Ian Zabarte speaks at a press conference held during a Native American Nuclear Issues Forum which he organized at UNLVIan Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians ("Peace and Friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley, Consolidated Treaty Series, Vol. 127, 1863), and Secretary of the Native Community Action Council, is the winner of Beyond Nuclear's 7th Annual (2020) Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud "Unsung Hero" Award.*
(Ian's Award was to have been presented on April 21, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., at the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability's Annual "D.C. Days" Award Reception. That event had to be cancelled due to the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.)
Ian has been actively defending his people's treaty rights since a very young man in the 1980s. This has included defending hunting and herding rights, as well as resistance to nuclear weapons testing and high-level radioactive waste dumping on Newe Sogobia, the Western Shoshone homeland.
But one example, of a long list of Ian's remarkable acccomplishments, is his securing official party status in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump license application proceeding. Ian, with little to no funding resources, nor legal counsel, nonetheless managed to win hearings on the merits of contentions opposed to the dump, including the fact that land title and water rights at the Yucca Mountain site belong to the Western Shoshone, as well as the fact that U.S. EPA Yucca Mountain regulations do not account for the health impacts on Western Shoshone living a "time immemorial" traditional lifestyle in the downstream vicinity of Yucca Mountain. Although the NRC licensing proceeding (by far the biggest and most complex in its history) have been suspended since 2010, Ian stands ready to defend his critical contentions, if and when the licensing proceedings resume. An indication of just how daunting and challenging it was to win official intervenor status is the fact that no environmental groups managed to do so. Ian, and the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, are the only two opponents to the dump, squaring off against the nuclear power industry and U.S. federal agencies such as NRC and DOE.
Ian's activism and advocacy have taken him not only all across North America, but overseas as well. He has hosted numerous, powerful Native American Nuclear Issues Forums at University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). One of Ian's key insights is the importance of not only honoring his people's elders, but also inclusion, education, and inspiration of Western Shoshone youth. His scholarship has broken new ground on the critical issue of genocide against Indigenous Peoples, including by the nuclear weapons and nuclear power industries, and the government agencies that serve them.
*Judith Johnsrud (1931-2014) was a founding board member of Beyond Nuclear. She also co-founded Nuclear Information and Resource Service, as well as the Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power. One of her many claims to fame was helping co-lead the intervention against the building of the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the first place, in the 1970s, years before the TMI-2 meltdown. Another was being honored, in 2012, by Sierra Club for a half-century of anti-nuclear activism. See a tribute to Judith on the bottom of the last page of our 2014 newsletter about the Three Mile Island meltdown.
The previous winners of the Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud "Unsung Hero" Award are:
2014 -- Diane D'Arrigo, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Takoma Park, MD;
2015 -- Michael Keegan, Don't Waste Michigan and Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, Monroe, MI;
2017 -- David Kraft, Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS), Chicago, IL;
2018 -- Terry Lodge, Esquire, Toledo, Ohio;
2019 -- Rose Gardner, Alliance for Environmental Strategies (AFES), Eunice, New Mexico.