Thoughts on Environmental Racism on No Damn Way! Day
It's been an interesting day following the blogswarm to keep nuke waste out of Utah and reading the posts from (mostly) Utah bloggers opposed to the dump on the Goshute Reservation. I've been reflecting on this issue all day and just felt the need to write a bit more about it and the impact that this issue has had on my life and that of my family.
The proposed PFS dump on the Goshute Reservation is what brought my husband to Utah a few years ago. He had been working in Nevada as an activist for Shundahai Network which supports the Western Shoshone and the nuclear devastaion of their land. He moved the Shundahai office to Salt Lake to organize against the PFS dump and support the Goshutes that were opposed to it. I met him when I came to help volunteer at Shundahai in 2002.
I guess you could say that my involvement really goes back to 3rd grade at Bellview Elementary when we were learning about Native American culture. I was chosen as a co-chief of the classroom "tribe" for the time period that we were learning about Indians. One day, as a role-playing experiment, one of the third grade teachers came to school dressed in suit and tie. Each of the tribes' (classes') leaders were brought to see him one at a time. When it was my turn I was led into a small room with a table and two chairs, the teacher in one of them as I sat in the other. The teacher was posing as a government agent who proposed that I move my "people" onto a reservation -- he was really trying to sell me on the idea by offering lots of incentives that I can't quite remember 27 years later. I do remember that my reaction was a very strong repulsion to the idea. I wasn't even all that sure what a reservation was, but I somehow knew it was wrong. I refused the offer and wouldn't be persuaded. Somehow that lesson stuck with me, and through the years I often felt that I wanted to make up for what my race had done to the Native Americans.
I found myself at the Western Shoshone Defense Project gathering in 1997 where I heard Margene Bullcreek, a Goshute woman who has been at the forefront of the resistance to PFS, speak about it. I read Winona LaDuke's book "All Our Relations" in 2000 and learned a lot about environmental racism and how polluters were using native land as a loophole to get out of following environmental laws.
I eventually found out about Shundahai's action alert list and signed up to get involved, and through that involvement I met the man I would later marry and have a child with. Through my involvment with Shundahai, I found out about and attended the Action for Nuclear Abolition which was held at an encampment near the gates of the Nevada Test Site which is located on Western Shoshone land.
I spent only a little time on the Goshute reservation for a Shundahai event held on Margene's land there in October 2004. It was very dry and dusty, and the wind never seemed to let up while we were there. I thought about the possiblity of leaking nuke waste casks and the dust swirling through it blowing it throughout the reservation and beyond, contaminating every thing for miles, making people and animals sick.
I hope we can stop the transportation and storage of nuke waste in Utah, but we also need to find other economic solutions for indigenous people who are targeted for their land. Much of the uranium used in our nuclear industry has been mined from Native American land, with over 1,000 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation which are poisoning the land and people there, according to "All My Relations" -- those people need to be fairly compensated and the toxic wastes cleaned up, as do many other indigenous victims of environmental racism. The United States has done wrong to the Native Americans since this country was founded, and it continues to this day.
Just a few of the organizations that working for environmental justice for Native Americans:
Honor the Earth
Western Shoshone Defense Project
Shundahai Network
Greenaction (environmental racism)
Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia Awareness (Margene Bullcreek's organization)
Citizen Alert
Environmental Justice Foundation
The proposed PFS dump on the Goshute Reservation is what brought my husband to Utah a few years ago. He had been working in Nevada as an activist for Shundahai Network which supports the Western Shoshone and the nuclear devastaion of their land. He moved the Shundahai office to Salt Lake to organize against the PFS dump and support the Goshutes that were opposed to it. I met him when I came to help volunteer at Shundahai in 2002.
I guess you could say that my involvement really goes back to 3rd grade at Bellview Elementary when we were learning about Native American culture. I was chosen as a co-chief of the classroom "tribe" for the time period that we were learning about Indians. One day, as a role-playing experiment, one of the third grade teachers came to school dressed in suit and tie. Each of the tribes' (classes') leaders were brought to see him one at a time. When it was my turn I was led into a small room with a table and two chairs, the teacher in one of them as I sat in the other. The teacher was posing as a government agent who proposed that I move my "people" onto a reservation -- he was really trying to sell me on the idea by offering lots of incentives that I can't quite remember 27 years later. I do remember that my reaction was a very strong repulsion to the idea. I wasn't even all that sure what a reservation was, but I somehow knew it was wrong. I refused the offer and wouldn't be persuaded. Somehow that lesson stuck with me, and through the years I often felt that I wanted to make up for what my race had done to the Native Americans.
I found myself at the Western Shoshone Defense Project gathering in 1997 where I heard Margene Bullcreek, a Goshute woman who has been at the forefront of the resistance to PFS, speak about it. I read Winona LaDuke's book "All Our Relations" in 2000 and learned a lot about environmental racism and how polluters were using native land as a loophole to get out of following environmental laws.
I eventually found out about Shundahai's action alert list and signed up to get involved, and through that involvement I met the man I would later marry and have a child with. Through my involvment with Shundahai, I found out about and attended the Action for Nuclear Abolition which was held at an encampment near the gates of the Nevada Test Site which is located on Western Shoshone land.
I spent only a little time on the Goshute reservation for a Shundahai event held on Margene's land there in October 2004. It was very dry and dusty, and the wind never seemed to let up while we were there. I thought about the possiblity of leaking nuke waste casks and the dust swirling through it blowing it throughout the reservation and beyond, contaminating every thing for miles, making people and animals sick.
I hope we can stop the transportation and storage of nuke waste in Utah, but we also need to find other economic solutions for indigenous people who are targeted for their land. Much of the uranium used in our nuclear industry has been mined from Native American land, with over 1,000 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation which are poisoning the land and people there, according to "All My Relations" -- those people need to be fairly compensated and the toxic wastes cleaned up, as do many other indigenous victims of environmental racism. The United States has done wrong to the Native Americans since this country was founded, and it continues to this day.
Just a few of the organizations that working for environmental justice for Native Americans:
Honor the Earth
Western Shoshone Defense Project
Shundahai Network
Greenaction (environmental racism)
Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia Awareness (Margene Bullcreek's organization)
Citizen Alert
Environmental Justice Foundation