Native Americans: Uranium Mining/ Nuclear Testing/ Nuclear Dumping

 Affected population

 Native Americans

 Dangers of Uranium

 Pollution of Past Mines: Church Rock

 Nuclear Testing in Nevada

 Nuclear Dumping: Yucca Mountain

 What you can do to help

Nuclear Testing in Nevada

Nuclear testing was established in 1950 on the Nevada test site, which is land owned by the Western Shoshone peoples. A large portion of the Nevada area was given to the Shoshone people in 1863 under the Treaty of Peace and Friendship in Ruby Valley, Nevada. The agreement demarcated the Shoshone’s ancestral land and allowed for joint use of the lands by the government and Indians, while maintaining that the land remained in the possession of the Shoshone. The land was steadily encroached on by the US government, corporations, and settlers, and in1951 the Western Shoshone Te-Moak Tribal Council, a group not representative of the entire Western Shoshone people, filed a claim with the ICC seeking compensation from the US government for land violations. The majority of Shoshone people, represented by the National Council, were opposed to this, though the claim still went through. The ICC established that the $26 million given to Western Shoshone by the US government was payment for their land and extinguished all claims to it. Instead of receiving payment as a way to compensate for land damages, the courts took away the Shoshone land title. The Western Shoshone people maintain today that there was never a turning over of land ownership, and that they still have a claim to the land they call Newe Segobia . The uncertainty over the ownership of the land, and the ease with which the government has taken advantage of the Indian people, contributes to the Shoshone land being continually exploited.

Atmospheric nuclear testing began in 1951 on the 3,500 square kilometres large Nevada test site. These lasted until the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 which prohibited all atmospheric, underwater, and outer space nuclear weapons tests. From this point on, nuclear testing has been conducted underground. The damage created by the 50 plus years of nuclear testing has been extensive, and has affected not only the Shoshone people but the entire country’s population. The 300 plus above ground nuclear tests had a cumulative explosive power of 138,600 kilotons, and it was stated by various scientists that this amount would kill up to 2.5 million people, cause 1 million defective children and 1 million miscarriages. Another Doctor traced the increase in infant and children deaths and leukaemia in upstate New York to wind borne radiation from Nevada. The damaging effects of the testing was covered up by the government, and many people died from cancer. There has been no follow up research on the health and environmental effects of the 928 atomic weapons tests conducted between 1951 and 1992, which if conducted would surely be staggering. Native Americans such as the Western Shoshone are much more susceptible to the dangers of atomic testing and fallout due to their traditional lifestyles and dependence on local crops, milk, and wildlife, all of which absorb radiation.

In more recent years the United States has been conducting underground subcritical nuclear tests on the Nevada site, which the government claims is not in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Subcritical Atomic tests are similar to full scale nuclear testing in that they use the same radioactive materials such as plutonium. It is subjected to a high explosive blast but there is no self sustaining fission reaction so the implosion does not reach critical mass. The explosions are completely contained, though if something was to go wrong the explosion could spread radioactive particles throughout the surrounding area. Though the Shoshone people have not had to deal with mushroom clouds and open-air nuclear blasts for many years, they still have not been given their land back. As long as the US government claims the area as their own, the Western Shoshone and other Native Americans have little control over the future of their livelihoods and health. For instance, a 700 ton chemical explosives test (non-nuclear) was scheduled to be detonated at the Nevada Test site in the summer of 2006. It would have been powerful enough to create a mushroom cloud and spread radioactive waste, deposited in the soil of the test site, throughout the area, including Las Vegas. The test, named Divine Strake, was postponed for 2007 and then finally cancelled due to protests and strong concerns on its safety. What this incident represents is that the future of nuclear and explosive tests is still wide open, and the health of the nation continues to be at risk.