Yucca dump: scientifically unsuitable; illegal; environmentally unjust; non-consent-based

The proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste dump is scientifically unsuitable; illegal; environmentally unjust; and non-consent-based.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) knew that Yucca was scientifically unsuitable in the earliest days of the 1980s site search. But the Yucca dump proposal has been kept alive ever since through raw politics, trumping sound science.

The Yucca dump is illegal. It violates the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by the U.S. government with the Western Shoshone Indian Nation in 1863. Such treaties are the highest law of the land, equal in stature to the U.S. Constitution. We violate them at our own peril, making a mockery of rule of law.

The Yucca dump violates environmental justice. Yucca is Western Shoshone land. In addition, Nevada has already paid a high price, in terms of human health damage and environmental contamination, due to nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site, beginning in 1951.

Neither the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, nor the State of Nevada, have consented to the Yucca dump. Quite to the contrary, they have asserted their non-consent, for many decades now, and still do.