The following is an excerpt from the Seattle Times article, click here for the whole story.
Sherman Alexie was a teenager when he first felt threatened by the uranium mines near his home on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
His grandmother had died from esophageal cancer in 1980. A few years later, his mother and some other tribal members took out a road map and began marking red dots on every home where someone had cancer.
The roads where the ore trucks rumbled by were pocked with red.
“I remember at that point knowing at some point in my life I’m certainly going to get sick,” recalls Alexie, the acclaimed author who now lives in Seattle and recently won the National Book Award. “I have very little doubt that I’m going to get cancer.”
Such is the legacy of the Northwest’s only uranium mines. At least for those who even know they exist.
Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation, toxic birthplace of the bomb that set off the atomic age, routinely makes headlines. The Midnite Mine, just 100 miles to the north, is all but forgotten, a combination of denial, neglect and willful amnesia.
One of the world’s largest mining companies is trying to wash its hands of responsibility for a costly cleanup. The federal government is supposed to help sick uranium miners, but people on the reservation don’t even know the program exists.
This has relevance for Michigan citizens in many ways. Some of the key reasons are noted here: Michigan has uranium exploration going on now in the U.P.; Michigan utilizes nuclear power for electricity, which uses uranium fuel; Several uranium mines have operated in northern Ontario (including Serpent River, Elliot Lake area, for example) and a uranium refinery which operated for years at Blind River, Ontario; these sites (among others) continue to leach uranium and radioactive byproducts into Lake Huron; uranium mining may restart in the Elliot Lake region; uranium hexafluoride crosses the Blue Water Bridge on a routine basis, heading from Canada to points south. These alone are compelling reasons for folks to support and attend these critical citizen’s hearings in eastern Ontario. Uranium mines worldwide tend to be located on First Nation, Black, and Indigenous People’s lands giving a “boom and bust” economy. The “bust” part of this cycle leaves the land and waters devastated, with an enormous cost to the health of the community including cancers, birth defects, emphysema, leukemias, etc. -Kay
More information available at: http://www.uraniumcitizensinquiry.com/
The Community Coalition Against Uranium Mining (CCAMU) is holding a Citizens Inquiry on the Impacts of the Uranium Fuel Cycle, from exploration and mining through enrichment, power generation and weapons potential to spent fuel rod disposal.
This will involve, among other things, public hearings, written and oral submissions and the creation of a document encompassing the results of the Inquiry. The Inquiry welcomes factual material from experts, stakeholders and those interested in uranium, as well as commentary on community, health and social justice issues and the environment.
the irony is that today the USEPA and DOI are asking for comments on the new regulations on Natural Resources Damages as well as that the US Senate recently approved the Indian Health Care Improvement Act which adds more funds on study environmental pollution affecting Native Americans on reservations.
GENOCIDE!!!! HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
SHAME ON BUSH
SHAME ON US
NO NUKES
NO COAL
NO MORE LIES
The relevance is this and the two words are these-Civil Disobedience.
Henry David Thoreau invented the term and used it. Gandhi educated himself on the principals and used them. Martin Luther King used the principal. IT is about clogging with your entire weight the machine that knows one thing-to take and take, without compensation or sharing, without concern for the destruction of homeland or life.
Let us use these principals and the courts to stop Kennecott.