T h e E - L I N E
An Environment News Service (ENS) Release
Wednesday, November 13, 1991
Vol.2 #138
* NATIVES AND NUKE-JUNK By Steven Schmidt
SANTA FE, New Mexico, Nov. 13 (ENS) -- This past week's election
for president of the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council highlighted
the latest round in the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) attempt
to find initial sites to locate high-level, commercially generated
nuclear waste.
Earlier, the DOE approved a request by the tribe for $100,000 to
study the feasibility of shipping and storing nuclear waste on the
Mescalero reservation. The 461,000 acre (186,566 hectare)
reservation is not far from the controversial and yet-to-open Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located outside Carlsbad in southern
New Mexico. WIPP was designated in the early 1980s as DOE's initial
site for "permanent" disposal of low-level waste generated by
nuclear weapons production.
The announcement of the proposed Mescalero site spawned a chorus of
concern throughout the state and among environmental groups who
have noted a recent trend by the DOE to look to Indian lands for
toxic and nuclear waste storage sites.
Because of the sovereign relationship reservations have with the
federal government, they are often not strictly bound by
environmental laws, as are the states surrounding them.
Mescalero tribal president Wendell Chino, facing a divisive fight
in his bid for re-election to the position he has held since it was
established in 1965, promised in a letter sent to tribal members
shortly before the election that the tribal council "will not do
anything to endanger the lives, health and well being of tribal
members on our land."
What the tribal council suggested alternatively, it was reported,
is exchanging land with a state or federal agency elsewhere in New
Mexico that could host the repository site. The Chino letter left
open the question of where in the state the Mescalero might store
the nation's most radioactive waste. Chino and the council refused
to speculate on other possible sites until they finish a two month
study of the project, but potential sites in the Hobbs area and
near White Sands missile testing range have been named publicly.
The study will look at the feasibility of building a plant to
"temporarily" store metal-sheathed, highly radioactive rods from
nuclear power plants until the government opens a repository to
bury them "permanently."
Harlyn Geronimo, who ran against Chino in the November 5 election
and was defeated by a vote of 493 to 210, has criticized the way
the election was handled and said he is considering a federal court
challenge of the results.
"As long as the tabulation was done in secrecy," Geronimo was
quoted as saying, "I knew I didn't have a chance." At a news
conference in Albuquerque after the election, Geronimo, who has
vocally opposed the tribal council's nuclear waste study, said that
a petition is circulating to have the Department of the Interior
(DOI) oversee future elections. Currently, the elections are run by
the tribal election board, which Chino appoints and controls,
according to Geronimo.
On the morning of the election, Geronimo filed in tribal court for
an injunction seeking that he or his representatives be present for
the counting of the votes. The request was denied. Geronimo alleged
that the behind-closed-doors balloting was only recently introduced
by Chino. Geronimo added that the critical issue of nuclear waste
should be decided by referendum, not by Chino and the council.
The larger conflict over siting for the rapidly growing stockpile
of commercial nuclear waste has become one of the top priorities of
the Bush administration. On November 1, the White House saw its
energy bill, the Johnson-Wallop bill go down to defeat in the
Senate. The bill would have dropped a number of oversight
regulations to assist the nuclear energy industry in building new
reactors. The costs associated with nuclear waste management and
clean up remains a central obstacle to any new construction of
power plants. The DOE has embarked on an ambitious new program to
locate potential disposal sites for experimental nuclear disposal
projects.
Samatha Williams, public affairs officer for the DOE's civilian
waste management program, and Kristin Wright, a DOE contracting
specialist responsible for awarding the Mescalero grant, stated
that the tribe had expressed interest in the grant, and that it was
the first step in a feasibility analysis. As such, despite the
state of New Mexico's objections, the grant and analysis will
proceed as planned.
The increasing interest by the DOE waste management officials in
nuclear waste disposal and the subsequent increasing threat of
toxic dumping on Indian lands was addressed widely for the first
time in the summer of 1990 in Dilkon, Arizona, on the Navajo
reservation. In June 1991, over 500 representatives from 57 tribes
and reservations met near Bear Butte in South Dakota for the second
annual Protecting Mother Earth Conference. Groups such as the
Native Resource Coalition, Good Road Coalition and Citizens A
gainst Ruining Our Environment offered an agenda that dealt with
funding, media skills, water and environmental rights, and the
dangers and hidden costs of "experimental" dumping and nuclear
facilities.
As a result of the conference an Indigenous Environmental Network
was created under the direction of acting coordinator Paul
Rodarte, a Paiute, to serve as a clearinghouse for information
regarding environmental threats to Indian lands. An Environmental
Code of Ethics was formulated which includes statements of refusal
by indigenous peoples to make deals with polluters; of the
supremacy of "natural" laws; and of the inviolable right of native
people to speak for themselves on all matters pertaining to their
identity and future.
If the move by the U.S. government toward toxic and nuclear waste
dumping which impacts Indian lands continues, then conflicts such
as that on the Mescalero Apache reservation will continue and
escalate. The battle lines are now being drawn over this latest
threat to the Indian way of life.
***** Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1991 *****