Each time Nuclear Energy is spoken of as the energy of the future, Washington State comes to mind. Nuclear Energy is promoted as clean by the industry simply because the environmental impact can't be seen. DemocracyNOW!, broadcasting from Spokane discussed the nuclear waste left behind --
Hanford Nuclear Reservation: A Look at the Nation’s Most Polluted Nuclear Weapons Production Site
KAREN DORN STEELE: Hanford is the nation’s largest plutonium production complex. It made the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. In the course of weapons production, it sent a lot of radiation into the air, contaminating the region.
Radiation Exposure from 50 Years of Uranium Mining Continues to Affect Spokane Indian Reservation
AMY GOODMAN: We go now from the contaminated Hanford nuclear site to a key part of nuclear weapons production and nuclear power generation: uranium mining.
My next guest is Twa-le Abrahamson. She is with the Spokane Indian Reservation, where the only uranium mining in Washington State took place. The two mines on the reservation, Sherwood Mine and Midnite Mine, have not been active since the ’80s, and the Midnite Mine was declared a Superfund site in 2000. The mine was operational from 1955 to ’81 and now contains several open pits filled with heavy radioactive metals and water.
Midnite Mine was operated by a subsidiary of the Denver-based Newmont USA Limited, one of the largest mining corporations in the world. It’s long refused to pay for the cleanup of the mine. But last year the Environmental Protection Agency won a lawsuit that requires Newmont and its subsidiary, Dawn Mining Company, to help pay for cleaning up the abandoned mine.
Twa-le Abrahamson and her mother Debbie have founded the SHAWL Society, which stands for Sovereignty, Health, Air, Water and Land. It’s a grassroots organization addressing the impact of radiation exposure caused by over a half-century of uranium mining on the Spokane Reservation.
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