Native Americans protest plans for storing N-waste on reservations

Makil is part of the 3,000-member Mescalero Apache Tribe. Her tribe's reservation in New Mexico is among six Indian reservations that have been given US$100,000 each to study the feasibility of becoming home to a "temporary storage" area for radio-active spent fuel rods ? or a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) site, as it is being called. With states refusing to host the MRS, the Department of Energy (DOE) is looking more and more at Indian reservations. As of 1 April, 15 of the 17 actual and potential applicants for Phase I MRS grants to the DOE were from tribal governments.

But the issue is causing heated arguments among Native Americans, with many tribal members calling the scheme the latest form of exploitation of Indians by the US government. Representative Ben Nighthorse Campell, the only Native American in the US Congress, criticized the federal government for using 19th century tactics to persuade Native American Tribes to accomodate temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste on their lands. "It's like the old treaties," he said. "The government is playing the same game. If you're hurting enough, you'll sign anything." And, as with the Yakima Nation, where tribal leaders voted 6-5 to accept $100,000 to study the prospect of a 450-acre nuclear dump on their reservation, tribal members themselves are not consulted.

The DOE has insisted it only wants to create one temporary dump while it waits for approval of a permanent nuclear dump, now being considered at Yucca Mountain in Nevada (see article on WIPP). But in June, Vic Trebules of the DOE told concerned Native Americans that Congress might decide to build two for "reasons of regional equity". As presently planned, the dump would house waste from nuclear energy plants in above-ground storage tanks for as many as 40 years. Whatever tribe gets the "award" and wins the dump could receive about $50 million a year for taking the waste.

"It's dirty money as far as I'm concerned," Grace Thorpe, a member of the Sac & Fox Tribe, said of the plan to lure Indian tribes - hard-hit with unemployment - with the initial $100,000 grants to study the feasibility of nuclear storage on their lands. Thorpe was one of those demonstrating alongside Makil in Spokane. She and the other protestors were publicizing a resolution presented to the DOE pointing out that the issue of storing nuclear waste on reservations is too important to be decided by a few tribal officials. "All tribal members should vote on this critical issue."

Wilbur Slockish of the Klickitat Tribe of the Yakima Nation was also among the demonstrators outside the hotel. He pointed out that while the study money generally is going to non-Indian consultants, tribes are being lured with the promises of jobs, schools and economic betterment. "They're promising us bowling alleys, and they're promising us hospitals," he said. "It sounds like the old treaty days, doesn't it? Everything is `negotiable' if we listen to them."

The application by the Mescalero Apache has now moved to Phase II - farther along than any other community in the US. The US $200,000 grant for "public education" represents the first portion, only, of Phase II; congressional approval would be required for the remaining $2.5 million of this phase, which would include site characterization for a temporary storage facility for high-level commercial spent nuclear fuel. According to some observers, Phase II was a foregone conclusion when Phase I was applied for in October 1991. Phase III is devoted to actual construction.

Through much of March, the village of Ruidoso, near the Mescalero Apache reservation, had busied itself with its best ski season ever, and, as reflected in the local newspapers, businesspeople almost seemed to forget that an MRS project was somewhere in the works. South West Nuclear Alert (SWNA), the Ruidoso-based opposition group, found very few citi-zens willing to join in keeping a public discussion of the issue alive. Innkeepers and realtors almost seemed to believe that if tourists weren't bothered with the unpleasant subject they would return for the racing season in May and the area community would continue with its accustomed prosperity. Phase II ended all that. Shortly after the announcement that the second phase was to begin, SWNA handed out MRS questionnaires to tour-ists on Main Street. Of 41 people who returned questionnaires, 40 said they would never come to Ruidoso again if an MRS were located within 50 miles. The idea of Ruidoso turning into a nuclear ghost town may be around the corner. Source: atoms & waste (US), 7 May 1992, p.1. Contact: Don't Waste U.S., 310 Domer St. #1, Takoma Park MD 20912, USA; Tel: +1 301 589 5892, Fax: +1 301 589 5894.