelirrie is one of four uranium mines proposed for Western Australia. The other three are Vimy’s Mulga Rock project, Toro Energy’s Wiluna project, and Cameco’s and Mitsubishi’s Kintyre project. Each of them is home to precious species, but Yeelirrie got special attention from the WAEPA because the proposed mine there would cause actual extinctions of 11 species, mostly tiny underground creatures that few people ever see.

According to a new animated short film, produced by the Western Australia Nuclear-Free Alliance, all four of these proposed mines could irreparably damage wildlife, habitat and the health of the landscape and the people and animals who depend on it. The film highlights Yeelirrie, but also describes the other three proposed uranium mines and the threats they pose.

At Mulga Rock, in the Queen Victoria Desert, the site is home to the Sandhill Dunnart, the Marsupial Mole, the Mulgara and the Rainbow Bee Eater, according to the film.

Wiluna, a unique desert lake system, could see uranium mining across two salt lakes that would leave 50 million tonnes of radioactive mine waste on the shores of Lake Way, which is prone to flooding.

The Kintyre uranium deposit was excluded from the protection of the Karlamilyi National Park within which it sits so that uranium could be mined there. It is a fragile desert ecosystem where 28 threatened species would be put at risk, including the Northern Quoll, Greater Bilby, Crest Tailed Mulgara, Marsupial Mole and Rock Wallaby.

At Yeelirrie, says the CCWA, “Cameco plans to construct a 9km open mine pit and uranium processing plant. The project would destroy 2,421 hectares of native vegetation and generate 36 million tonnes of radioactive mine waste to be stored in open pits.”

The mine would likely operate for 22 years and use 8.7 million litres of water a day. 

Under Australian laws, ‘nuclear actions’ like the Yeelirrie proposal also require approval by the Federal Environment Minister. CCWA and Nuclear-Free Western Australia, have launched a campaign directed at Federal Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, calling for a halt to the Yeelirrie mine, given the immense risk it poses to “unique subterranean fauna that have been found nowhere else on the planet.” They point out that the Minister has the opportunity to “protect these unique species from becoming extinct.

“Species have a right to life no matter how great or small,” they wrote. “One extinction can massively disrupt an entire ecosystem. No one should have the right to knowingly eliminate an entire species from our planet forever.”

August 29, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, Uranium | Leave a comment

Australian Aboriginal group win injunction to halt vote on nuclear waste dumping

 

South Australian Aboriginal group wins injunction to halt nuclear ballot http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-16/aboriginal-group-wins-injunction-to-halt-nuclear-ballot/10129292, By Claire Campbell  

A community vote on the proposed nuclear waste dump on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has been delayed after an Aboriginal group won a court injunction.

Key points:

  • The Federal Government has shortlisted Kimba for Australia’s future nuclear waste dump
  • The Barngarla Aboriginal people have won an injunction to halt a community vote
  • The Supreme Court will hear the case next Thursday

The Barngarla people, the traditional owners of much of the Eyre Peninsula, applied for an injunction to halt the vote in South Australia’s Supreme Court, arguing it contravened the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

Lawyers for the Aboriginal group argued the District Council of Kimba did not have the power to conduct the postal ballot, which was due to begin on Monday.

The Federal Government has shortlisted two sites near Kimba as possible locations for a low-level radioactive waste storage facility, along with four other sites around Australia

The lawyer representing the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation, Daniel O’Gorman SC, told the court his clients had no issue with the vote going ahead, they just wanted to be included in it.

“That’s all they want, they just want to be included, they don’t want to be treated any differently because their rights are Aboriginal rights,” he said.

The court heard the majority of the 211 native title holders lived outside the boundary of the Kimba District Council and that excluding them from the vote had the effect “of nullifying or impairing their rights”.

But Michael Burnett, representing the District Council of Kimba, told the court its power to conduct the postal vote came from the Local Government Act.

He said the council wanted to conduct the vote in a fair manner and decided the fairest manner was to comply with “the statutory procedure that applies in the case of elections”.

“It’s not a vote that has direct consequences … it’s part of a range of consultations that will be taken into account,” he said.

Mr Burnett said there were direct consultations taking place with native title holders about the proposed sites, a claim which Mr O’Gorman rejected.

“They’re getting two bites of the cherry and therein lies the exclusion, [the native title holders are] only getting one,” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr Burnett questioned why the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation had waited until August to seek an injunction when they had known about the vote since May.

But Mr O’Gorman said the corporation had written to the District Council of Kimba on six occasions seeking to be included in the postal vote and council had only made its final decision on July 27.

The vote of around 800 residents who live in Kimba will be delayed until after a full court hearing next Thursday.

August 17, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Small Australian town to vote on nuclear waste dump, but Aboriginal land owners excluded from vote

Traditional owners “locked out” of nuclear waste vote,  InDaily, 3 Aug 18  Stephanie Richards   The head of the Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association says the majority of Adnyamathanha people have been denied a vote on a proposed radioactive waste management facility near the town of Hawker in the Flinders Rangers.

Wallerberdina Station, located approximately 30km northwest of Hawker on Adnyamathanha country, has been shortlisted by the Federal Government for a facility that will permanently hold low-level nuclear waste and temporarily hold intermediate level waste.

It is one of three sites, the other two situated close to Kimba, that were shortlisted by the Federal Government to store nuclear waste.

The selection process is entering its final stages, with a postal ballot beginning on August 20 to measure community support for the three nominated sites.

But ATLA CEO Vince Coulthard said the voting guidelines were disrespectful to traditional owners, as the majority of Adnyamathanha people do not live close enough to the proposed Wallerberdina site to be eligible to vote.

The voting range includes residents of the Flinders Ranges Council and those who live within a 50km radius of the Wallerberdina site.

According to Coulthard, there are approximately 2500 Adnyamathanha people in total but only about 300 Adnyamathanha people who live in the voting range.

Coulthard said about 50 Adnyamathanha people who lived outside the voting range had expressed interest in voting, but when ATLA asked Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan during a consultation trip to Hawker last week if those people could be granted a vote, Coulthard said Canavan told him that only those living in the prescribed voting range could participate.

“It’s a crazy situation,” Coulthard said.

“This is Adnyamathanha country and it is a very important place to the Adnyamathanha nation.

“People have strong connections to land. There’s a large amount of people, many who don’t live on the land but they go back on a regular basis to travel around the land.”

……… Coulthard said he was disappointed that Canavan had not consulted with all ATLA members during his consultation visit.

He said Adnyamathanha people had been “locked out” from the vote, despite holding native title rights over the land.

“Canavan is saying this will strengthen our culture, that this will be good for us, but what it is actually doing is punishing the environment.

“This is a place where we have gone to get bush tucker, where we have come as traditional owners for thousands of years.

They’ve shown us disrespect and this is very hurtful.”

The proposed site holds sacred meaning for Adnyamathanha people, as it is located close to the Hookina Waterhole and ancient burial sites.

…….. Last month, the Federal Government tripled the incentive package for the community that hosts the nuclear waste repository.

The Government had promised to spend more than $10 million in the district where the facility is built, but under new incentives announced by Canavan, the Government increased funding to $31 million.

……. The Government has previously indicated it wants to choose a preferred site before the end of this year. https://indaily.com.au/news/2018/08/03/traditional-owners-locked-out-of-nuclear-waste-vote/

August 4, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Navajo Nation urges wider availability of compensation for radiation exposure due to Cold War nuclear testing

Navajo Nation urges expansion of radiation exposure law https://www.nhonews.com/news/2018/jul/17/navajo-nation-urges-expansion-radiation-exposure-l/ SHIPROCK, N.M. (AP) 17 July 18  — From the end of World War II to the mid-1980s, about 30 million ton of uranium ore were extracted from lands belonging to the nation’s largest American Indian reservation. Today, across the Navajo Nation, sit dozens of abandoned uranium mines and the high risk to residents of contamination exposure.

Now, the Navajo Nation is urging the U.S. Congress to expand a federal law that compensates people who were exposed to radiation resulting from nuclear bomb tests stemming from the Cold War.

Currently, the law only covers people who lived downwind from nuclear test sites in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, as well as workers in the uranium mining industry in a dozen states. But the tribe says it’s time for Navajo Nation workers after 1971 to be included.

“Many members of the federal government are not aware of the effects uranium mining has had on Navajo people,” Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said. “They don’t see the consequences of radiation exposure.”

Most claims under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act come from the Four Corners region where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet. Proposed amendments would expand the cutoff for uranium mining workers from 1971 to 1990.

Navajo officials say those workers were exposed to the same harmful conditions.

The push by the Navajo Nation comes as residents of the New Mexico village of Tularosa near the site of the world’s first atomic bomb test also want to be covered under the law. The Tularosa Basin Downwinders and Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez testified before a U.S. Senate committee last month examining potential changes to the law.

A bill proposed by U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico would expand eligibility for payouts under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990.

Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa consortium, said many who lived in the area weren’t told about the dangers of the first atom bomb test, known as the Trinity Test, on generations of residents and later were diagnosed with rare forms of cancer.

Scientists working in Los Alamos developed the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project, which provided enriched uranium for the weapon. The secret program also involved facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington.

The bomb was tested in a stretch of desert near towns with Hispanic and Native American populations.

July 18, 2018 Posted by | indigenous issues, USA | Leave a comment

Federal and tribal officials support proposed amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act

Officials seek support for radiation exposure compensation amendments https://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/navajo-nation/2018/06/30/officials-seek-support-radiation-exposure-compensation-amendments/740239002/, Noel Lyn Smith, Farmington Daily Times  June 30, 2018  

FARMINGTON — Federal and tribal officials expressed support Wednesday for proposed amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act during a hearing in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bipartisan legislation was introduced in January 2017 to expand compensation under the act to victims of radiation exposure, including those who worked in uranium mines after 1971 in northwest New Mexico and those exposed to radiation from testing sites in the West and the Pacific islands.

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., is among five senators sponsoring the bill and provided testimony in front of the committee in Washington, D.C.

“This bill would close the gaps in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to make sure that those downwinders and miners and millers who were unknowingly exposed to radiation — but who are not now eligible under the act — are fairly compensated,” he said.

Although Congress amended the act in 2000, it still left out several groups, including downwinders living in the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico and the post-1971 miners, Udall added.

“While the federal government stopped purchasing domestic uranium in 1971, the mines continued to operate and the federal government failed to implement worker safety standards,” Udall said adding work sites lacked showers and caused workers to take contaminated clothing home.

Approximately 30 million tons of uranium ore was removed from 1944 to 1986 from the Navajo reservation, and more than 500 abandoned uranium mines exist in the region, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez provided comments to the committee on behalf of the tribe. His comments included calls to support amending the types of documentation used to prove residency and employment.

“The verification process for downwinders is cumbersome and restrictive. The DOJ should allow the use of affidavits from local officials to verify residence,” Nez said.

He added that information from uranium companies should be streamlined to ease the verification process.

“As the Navajo Nation vice president, I urge you to act now. Our people have been waiting for justice for far too long,” Nez said.

He noted that among those attending the hearing was a tribal member who developed health problems from uranium mining.

This individual could not fly due to his health, so he drove across country to attend the hearing, Nez said.

Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 or by email at nsmith@daily-times.com.

July 2, 2018 Posted by | health, indigenous issues, politics | Leave a comment

Adivasis (indigenous people) in a remote area of India, suffer health effects from the nuclear industry?

News Click 21st June 2018 , Sanjay Gope, a 13-year-old boy from Bango village near Jadugora town in
East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, cannot move or speak because he has
been suffering from muscular dystrophy – a group of disorders that
involves a progressive loss of muscle mass and consequent loss of strength
– for the past nine years. At least one person of his family has to be
with him all the time to look after him. He cannot be left unattended.

Eighteen-year-old Parvati Gope from the same village is suffering from
lumbar scoliosis – a C-shpaed curve formation of her vertebral column.
Rakesh Gope, a 13-year-old school-going boy, is also suffering from
muscular dystrophy. Although he is active and walks with arched feet and
soles, he is unable to speak normally.

A three-year-old child Kartik Gope has been having seizures since birth and is developing muscular dystrophy
too. These examples are not enough; there are hundreds of such cases of
congenital illness and other birth defects in addition to high incidence of
infertility, miscarriages and pre-mature deliveries.

Now, a pertinent question arises here: why are such large number of health hazards being
reported from this remote and overlooked corner of the country? While India
is dreaming to become energy efficient by 2032 by generating 63 Gigawatts
of nuclear power, it is taking a major toll on human lives in a small
township of Jharkhand. Jadugora has the deposits of world’s best quality
uranium ore, magnesium diuranate. It is because of the rich deposits of the
region, India is capitalising its nuclear dreams. The whole belt of the
reactors is affecting the Adivasis (indigenous people) disproportionately
in and around the uranium mining operational area.
https://newsclick.in/uranium-mining-jharkhand-radioactive-poisoning-ravaging-lives-villages

June 25, 2018 Posted by | health, India, indigenous issues | Leave a comment

Measures to compensate Arizona “Downwinders” approved by USA Congress

U.S. House Approves Measure to Compensate Arizona ‘Downwinders’ http://knau.org/post/us-house-approves-measure-compensate-arizona-downwinders, By RYAN HEINSIUS 31 May 18 •  Many Southwesterners sickened by Cold War nuclear weapons testing were excluded from a 1990 federal compensation program. Now the U.S. House has approved a measure aimed at providing relief to the residents known as downwinders. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius reports.

The original Radiation Exposure Compensation Act left out parts of Mohave County, the Hualapai Reservation, and southern Nevada, despite high rates of cancer and other diseases thought to be caused by nuclear fallout. The new House amendment orders the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to assess whether thousands are eligible for assistance.

“The American government made a promise with RECA, with the bill, and, by darn, we ought to follow through with it to make sure that anybody that was affected to be included in this process,” says Arizona Republican Paul Gosar who authored the measure.

Residents who’ve developed some diseases could be eligible for a $50,000 payment, and have until July 9, 2022 to file claims.

Nearly 200 atmospheric weapons were tested north of Las Vegas between 1945 and 1962. In the last three decades, more than 20,000 downwinder claims have been filed with the Justice Department, totaling more than $2 billion.

June 1, 2018 Posted by | indigenous issues, politics | Leave a comment

South Australia’s Aboriginal people fight against nuclear waste dumping – again and again

EXTRACT from:  A journey to the heart of the anti-nuclear resistance in Australia: Radioactive Exposure Tour 2018, NUCLEAR  MONITOR  Author: Ray Acheson ‒  NM859.4719, May 2018 “……The federal government of Australia wants to build a facility to store and dispose of radioactive waste in South Australia, either at Wallerberdina Station near Hawker or on farming land in Kimba.

Wallerberdina Station is located in the Flinders Ranges, the largest mountain range in South Australia, 540 million years old. Approaching from the north on our drive down from Lake Eyre can only be described as breathtaking. The red dirt, the brown and green bush, and the ever-changing purples, blues, and reds of the mountains themselves are some of the most complex and stunning scenes one can likely see in the world.

Most people might find it shocking that the federal government would want to put a nuclear waste dump smack in the middle of this landscape. But after visiting other sites on the Rad Tour, it was only yet another disappointment ‒ and another point of resistance.

What is known is that the Wallerberdina site is of great cultural, historical, and spiritual significance to the Adnyamathanha people.  It borders the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area, which is a crucial location for biodiversity in the Flinders Ranges. Its unique ecosystem provides a refuge for many native species of flora and fauna, contains many archaeological sites as well as the first registered  Aboriginal Songline of its type in Australia, and is home to Pungka Pudanha, a natural spring and sacred woman’s site.

In case that isn’t enough, the area is a known floodplain. Our travels around the proposed site contained ample evidence of previous floods that sent massive trees rushing down the plain, smashing into each other and into various bridges and other built objects. The last big flood occurred in 2006.

The Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners were not consulted before their land was nominated for consideration by the government for the waste dump. “Through this area are registered cultural heritage sites and places of huge importance to our family, our history and our future,” wrote Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners in a 2015 statement.  “We don’t want a nuclear waste dump here on our country and worry that if the waste comes here it will harm our environment and muda (our lore, our creation, our everything).”

We met Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners Vivianne and Regina McKenzie, and Tony Clark, at the proposed site. They invited us into the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area to view the floodplains and swim in the beautiful Pungka Pudanha. We’d just been camping at Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges National Park only a few kilometres away. It is impossible to understand the government’s rationale for wanting to build a toxic waste dump on this land so cherished by its Traditional Owners, local communities, and tourists alike.

The McKenzies have been working tirelessly to prevent the proposed dump from being established, as have other local activists. Fortunately, they have some serious recent successes to inspire them. In 2015, the federal government announced a plan to import 138,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste from around the world to South Australia as a commercial enterprise. But Traditional Owners began protesting immediately, arguing that the so-called consultations were not accessible and that misinformation was rife.  In 2016, a Citizen’s Jury, established by then Premier Jay Weatherill and made up of 350 people, deliberated over evidence and information. In November that year, two-thirds of the Jury rejected “under any circumstances” the plan to import or store high-level waste.24 They cited lack of Aboriginal consent, unsubstantiated economic assumptions and projections, and lack of confidence in the governmental proposal’s validity.

Other battles against proposed nuclear waste dumps have been fought and won in South Australia. From 1998 to 2004, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women from northern South Australia, successfully campaigned against a proposed national nuclear waste dump near Woomera. In an open letter in 2004, the Kungkas wrote: “People said that you can’t win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up.”

Connected communities

The attempts by the Australian government and the nuclear industry to impose a waste dump in the Flinders Ranges, just like their attempts to impose waste dumps and uranium mines elsewhere in the country, or their refusal to compensate victims and survivors of nuclear testing, are all mired with racism. They are rooted in a fundamental dismissal and devaluation of the lives and experiences of indigenous Australians, and of proximity to cities but more importantly, to power.The industry and government’s motivations for imposing nuclear violence on these people and this land are militarism and capitalism.

Profit over people. Weapons over wellbeing. Their capacity for compassion and duty of care has been constrained by chronic short-termism ‒ a total failure to protect future generations. The poison they pull out of the earth, process, sell, allow others to make bombs with, and bury back in the earth, wounds us all now and into the future.

But nuclear weapons are now prohibited under international law. New actors are challenging the possession of nuclear weapons in new ways, and nucleararmed states are facing a challenge like never before.

The nuclear energy industry ‒ and thus the demand for uranium ‒ is declining. Power plants are being shuttered; corporations are facing financial troubles. Dirty and dangerous, the nuclear industry is dying.

This is in no small part due to the relentless resistance against it. This resistance was fierce throughout all of the country we visited, from Woomera up to Lake Eyre, from Roxby Downs to the Flinders Ranges. We listened to stories of those living on this land, we heard their histories, witnessed their actions, and supported their plans…..

https://antinuclear.net/2018/05/12/a-journey-to-the-heart-of-the-anti-nuclear-resistance-in-australia-radioactive-exposure-tour-2018/#more-60401

May 18, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment

Holtec’s nuclear colonialism in New Mexico

Proposed nuclear storage site in southeast New Mexico accused of ‘nuclear colonialism’ Adrian C Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus  May 4, 2018  

Fears of a proposed nuclear waste repository between Carlsbad and Hobbs extended beyond the two cities, stirring anxiety from residents across New Mexico and west Texas.

Leona Morgan, co-coordinator of the Albuquerque-based Nuclear Issues Study Group and a Diné activist, said the potential horrors of nuclear exposure were already felt by Native American residents in the Four Corners Region of New Mexico, where uranium was mined until the late 1990s.

Morgan said the concerns of Native Americans, such as the Navajo Nation, are often ignored by the federal government.

“I’ve heard a lot of warm sentiments about how this part of the state knows about nuclear science, and how much you all welcome it,” she said.

“In our part of the state, we know about the cancers, and the contamination of our lands and our water. We know this will impact us for generations to come.”

Holtec International, a New Jersey-based company specializing in nuclear storage, applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2017 for the first phase of an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods.

 The application was accepted by the NRC in March, and the NRC moved forward with the application process by holding “scoping meetings” to solicit public comments in Roswell and Hobbs Monday and Tuesday respectively, and then in Carlsbad on Thursday at the Eddy County Fire Service.

The first phase would include 500 canisters of spent nuclear fuel rods, brought in by rail cars from nuclear power plants across the country, and stored at the property about 35 miles east of Carlsbad.

In total, 10,000 canisters could be stored at the site, totaling up to 120,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel.

 The Holtec project is intended as a temporary storage facility, until a permanent repository is developed.  [i.e. stranded wastes – just as is planned for Kimba, South Australia] 

The concept of interim storage was first devised as a proposal for a permanent disposal facility in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, recently stalled.

Opponents of Holtec’s proposal contended the waste should be stored at the generator sites on an interim basis, and only moved when a permanent repository is available.

…. Morgan said the project was an example of “nuclear colonialism,” forcing low-income and minority-majority regions to unfairly bear the risk of storing nuclear waste.

“The contamination that was left by the United States government is an atrocity. It is a sin,” she said. “It is a violation of our human rights, and it is a form of genocide. New Mexico should not be proud of its nuclear legacy. It is the birth place of nuclear colonialism.”

Myriad activists, scientists, local leaders and business owners spoke for and against the project at Thursday’s meeting.

The debate centered around a potential canister leak, and contamination of nearby soil and natural resources.

…….. Karen Hadden, executive director for the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition said even with monitoring, the risk of radiation exposure was too high to support the project.

A similar, smaller interim storage facility was proposed near Andrews, Texas – about 40 miles across the eastern state line, by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and French nuclear company Orano.

The project was re-docketed by the NRC earlier this year, after it stalled.

“They’re both a risk to our communities,” Hadden said of the facilities. “This is a project of huge magnitude that could impact this entire country. It cannot be taken lightly.”

She said the consequence of Holtec’s proposal could be felt across the nation, and residents from outside Carlsbad, and along the transport paths, deserve a place at the table.

“I am unhappy about some of the statements made earlier that some who do not favor bringing the nation’s waste here are uninformed, or fear mongering,” she said. “This site (Holtec) poses more risk to the people of Texas than WCS. All the trains would come through our state. It’s a shared concern.” ……. Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516,achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.  https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2018/05/04/nuclear-storage-site-southeast-new-mexico-navajo-nation-nuclear-colonialism/581529002/

May 7, 2018 Posted by | indigenous issues, wastes | 1 Comment

A voice from the heart – on the exploitation of indigenous people in the cause of nuclear weaponry

Why do we desperately need to listen to voices from the heart?

The corporate dominated world does not like to hear voices from the heart. Oh no, there must be no emotion. We must all stick to technical jargon, statistics, the “accepted” facts, in appropriately respectable academic language.

Of course statistics, facts, and technical language have their place in the nuclear-free movement. But as long as the anti-nuclear voices remain boring, the corporate global empires do not need to worry.

This voice came as a comment today on our sister ship   antinuclear.net

Jan – Janotine@asia.com– 6 May 18 -My grandad was half kiowa. His father married a native american lady, to expand his spread. She was his last wife. The other two died in child-birth. All, so he could have more slave kids to work his spread. May grandad ran away from home at age 12.

I am a westerner. I used to think the west was so grand! My family is from the west. Places like Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and yes parts of California.

Later, i realized, our frikin government, used the west as a sacrifice zone for open air nuclear bomb testing, biological and chemical warfare testing, uranium mining and processing, nuclear bomb testing.

I have been to every native nation in the west and, most in Alaska as a professional. No sane person thinks the anglos did the west any favors!

People ask me if natives or, even anglos are better off from the europeans coming in and taking america. The anglos used their rascist-Monroe Doctrine, as an excuse for the environmental destruction and genocides of the once pristine, western United States!

In the end, is the west better off? Hell no! They ruined turtle island, and the whole northern hemisphere with their insanity!

Shockley was the dumnest, white rascist ever! He might have helped invent transisters, but the genetics of Europeans and Americans are forever ruined, by the white evil-war-monkey obession, with the magic rocks.

There are very few radionuclide toxicologists in the world because, of the nuclear cosa nostra. Radionuclides are a billion times more genotoxic, teratogenic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, than the most dangerous manmade-mutagenic, chemicals, like agent orange.

Anything factual about radionuclides is verboten! Environmental health professionals, are pariahs in the war-monging, capitalist-paradigm. Health physics is nuclearist propaganda. Superior Northern-European culture and technology, is a sick-cosmic-joke.

The northern europeans culture, with it’s insane blood-lust and psychopathy, has made Europeans genetically inferior and, That’s a Fact Jack! That is the cruel irony

 

 

May 6, 2018 Posted by | indigenous issues, PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

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