MONDAY, MAY 10, 1999
PRESS RELEASE -- Downwinders
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Steve Erickson (801) 359-4929 Email: slceric@concentric.net
Winston Weeks (801) 521-6128 Email: wweeks@aros.netTIME FOR WESTERNERS TO HANG TOGETHER
Benjamin Franklin said during our revolution that "We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately." As the failed nuclear power industry and the nuclear weapons establishment seek to dump their nuclear waste in Utah, Nevada, Idaho and New Mexico old Ben’s statement is surely true today for those of us who live in the West. Aiding and abetting this effort is the rogue offspring of the old Atomic Energy Commission, an independent governmental agency called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). On March 1 the NRC issued a proposed rule that would allow the commission to circumvent open meeting laws. The rule, if adopted, would permit meetings to be held in secret by three or more of the commission's five members. As it stands now, only two members of the commission can discuss business privately that is not open to the public. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is adamantly opposed to the plan. "With the NRC having control over some of the most dangerous and volatile substances known to mankind, the argument could be made that no federal agency should pay more attention to open meeting requirements," Bryan said. (Las Vegas Sun, April 30, 1999.)
In Utah, the NRC arrogantly rubber-stamps the incredibly dangerous plans of International Uranium Corporation in Blanding to "reprocess" the deadly wastes of the Manhattan Project and approves a misguided and unscientific plan to "cap" the radioactive tailings in Moab which pollute the Colorado River system. Now the NRC tells us that "we the people" of the West don't need to know the financial details of the high-level nuke dump planned for the Goshute reservation.
It is next to impossible for members of the public to get standing for hearings before the NRC. Even people living right next to a site or proposed site are not worthy of standing as far as the NRC is concerned. The White Mesa Utes, environmentalist Ken Sleight and others have failed repeatedly to gain standing with the NRC concerning the activities of International Uranium Corporation in Blanding. NRC policies make it impossible for anyone without the money to hire legal experts to even try to navigate the labyrinth of bureaucratic jargon and legalese that comprise their rules and regulations.
Without strong Congressional pressure the nuclear cabal’s plan to dump their radioactive waste on the West is virtually assured, since the NRC, being an independent government agency, acts on its own as judge, jury, and executioner.
Senator Bryan is so upset by what he sees as the NRC's lack of responsiveness to citizens that he sent a letter to the White House last week threatening to withhold future support for any new nominee to the commission, including for the chairman whose term expires June 30.
We call on Utah Senators Hatch and Bennett, as well as our entire congressional delegation, to join Senator Bryan of Nevada in defending our interests as Westerners. As the West is under attack once again by the radioactive menace it is time that we "hang together" lest we "hang separately."
This page can be found on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.downwinders.org/west.html
