Carol Liu
Queens Public Library, Jamaica, NY 11432
qladmin@class.org
**Disclaimer: The views expressed here do not necessarily represent
those of the Queens Public Library*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Mescalero Apache: Nuclear Waste and the Privatization of
Genocide" by Randel D. Hanson
In December 1992, the newly-appointed U.S. Nuclear Waste
Negotiator David Leroy attended a conference of the National
Congress of American Indians in San Francisco, California to
discuss the Department of Energy's new strategy for management
of commercial spent nuclear fuel. Under immense pressure from
utility companies, Leroy's office hatched the Monitored
Retrievable Storage (MRS) program, and now he had to promote
it.
Leroy promised each and every willing tribe $100,000 merely to
consider temporary storage of highly radioactive waste on their
reservations. Although the pitch was nominally made to states
and counties, it was clear from the beginning that states had no
interest in the program. If everything went according to plan, the
waste would be redirected after a period of time to the permanent
storage site under investigation at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. But
in the meantime, given that waste-pools at nuclear-fueled utility
companies across the country were reaching their capacity, the
proposed MRS program would provide an interim solution to a
permanent problem.
The Mescalero Apache Tribal Council (MATC), whose reservation
lies in southern New Mexico, was the first of some sixteen Tribal
Councils to enlist. Quickly completing Stage I of the program,
they obtained an additional $200,000 for participating in Stage II,
and applied for the $2.8 million for Stage III. These steps would
complete all preliminary investigations before the facility could
actually be built. However, before this could happen, Congress,
led by U.U. Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, cut further
funding of the MRS program. But that did not stop a determined
MATC from pursuing an arrangement for radioactive waste
storage on reservation land.
This year, amid the gaudy surroundings of the Mirage Hotel in the
heart of Las Vegas, Nevada, a glittering symbol of the energy-
consuming excesses of the dominant culture, Mescalero Vice-
President Fred Peso proclaimed his resolve: "I want to tell an
encouraging story of private enterprise, tribal initiative, and
corporate courage."
The zealous participants in the U.S. Department of Energy-
sponsored Fifth Annual International High-Level Radioactive Waste
Management Conference responded warmly to his words, as he
continued: :I believe the Nuclear Waste Negotiator's effort can be
considered successful, even if the outcome is different than
anyone expected. If we had never received David Leroy's
invitation, today we wouldn't be considering a private nuclear
waste storage facility with 33 partners. We wouldn't have
learned that there was a market for spent nuclear fuel storage,
and that there was a business opportunity for us."
Peso was referring to the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council's
aggressive negotiations with three dozen utility companies across
the nation -- including Minnesota-based NSP -- to construct a
privately-owned and operated facility on the Mescalero
Reservation to store highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear
reactors. From their initial meeting with utility companies and
federal regulators last winter, the Tribal Council plans to negotiate
the terms of the agreement by mid-summer. They hope to have
the facility up and running by 1998.
But not all Mescalero Apache people are so eager for negotiations
to continue at such break-neck speed. Rufina Marie Laws points
to the growing opposition within the Mescalero community. Laws
maintains that the tribe's constitution has kept dissenting voices
from entering the debate and doubts that the Tribal Council will
uphold its promised referendum on the storage facility. "The
Mescalero Apache people have been diabolically and deliberately
excluded. At the same time, the tribe is actively being obligated
to agreements and contracts without the input and consensus of
the people. Many tribal members are opposed to siting nuclear
waste storage on our homeland, for they believe it will be a
violation of our sacred land and sacred mountain, Sierra Blanca.
Another Mescalero tribal member, Joseph Geronimo, stated
"What the U.S. government couldn't take care of with bullets a
hundred years ago is being taken care of with things like this."
To broaden the debate over the spent fuel storage issue on the
reservation, Laws formed a group called Apaches Against Nuclear
Waste, later changing the name to Humans Against Nuclear
Waste Dumps. She explains that "as I met more people
concerned with this issue, I realized that it takes on a much
broader scope than just the Apache. The office is here on the
reservation simply because that's where the fight is. We are
giving support to other Native American groups across the
country that are facing this issue, I have stated before that this
radioactive waste knows no boundaries, be that geographical,
political, or racial. The focus here is to have a research center so
that we're able to collect information, categorize it, and
disseminate it."
Indeed, if the private spent fuel project is launched, it promises to
have huge ramifications for the Mescalero Reservation, NSP, and
other utilities involved in nuclear power, and Indian Country
generally. For example, even the most industry-friendly scientists
admit that radiation will be emitted from containers filled with the
highly radioactive spent fuel during transportation and storage,
even if no accidents take place.
Moreover, the transitory nature of radioactive waste storage on
Mescalero will only be a reality if a permanent storage facility is
found. Although Yucca Mountain has been targeted for this, huge
questions remain about its technical feasibility to do so. A large
recent earthquake in the are posed safety and feasibility questions
to all but the most devout proponents. Scientists continue to
debate whether the geography of the region and the particular
features of the proposed facility could contain the deadly waste,
keeping it from the water sources and the biosphere generally for
the many centuries of its toxic half-life.
In addition, the Western Shoshone Nation maintains aboriginal title
(recognized by the U.S. in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley) and
continuing cultural and historic ties to the area in which Yucca
Mountain lies. The U.S. government has offered nominal financial
compensation for the land, which also includes the Nevada
Nuclear Test Site, but the Western Shoshone National Council
passed a resolution stating their opposition to the waste
repository. And the recently-formed Nevada Indian Environmental
Coalition, representing 25 area tribes, has submitted a petition to
Interior Secretary Hazel O'Leary for "affected status" under
Congressional guidelines. Given these unresolved claims, the
Yucca Mountain site may never be open for permanent storage of
radioactive waste.
For nuclear utilities, locating a "temporary" storage facility for its
radioactive spent fuel like the one proposed for Mescalero is vital
to the continued operation of commercial nuclear reactors. All
across the country, waste is piling up at the 1100 private
reactors.
Minnesotans are familiar with this problem at NSP's Prairie Island
nuclear facility, a stone's throw from the Prairie Island
Mdewankanton Community. Only after a long struggle and
closed-door, midnight meetings with powerful senators did NSP,
which has the largest paid lobbying staff in the state, gain the
legal right to store additional waste near Prairie Island. Not
surprisingly, NSP is a leader in the Mescalero negotiations.
This radioactive house of cards hasn't interrupted the Tribal
Council's breathless pursuit of the "business opportunity" of
absorbing U.S. radioactivity. As Peso sees it, "The safe storage
of spent nuclear fuel should be a concern of every American,
regardless of their opinion of the wisdom of nuclear power." And
in a surprising twist --some would say perversion--of indigenous
values, he continues, "The Mescaleros can bear this responsibility
because of our strong traditional values that favor protection of
the Earth. We can serve as reliable, trustworthy and responsible
guardians of the nation's spent fuel...We believe that spent fuel is
a business opportunity, a service provided to a willing customer
by a willing supplier in exchange for a reasonable profit. Thirty
three utility companies agree with us."
The eagerness of the politically and financially powerful utility
companies deeply concerns many Mescalero people. As Laws
puts it, "This is a major turn of events. The Tribal Council is
actively courting the industry. They're offering up our homeland
to the highest bidders. They're doing all of this without ever
having asked tribal members their opinions as to what they feel
about this or actively solicited tribal members' points of view or
participation in this process."
"Playing with a consortium that has billions of dollars of money
and huge political influence is like playing with fire," says Laws,
who believes the U.S. government will relax its already loose
regulatory standards with the shift from public to private control,
and from non-Native to Native jurisdiction. "Because of this, I
believe this project will be produced in record time, which means
that a lot of safeguards will not be there. Some of the items the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing for operation of this
plant are not as stringent as those nuclear power plants are
operating under today. It will be like the Navajo uranium mining
problems, with so many cancers," said Laws, referring to the high
incidence of cancer deaths among uranium miners in the "Four
Corners" region of primarily Dine' country.
In a written statement, Mescalero Apache Tribal Chairman
Wendell Chino responded that he maintains a "record of careful
economic development, achieved by Tribal Council members
elected to office by majority vote in accordance with the precepts
of American democracy and our Tribal Constitution...We recognize
the special scrutiny that a nuclear waste project naturally
attracts. The storage of spent nuclear fuel is a 21st century
industry with the attendant complement of high-tech, high-wage
jobs not often available to Indian tribes. The Tribal Council
continues to pursue this project because it believes it is in the
best interest of tribal people, utilizing the best technological
knowledge and expertise in the nuclear waste field."
But Laws counters that "Now we are faced with the prospect of a
radioactive waste storage site, which is truly the worst misuse of
our name. The present administration has created an illusion
which the nuclear power plant operations are participating in,
trying to show the tribe as pursuing nuclear waste storage as a
viable 'economic development' project. This is an abuse of the
tribal name."
To Laws and other Mescaleros who oppose the project, the MATC
is making a grave, long-term mistake in pursuing the facility. "For
the Tribal Council to say that they're business-minded and that
they have great understanding in all of these areas, and that they
know exactly what they're doing -- this is an untruth...We now
have a government that does not believe in the people. Ever since
the beginning of the nuclear soap opera, this administration (of
Wendell Chino) has denied the unrepressed expression of the ill of
the people and has silenced its voice in an effort to gain economic
leverage and political influence from new agents of oppression
who now offer money to autocratic leaders, one-sided propaganda
and the degradation of homelands with radioactive wastes."
Chino has responded to Laws, stating that "the Tribal Council
intends to handle the referendum for approval of the project with
the special care it deserves. Tribal members will be informed of
the provisions of all agreements and contracts that are reached
with participating utilities. Then, and only then, will they vote."
But, according to Laws, "the only education down here for the
tribe done by the Tribal Council is through a thing called the 'MRS
Newsletter,' produced monthly by some public relations firm that
the Tribal Council has hired. It's all very slick and done through
rose-colored glasses," Laws explains. "Two years ago we had a
petition signed by 221 people requesting a public meeting with
the Tribal Council in which the pros and cons of an MRS could be
discussed. The Tribal Council refused, but we held the meeting
on August 12, 1992 anyway, inviting Grace Thorpe, Chief Johnny
Jackson, Elmer Savilla, Nilak Butler, June Echo-Hawk, and Joe
Campbell to talk about these issues. We invited the Tribal
Council, giving each member an individual invitation. None of
them showed up. This thing is frustrating and a lesson in political
arrogance."
According to Laws, the conflict on the Mescalero Reservation is
an extreme example of a broader conflict in Indian Country. "The
MRS issue and the private storage of nuclear waste on
reservations that we are facing today is a direct result of the
1934 Indian Reorganization Act, in which the U.S. government
forced Native American tribes throughout the U.S. to accept the
tribal constitutions which they drew up. These constitutions do
not provide for a checks-and-balances system; all power rests in
the Tribal Council. All too often, this has allowed greedy, self-
serving politicians to take over and garner all the political strength
for themselves and a few cronies."
Because the issue has broader consequences for Indian peoples
generally, national organizations have also addressed the issue of
spent-fuel storage on the Mescalero Reservation. Grace Thorpe, a
spokeswoman for the National Environmental Coalition of Native
Americans, said that "I'm concerned about the survival of our
Indian people if we put this nuclear waste on their land."
Thorpe's group and others are urging a halt to any new storage
sites, saying instead that utilities should cut back on nuclear
power.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
An unsolicited "plug" from the poster of this article:
For more coverage like the above of environmental and other
issues affecting Native Americans, subscribe to _The Circle_.
voted "Best Native American Monthly Newspaper" 1991 & 1993
by the Native American Journalists Association.
Rates are:
1 year 2 years
Personal $15 $25
First Class Mail $30 $55
International $35 $60
Send subscription requests and payment to:
The Circle
Subscription Desk
1530 E. Franklin Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55404