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April 1999 Ward Valley: Sacred Homeland or Nuclear Waste Dump? By Philip M. Klasky

America’s nuclear power industry is planning to bury radioactive waste in shallow, unlined trenches in Ward Valley, an area of the California Desert that is critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, and considered sacred homeland by the Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Quechan and Colorado River Indian Tribes. Philip Klasky, co-director of Bay Area Nuclear (BAN) Waste Coalition, reports on the coalition of Mexican, North American, and indigenous activists who have joined together to stop the nuclear waste dump.

Gatherings at Ward Valley have attracted hundreds of people. These special events include strategy sessions, informational workshops and indigenous cultural events. Sunrise ceremonies, storytelling, prayer rituals by Indian elders, traditional Mohave Gourd Songs and Bird Dances, Aztec dancers from Mexico, and Spirit Runs (traditional relay runs across the desert) accompany workshops on radioactive waste, desert ecology, community organizing, non-violence and political strategy.

For the last ten years, a diverse coalition of environmental and social justice organizations have been battling the construction of a radioactive waste dump in the courts, in the media and on the ground. Environmental organizations and the native peoples have notified the U.S. federal government that any attempt at a federal land transfer leading to the construction of the dump would trigger a lawsuit asserting the protections of the Endangered Species Act. Similar litigation in 1993 stopped a federal land transfer and led to the designation of 6.4 million acres of critical habitat for the desert tortoise. Activists have vowed to protect the site with non-violent direct action.

Ward Valley is a wide tilting valley in the southeast corner of California’s east Mojave Desert, 22 miles from the town of Needles, 18 miles from the Colorado River, and situated over a major aquifer. The proposed dump site is surrounded by eight wilderness areas and in the midst of critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). Nearby are the pristine golden canyons and cave paintings in the Old Woman Mountains. To the east, the foothills of the Stepladder Mountains are covered in a forest of cholla cactus. Ward Valley is home to golden eagles and red-tailed hawks, sidewinders and tortoises, songbirds and coyotes, jack- rabbits and kit fox. In the Spring and Fall, chicory, sunflower and dandelions carpet the ground. Smoke tree and screwbean mesquite line the washes, and during monsoon showers a wall of water six feet high can speed down the water courses. In the Fall of 1995, a group of activists began a permanent occupation of the site which continues to this day.

Abuse Beyond Borders

Along the frontier between the U.S. and Mexico, toxic waste dumps are releasing their poisons into the land and ground- water. The largest sludge dump in the world sits near the Mexican border at Sierra Blanca, Texas. With massive diversions for North American agricultural and suburban expansion, the Rio Grande and Colorado Rivers descend into Mexico in the form of a salinated trickle. The border area is also home to indigenous peoples such as the Mohave, Quechan, Cocopah, Mixteco, Zapoteco, Tepehuana, Pima, Maricopa, Warojio, Yaqui, and Tigua for whom the boundary line between the two giants is another exercise in hegemony.

Earlier this year, activists from Mexico, the U.S., and from the native peoples of both countries gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Juarez, Mexico for a rally. “We are here today,” a Mexican human rights activist said addressing the crowd, “to appeal to the government of the United States to protect our borders from toxic and radioactive wastes, to protect our rivers and to honor the indigenous people, the first people of this land. We stand in solidarity with our Indian brothers and sisters from along the Colorado River and pledge our support in their fight to stop nuclear waste from poisoning their lands, our lands.”

At the same rally, Horacio Echeverria, an indigenous rights activist and educator from the land of the Tarahumara, explained that his people are being driven out of their homelands by narco-trafficantes, well-armed narcotics syndicates. The hidden valleys of the canyon lands are taken by force and used for growing opiates. The Indians are caught in the crossfire of competing gangs and are given no protection by the government. “We are losing our land, our water and way of life. We feel a special kinship with our brothers and sisters from the Colorado River and want to lend our support to their struggle, a struggle like our own,” Echeverria said.

Bill Addington has been on the front lines of a tenacious battle to stop the proposal for a nuclear waste dump near Sierra Blanca, Texas, located 16 miles from the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. The ten-year struggle to defeat the dump and the final victory last winter relied on grassroots organizing on both sides of the border. North American activists teamed up with human rights and environmental groups across the Rio Grande. Professor Manuel Robles, a folk hero in his state of Chihuahua, helped to organize thousands of people to block the bridges linking the two countries. Addington’s family business was burned down by arsonists and he has received numerous death threats. Last year, when it appeared as though the dump would be approved, Addington went on a 56-day hunger strike on the steps of Congress to bring attention to the issue. The proposed dump was defeated after Mexican border legislators convinced Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo to lodge an official protest.

Energized by their victory, many of the groups engaged in the fight over Sierra Blanca have now come together to help stop the proposal for another nuclear dump at Ward Valley. “We defeated the Sierra Blanca dump because we were united and because we knew that we must not fail,” says one activist. “Now we must turn our attention to another threat to our lives and to our future.” Dave Harper, a spokesman for the Colorado River people, echoes the sentiments: “We cannot and will not move from our ancestral lands. This is a holy war for us, a fight to keep our traditions, and we will not compromise on our traditional values.”

Philip M. Klasky is a writer, teacher and co-director of the Bay Area Nuclear (BAN) Waste Coalition. For more information on how you can help protect Ward Valley call 415-752-8678 or 415-868-2146. Write now—right now—to president Bill Clinton and tell him to stop the Ward Valley Nuclear Waste dump: President Clinton, The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500. Also call your federal representatives. Every action counts!