Sarah Alisabeth Fox's Blog

Author Sarah Fox interviewed on KUER's RadioWest Program

Downwind author Sarah Fox recently joined RadioWest’s Doug Fabrizio to discuss the complex legacies of nuclear technology in Utah and the surrounding region in light of new proposals to build nuclear power plants in the state. You can listen here.

a note from Sarah:

I always enjoy chatting with Doug about nuclear issues relevant to the good folks in Utah. I want to stress there’s a lot more to my concerns about nuclear power than made it into the radio program. A few of these areas of concern:

Trump Executive Order (EO) 14300 Section 5(b), which pushes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to abandon the LNT or Linear No Threshold model of risk assessment, which has been the standard since the early 1970s. The goal of this EO is to make it easier to build and operate nuclear power plants which would likely be permitted release larger amounts of radiation than permitted under LNT modelling. The LNT model is based on the understanding that radiation damage can occur no matter how small the dose (that’s why we don’t knowingly give x-rays to pregnant people!), and that the dose increases with increases in exposure. It’s true there is controversy around radiation exposure standards, but LNT is more in line with the preventative principle, which is what I believe should guide our approach to nuclear tech. [Learn more here: https://beyondnuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/US-NRC-Consultation-4-1.pdf] We know even low amounts of radiation exposure can cause harm in some, so the ideal is to avoid exposures and prevent this harm, rather than let larger exposures occur and wait for the data in the form of illnesses and deaths.

The nuclear power industry has always exerted tremendous influence over its own regulation, making workers and communities near nuclear sites less safe. Under the current administration, this problem of regulatory capture will certainly worsen. This four-part AP study on the NRC is worth taking a look at. (Notably, conducted during the Obama admin.) https://www.ap.org/media-center/press-releases/2012/aging-nukes-a-four-part-investigative-series-by-jeff-donn/

The effects of uranium mining to fuel nuclear power plants (yes even "modern SMRS”) and nuclear weapons are disproportionately experienced by Indigenous and low income communities, who deal with birth defects, cancers, and contaminated water for generations after the industry has operated on their land. This is a situation of clear environmental injustice and nuclear colonialism, and it is abhorrent. A large percentage of infants tested in the Navajo Birth Cohort Study have been found to have uranium in their bodies, despite the fact that the Navajo nation banned the uranium industry TWO DECADES ago due to its devastating environmental and health impacts. This is not “green” technology. Learn more:

http://sric.org/nbcs/index.php

https://haulno.com

Nuclear power plants have been sold to us as peaceful technology, separate from nuclear weapons. This has never been the case. Click here to learn more about the vexed history of nuclear power from historian Robert Jacobs, who argues nuclear power was “born violent.” M.V. Ramana, a physicist and scholar of Disarmament, Global and Human Security reminds us that nuclear power technology increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, + makes a compelling case that modern SMR technology is economically unfeasible, unlikely to meet electricity needs, and still extremely dangerous.

Even ostensibly “peaceful” nuclear power plants can become wildly volatile if destabilized by an earthquake, climate event, or military attack (IE, Israel’s recent targeting of Iranian nuclear sites). The International Atomic Energy Agency reminded us recently that “Armed attacks on nuclear facilities should never take place and could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which has been attacked”- IAEA chief Mr. Grossi to the agency’s Board of Governors on Monday. “Even well-fortified facilities are not immune from structural or systemic failure when subjected to extreme external force, such as missile strikes, the UN nuclear watchdog has said…. The potential consequences include localised chemical exposure and far-reaching radioactive contamination, depending on the nature of the site and the strength of its defensive barriers. Read more here.

The notion that modern nuclear tech can prevent accidents is as much of a fairy tale as it was 30 or 50 years ago. Like all human technology even the newest forms of nuclear tech remain vulnerable to phenomena like mechanical errors, human errors, wildfire, and disruptions to the power grid. I’ll get into this in my new book… stay tuned.

Nuclear power creates nuclear waste that is dangerous for thousands of years. The United States STILL does not have a high-level nuclear waste repository, which means nuclear waste is usually stored on-site where it is created, vulnerable to poor management, leaking barrels, wildfires, and other events which can introduce it into the surrounding environment, whether slowly or with catastrophic suddenness.

This is not green technology.

Permalink

Author Sarah Fox interviewed on Care More Be Better podcast

I recently joined Corrina Bellizzi, host of Care More Be Better: A Social Impact, Sustainability + Regeneration Podcast, to discuss nuclear history, the fraught politics of expertise, and the power of community storytelling in situations of environmental injustice. Check out the podcast here.

Urgent call to action

Urgent call to action:

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), a sorely inadequate but important effort to address generations of health damage caused by nuclear weapons production in the United States, is set to expire very soon, in July of 2022. 

A dedicated group of impacted community members, organizations, and elected officials been pushing for years to renew and expand this program. The new legislation they have put forward would add downwinders in all of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Guam, downwinders of the Trinity Test Site, and uranium miners and mill workers in the industry after 1971. It also would increase the amount of compensation from $50,000 to $150,000 for all claimants. These changes are decades overdue. 

On December 7 the bill to renew and expand RECA passed the House Judiciary Committee: now it goes to the House for a vote. Impacted communities are concerned there is not adequate support for the bill to pass the Senate.

Your voice is needed to help it move through both the House and the Senate! Let your elected officials know the entire country is watching to see if they will join this bipartisan effort to care for the thousands of US residents harmed by decades of nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining. Four potential action items are listed below, and sample text is included at the bottom of this post. Please select the items that make the most sense for you, and share these items with your network! 

Action item 1: Please contact your elected officials and urge them to support HR 5338 and SB 2798. Feel free to use text from the sample statement at the bottom of this message. Find their contact information here: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Action item 2: More senators are needed to co-sponsor S 2798. So far, only Senator Cory Booker has signed on as a cosponsor with sponsors Senators Mike Crapo and Ben Ray Luján. Urge your senators to co-sponsor this important bill! 

Action item 3: Is your senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee? Find out here: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members. Their support will be crucial to getting the bill to a senate vote.  Urge them to support S 2798. 

Action item 4: The following senators are viewed as important potential supporters of this bill. Ask them to support S2798. 

·      Senator Mitt Romney of Utah https://www.romney.senate.gov/contact  (202) 224-5251]

·      Senator Steve Daines of Montana https://www.daines.senate.gov/connect/email-steve (202) 224-2651]

·      Senator John Cornyn of Texas https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact 202-224-2934

·      Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/contact/contact-form/ 202-224-5941

 

Every voice counts. Please take the time to contact your elected officials on behalf of all the radiation-impacted people who have been harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons production. 

Sincerely,

Sarah Fox

Historian, Author, Downwind: A People's History of the Nuclear West 

(University of Nebraska Press, 2014, 2018)

 

SAMPLE STATEMENT:  please edit as needed!

Representative/ Senator ______:

I am writing to implore you to support HR 5338/SB 2798, a necessary renewal and expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Manhattan Project officials and their successors in the federal Atomic Energy Commission knew full well that nuclear weapons development and testing and the uranium industry it generated were extremely dangerous, and still they did not warn the thousands of civilians, workers, and soldiers who were in harm’s way. Some communities were exposed to dangerous, mutagenic radiation for decades. Some are still at risk of exposure. This an unconscionable case of “collateral damage.” RECA as it exists now is sorely inadequate: if it is allowed to expire in 2022, an already horrible injustice will be made much more shameful. Renew, expand, and protect RECA. This history will not go away just because we turn our backs on it: our federal government needs to acknowledge and stand by the people it harmed. 

 

The entire country is watching to see if you will join this bipartisan effort to care for the thousands of US residents harmed by decades of nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining. Please do the right thing.

 

Sincerely,

Call for art and stories

From July 16 2020 to the end of August, 2020, Sarah Fox (author of Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West, board member of Consequences of Radiation Exposure -Hanford group) is hoping, with help from you and some dedicated volunteers, to compile a “digital story tour and art show” of communities in the West that have been impacted by the health and environmental effects of radiation exposure. If you are a Hibakusha or have connections to a nuclear site elsewhere in the world that has been impacted by nuclear testing uranium mining, we welcome your story also. During this time of pandemic, we hope this is a way to make these people and places visible without adding to anyone’s health risk. 

The goal is to release the “tour” to the public in the form of a digital video that individuals and organizations can share freely on social media to help highlight the issues faced by people and places impacted by radiation exposure. Details are below if you would be interested in sharing art, images, or story. We realize this is a precarious time for many and so we cannot promise a firm release date for this video, nor can we promise that every submission will be included. Updates will be posted here, on downwindhistory.com.

 Stay safe and healthy,

 Sarah.

 Steps to contribute to the People’s Digital Tour:

 

There are several ways to share your story:  

 

a) Record a short video (1-3 minutes) of yourself talking about the place you grew up or worked and how it affected you or your loved ones. What nuclear site was or is nearby? You can show us your neighborhood in the video, hold up some photographs of places or loved ones, or show us the location on a map while you share some of your story. If your file size is too large to email, use this link to get instructions to make it smaller.  https://resources.mojomedialabs.com/blog/3-ridiculously-easy-ways-you-can-email-a-large-file

b) Send us a photograph or several photographs (house you grew up in, loved ones, school building, landscape) that we can share as slides in the video, along with a short description (a few sentences or less) of the places and people they depict and why you are sharing them. 

c) if you are an artist and would like to share images of your art related to radiation exposure living or working  near uranium or nuclear sites (and/or a short video of you talking about your art and your story), we would be honored to share it. Please also share a website url where people can learn more about your art. 

 

Send us your materials in an email at downwindhistory@gmail.com,  and put “Digital Tour” in the subject heading.

We will send you a release form so that we can include your contribution in the tour; please fill it out and return it to the downwindhistory@gmail.com email with “Release Form” in the subject heading. 

Importance of Community Expertise to Academic Research Recognized

Hello friends,

I was recently awarded a Killam doctoral scholarship to support my pursuit of a Phd in History at University of British Columbia. This is a tremendous honor, and I’m deeply grateful for this support and the opportunities it affords me. I’m humbled to be able to learn from exceptional mentors, colleagues, and projects during my time working on my PhD.

I first began working with radiation-impacted communities as a young grad student almost fifteen years ago. In these stories of radiogenic communities I found resilience and injustice at a scale that I could not even begin to comprehend.

I do not believe that the stories of ordinary people living in radiogenic communities need to be “validated” by academics or awards: they speak to a truth held in common by radiogenic communities worldwide, and they emerge from complex and enduring systems of local knowledge that encode the history of environments and human activities in ways academics are only beginning to understand. Many of these narrators will be the first to tell you how badly health studies and robust research are needed in their communities if they are to attain the services and political change necessary to address ongoing health and environmental crisis .

I interpret the Killam award as an instance of the Academy recognizing the importance of these forms of community expertise, and the responsibility of academic institutions to work collaboratively with communities in pursuit of environmental and social justice.

A short video was made about my research in recognition of the award, and I shared with the producers of this video some images of places, people, artwork and events that motivate my research. By virtue of this video’s format, those important people, places, and events, artworks, and stories end up getting turned into visual fragments, which does them a disservice. Please take a moment to click through some of the links in captions below to learn more about a few of the incredible activists, academics, artists, and places I’ve had the honor of learning from.

Hanford downwinder activist Tom Bailie, Dr. Norma Field, Nagasaki hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) and activist Mitsugi Moriguchi, and Dr. Yuki Miyamoto, Richland 2018. These extraordinary activists and nuclear scholars were part of the historic Hanford-Nagasaki Bridge event, organized by the group Consequences of Radiation Exposure (CORE) and held in the Tri-Cities near the Hanford site in 2018.

Learn more:

“Nagasaki Survivor Visits Hanford, Finds Some of the Story Still Untold”

https://www.pbs.org/video/a-nagasaki-survivor-visits-hanford-gepzqn/.

Dr. Field is the editor and co-translator of Fukishima: Will you Still Say No Crime Has Been Committed. Read one of her recent works here.

Dr. Miyamoto is the author of Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility after Hiroshima.

[image error]

Article by 4 Corners journalist and artist Sonja Horoshko, published in the Four Corners Free Press, on a joint art opening of works by renowned artist Ed Singer and a book event featuring Downwind, held in Cortez Colorado in May 2019. Learn more about Ed’s incredible work here. Sonja has published numerous pieces about the legacies of uranium in the Four Corners region; read more of her work here.

The Rio Puerco River in New Mexico, in 1979 the site of the largest accidental release of radiation in United States history (roughly 3 times as much radiation was released in this accident at a uranium tailings pond as was released in the notorious Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant disaster that same year). Learn more.

Artist Jerrel Singer’s mural near Grey Mountain, Arizona on the lands of the Navajo Nation. “Are they not waging nuclear war when the miners die from cancer from mining the uranium?” Read more about Jerrel’s work

“Radioactive Pollution Kills: Its Time to Clean Up The Mines,” installation by artist @jetsonorama. Learn more about his work here.

Map from National Cancer Institute Study of thyroid cancer related to Iodine-131 dispersed by atmospheric nuclear testing in Nevada 1951-1962. View the study here.

Eugene, Oregon community reading of “Exposed,” a play by Utah downwinder Mary Dickson, held in commemoration of the 2018 anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This event was organized by Oregon WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions). Learn more about Mary’s play and WAND.

“#waterislife #goldminespill #noDAPL #WaterisSacred” Street art/Mural in Shiprock, New Mexico. Navajo Nation. Artist unknown. (If you know the artist please contact me at sarahalisabethfox@gmail.com!)

Contact your senators and ask them to support the 2019 RECA Amendments!

Please take a moment to contact your senators and ask them to add their support to the 2019 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act [RECA] amendments. (If Crapo, Risch, Heinrich, Bennett, Udall, or Booker are your elected officials, thank them for their support of the 2019 RECA amendments!) Existing radiation exposure compensation legislation is only available to a handful of claimants in a handful of counties in Utah and Arizona. Ample scientific data (for example, this 1997 National Cancer Institute Study) demonstrates that substantial radiological contamination also impacted residents in Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Guam, not to mention the other counties in Arizona and Utah left out of the original RECA legislation. It is critical that more senators add their voices to this bipartisan coalition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Crapo, Bipartisan Group Introduces RECA LegislationWould allow victims in Idaho and other western states to file claims for benefits after exposure to nuclear radiation

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) today introduced the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2019. The legislation would expand coverage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to include victims in Idaho, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Guam. Senator Crapo chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing on the legislation in the last Congress, and introduced the legislation again today to continue pushing for its consideration and passage. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey). 

“Many Idahoans have suffered the health consequences of exposure to fallout from nuclear weapons testing,” said Senator Crapo. “Congress has expanded coverage to include certain counties in other affected states in the West, and its past time for Idahoans and our neighbors to receive the compensation they deserve. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee with jurisdiction over this program, I will continue to work for the passage of this important legislation.”

“It was wonderful to be able to have a Senate Hearing on our bill, we look forward to passage of our bill,” said Tona Henderson, Idaho business owner and leader of the Idaho Downwinders. “Idaho Downwinders appreciate all the help from Senators Crapo and Risch.” 

“For decades now, Idahoans have been pleading their case to the federal government for help in dealing with the health effects they suffered as a result of nuclear testing,” said Senator Risch. “This bill answers those pleas by providing the same assistance those in neighboring states already receive.”

“Justice is long, long overdue for the New Mexico families and Tribal members who are victims of radiation exposure as a result of the government’s nuclear testing during the Cold War,” said Senator Udall. “While we can’t undo the years of suffering for these individuals and families, I will not rest until we make sure the many unwilling Cold War victims – including those living downwind of the Trinity test site in New Mexico's Tularosa Basin and post-1971 uranium workers in New Mexico -- and their families are fairly compensated. Providing just compensation to victims of radiation exposure will not erase the years of pain and illness, but it is the least we can do to honor the sacrifice that so many made to keep our nation secure.”

"Congress needs to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments to provide medical assistance and compensation to those who bore the health costs of our nation’s nuclear history,” said Senator Heinrich. “That includes families who lived in and near New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin at the time of the Trinity Test and all of the uranium mill workers and miners who continue to cope with serious health problems due to exposure to radioactive nuclear material. I will continue to fight for the justice these Americans deserve.”

The bill would increase compensation and widen eligibility requirements for victims denied government help for more than fifty year for health problems relating to cancer caused by radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s. Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Guam would be added to existing areas where victims can apply for compensation under the federal RECA program. At present, only residents of certain counties in Utah, Nevada and Arizona are eligible to apply for benefits, something witnesses repeatedly noted during their testimony.

Some Good News: Students Organizing for Ethics in Action

Last week I had the distinct honor of delivering the keynote talk at the 2019 Ethics in Action Conference at at my alma mater The Evergreen State College. The students who invited me to speak at Evergreen organized the entire conference of their own volition, outside of formal responsibilities to their individual courses or studies, driven by a desire to engage in meaningful conversation about the question “How do we create the world we wish to live in?” I was excited to participate in this conference after a month of really difficult news on the nuclear front. Early 2019 saw Trump’s administration announce production of new “low-yield” American nuclear weapons, declare their intentions to withdraw the United States from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, and drop demands for full accounting of North Korea’s nuclear program ahead of Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un.[I] All of these developments point toward the resumption of uranium extraction, plutonium production, weapons development and testing, and the expansive production of nuclear waste.

These news items are only a few of the most recent reasons I feel called to put my own ethics into action; my work is driven by the stories people have shared with me about the impacts off life in radiogenic communities.

The Ethics in Action conference is a space for curious and critical minds to engage with what ethics means to them personally, as a society, and how we can incorporate ethics into our daily lives. Our key question is: “ How do we create the world we wish to live in? ” We ask this question because we want to look at both  ethical theory , where ideas emerge, and  action , which puts those ideas into practice. The conference will consist of speakers, a symposium, and workshops. Students, faculty, grassroots activists and community members are invited to present on their particular ethical inquiries and practices. We hope that through collaboration and discourse, participants may feel empowered as ethical agents to act collaboratively in order create the world they wish to live in..

In my talk, “By Way of the Pasts We Write”: A Historian’s Perspective on Engaged Scholarship,” (title thanks to the eloquent Dr. Martha Jones) I shared my journey to learn about, document, and advocate for the stories of downwinders and uranium-impacted communities around the American Southwest. I shared Ed Singer’s art, evidence from scientific reports and sociological studies, maps, photographs, and charts. We discussed the responsibilities of academics (i.e., historians!) to contribute to public conversations and policy, and the troubled history of academic pursuits that have been tangled in colonialism, the military industrial complex, and white supremacy. Students and conference participants from a wide array of disciplinary and community backgrounds shared thoughtful responses, questions, and ideas, and we ended the evening by reflecting as a group on several key questions:

The following day, student organizers put on a series of breakout sessions, including a harm reduction workshop, a panel discussion on incarceration, education, and recidivism, a workshop on addressing homelessness, a workshop on rethinking disability, an anti-oppression workshop at the intersections of domestic and sexual violence, and a transformative justice ethics workshop. They hosted over a dozen local organizations for a tabling session, and then offered two sessions of papers examining varied and provocative ethical questions, contributed by students and community activists.

I commend each of the extraordinary organizers and participants for their dedication, labor, vision, and robust contributions to this vital conversation. I am inspired by their questions, their passion, and their commitment to co-creating a more just and sustainable world.

[i]Aaron Mehta, “Trump’s new nuclear weapon has entered production, Defense News (28 January 2019) at https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2019/01/28/trumps-new-nuclear-weapon-has-entered-production/(accessed 12 February 2019) and Julian Borger, “Donald Trump confirms US withdrawal from INF INF nuclear treaty,” The Guardian(1 February 2019) “https://www.theguardian.com/world/201..., (accessed 10 February 2019).

Book Review by Sarah Fox published by Oxford journal of Environmental History

I recently had the privilege of reviewing an important new book on the 1970 Baneberry incident at the Nevada Test Site, and the ensuing 25 year legal saga. 

Review: The Baneberry Disaster: A Generation of Atomic Fallout. By Larry C. Johns and Alan R. Johns

The Baneberry Disaster: A Generation of Atomic Fallout. By Larry C. Johns and  Alan R. Johns. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2017. xvi + 210 pp. Illustrations, glossary, notes, index. Paper $24.95.

Review by Sarah Fox, Environmental History,  https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emy066

Published: 20 August 2018

Larry and Alan Johns’ The Baneberry Disaster is a gripping and timely account of an American nuclear episode that is long overdue for closer examination. The December 1970 Baneberry underground nuclear test vented close to 7 million curies of radiation, more than double the amount released in the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Numerous workers were exposed to contamination from the Baneberry test, and two died of leukemia within a few years. The workers’ widows became plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against the contractors of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by two young lawyers, Larry and Alan Johns. The lawyers were brothers just beginning their law practice; the Baneberry case would drag on for twenty-five years.

The Baneberry Disaster began as a memoir project for Larry Johns. After the lawsuit concluded in 1996, he began working with Alan to reconstruct the events of Baneberry and the ensuing saga of research and legal efforts. The book is based almost entirely on their notes and legal briefs as well as the testimony of expert witnesses, including test site workers and managers, meteorologists and geologists, and specialists from the fields of radiation health, cytogenetics, and epidemiology.

Baneberry fits into a well-documented historical pattern of disregard by the AEC and AEC contractors for health and environmental risks connected to nuclear development, dating back to the inception of the AEC in 1946. Larry Johns admits this pattern was not always visible to them as lifelong residents of Las Vegas: “The AEC became part of our community ... A-bomb tests became so commonplace we paid little attention” (p. 3). With the shift to underground testing in 1963, nuclear development receded further from local view. Baneberry was not the first underground test to vent into the atmosphere—numerous tests in the Plowshare series were designed to breach the surface for cratering research, and other tests did so unexpectedly—but Baneberry surpassed them all in severity. Surveys of the area prior to the test indicated geological instability, but the decision was made to detonate the ten-kiloton device regardless. No evacuation plan was prepared, and workers remained dangerously close to the detonation site. When the vent occurred, evacuation orders were delayed nearly two hours and then carried out by security guards instead of properly trained and outfitted radiation safety monitors. One of these security personnel, Harley Roberts, spent the entire day in the radioactive cloud; four years later, he died of leukemia.

Much of the lawsuit the authors filed on behalf of Roberts and other workers hinged on the complex task of reconstructing radiation doses, then connecting them to genetic changes and illnesses. To tackle this challenge, the Johns brothers sought out Dr. Shields Warren, the AEC’s first director of biology and medicine, noted epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart, and Dr. John Gofman, one of the original Manhattan Project scientists and the first medical director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Discussions about working with these researchers offer some of the book’s most interesting material.

Another valuable contribution of The Baneberry Disaster is its accessible discussions of the legal nuances of this and other efforts to hold the federal government accountable for health impacts from domestic Cold War nuclear contamination. While the authors ultimately lost the Baneberry lawsuit, and other lawsuits on behalf of exposed workers and citizens also failed to provide redress, these cases heightened awareness of nuclear risk and federal malfeasance and helped lay the foundation for the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The Baneberry Disaster’s primary limitation is its form as a memoir-based history. The authors’ intention was to record their own experiences and reconstruct the scientific and medical understandings available at the time of the trial. While the book succeeds in doing so, some sections have a distinct popular history feel, which will engage non-academic readers but may not satisfy those looking for a more rigorous historical analysis. The history of American nuclearism is impossible to apprehend with the tools of any single academic discipline. A willingness to approach these events with interdisciplinary tools and careful attention to the experiences and narratives of those living and working in proximity to nuclear sites is crucial. The Baneberry Disaster is a strong example of this sort of approach and an important contribution to the field.

Art and Bearing Witness to the Nuclear West: Guest Post by Emma Catherine McAllister

Original painting by Emma Catherine McAllister, 2017.

This post was contributed by Emma Catherine McAllister, a former student in Sarah Fox's Environmental Policy and Decision-Making Course "Nuclear Narratives of the American West." McAllister is a Sophomore at University of Puget Sound, where she is double majoring in International Political Economy and Environmental Policy and Decision Making.

-------------------

“Healing begins when someone bears witness. I saw you. I believe you.”

When I first heard these words, it had been a year since Sarah Fox had introduced me to narratives of the nuclear west—one year since I had learned of the “Atmospheric Nuclear Testing and Uranium Mining” chapter in the (lengthy) tome of American environmental injustice. In this year, Professor Fox had guided my class through the systematic efforts of the federal government—specifically, through the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)— to suppress information about the collateral damage it was inflicting in the course of its development of a nuclear arsenal. Professor Fox had opened our eyes to the horrific reality that communities living downwind of nuclear weapon test sites and communities working to extract the uranium necessary for these weapons had been deliberately kept in the dark about the devastating impact of the radiological material. She proved how these communities successfully organized to demand the release of classified data, the funding of health research, and eventually, the passage of policies dedicated to protecting health and the environment from the ravages of nuclear industries.

She also made clear that there is a great deal of work left to be done. There are thousands of nuclear sites—whether unremediated uranium mines, abandoned uranium processing plants, or nuclear power plants located on multiple tectonic fault lines—that continue to pose significant dangers to the communities in which they are located. Our final project for the class was to identify a nuclear site and develop a research paper explaining its history, its role within the development of America’s nuclear hegemony, and its impact on adjacent communities.

With Professor Fox’s guidance, I settled on researching Midnite Mine, an abandoned uranium mine located on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Eastern Washington. The following is a brief summary of my research:

The Spokane tribes originally occupied about three million acres of land. President Rutherford B. Hayes’ 1881 declaration limited the tribes to 156,000 acres of “some of the least valuable land” which was “Too rocky for farming, [and] also turned out to have little of the gold and silver early prospectors wanted.”

The dry, sandy soil that was poorly suited for agricultural development proved to be rich with uranium deposits. Midnite Mine, owned by Dawn Mining Corporation, capitalized on these deposits. It was located near the center of reservation land and worked on extracting uranium from 1955-1981. It necessitated the construction and use of a mill, which processed uranium ore into yellowcake (the raw material used for making nuclear rods). During its operating period, the mine and mill provided employment to the Spokane people, but also wreaked incredible destruction to tribal members’ bodies and land. The miners were not provided with any information about the dangers of uranium mining, nor any protective measures (such as face masks, laundry facilities, etc), and many developed respiratory disorders, thyroid malfunctions, and cancer. No semblance of cleanup efforts followed the mine’s 1981 closing, and it leeched radioactive waste and heavy metals into water sources on which the Spokane people depend for decades while the Spokane tribe tried to compel a cleanup effort. Eventually, they succeeded, and remediation of the mine and mill sites is now in progress, striving to employ tribal members as much as possible. The employment opportunities provided by remediation efforts guarantee some degree of financial security for the Spokane people’s foreseeable future, but do little to comfort those who have seen their loved ones taken by disease associated with the mine.

Doing this research made me want to do more than be a silent observer of this tragedy of environmental injustice—I wanted to do something. I reflected on my capacities as an artist, and how those capacities could potentially be used to bring greater awareness of the ongoing reality of toxic nuclear sites. I wanted to talk to and work with the Spokane people—to whatever extent they were willing—to tell their story, as I had witnessed Professor Fox had helped tell so many stories of Downwinders and uranium-affected communities.

I was ultimately unable to travel to the reservation in the course of the semester, and unable to contact community members before the deadline of the project. But in still having a pressing need to do something, I found a photograph taken by Jed Conklin for The Spokesman-Review newspaper and turned it into a black-and-white painting. a tableau of the grief and anguish of the Nuclear West. In the photograph, “Charlotte Corral [is] break[ing] down in tears while speaking about her husband, Chico, in their home on the Spokane Reservation” and “Sandra Belvail, a volunteer advocate who is helping Chico make a radiation compensation claim, offers comfort.” Originally, my idea was to render this photograph as a black-and-white painting with yellow splattering or superimposed landscape of the mine to represent the destructive contamination of uranium into the lives of those pictured--elements from Navajo artist and Downwinder Ed Singer’s painting “Łeetsoii shaa yíjooł (I Am Downwind)."  However, after finishing the black-and-white transmutation of these two women onto canvas, I did not want to present such a jarring representation of the role of the toxic uranium, and left off with the painting being just a way for me to acknowledge—to bear witness—to the tragedy suffered by Charlotte and by the Spokane people. I ended up not attempting to disseminate the image at all, uncertain that those who I depicted (and the Spokane/nuclear-affected community) would support the effort, and not wanting to use Charlotte and Sandra’s likeness in a way to which they had not explicitly consented.

My next venture into grappling with the Nuclear West through art was in the creation of a “tunnel book,” featuring a Native American young woman in the foreground of the tableau gazing at the mushroom cloud of a nuclear test in the background. Between her and the cloud is a flock of sheep, representing the livestock herds devastated by nuclear fallout from atmospheric testing, and a uranium mine representing any of the 10,000+ that still dot the Western landscape. On the panels of the book flanking this scene, I include quotations from Professor Fox’s Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West, with uranium-mining related excerpts on the left-hand panel and atmospheric-testing related excerpts on the right-hand panel.

The painting now hangs in my room and the book sits on my desk, offering small reminders of the necessity of continuing to bear witness to environmental injustices, particularly those faced in particular by nuclear-affected communities. It also reminds me to stay vigilant and informed about new threats, new additions to the legacy of the Nuclear West. The current administration’s marked preference for extraction industries and profit over the wishes and best interests of the American people is epitomized in the downsizing of the Bears Ears National Monument, despite 96% of public comments to the Department of the Interior supporting the monument’s status. This downsizing of the monument seems indicative of the administration’s support for the expansion of the Daneros uranium mine at the expense of the rich cultural and historical legacies of the site, and at the potential danger of repeating our country’s history of foisting environmental injustice on marginalized communities.

 

I affirm that I see the brutality of what Downwind and uranium-affected communities have endured. I believe them, and I believe what happened to them was profoundly unjust. I would be honored to use my opportunities as a scholar, as a person of privilege, and as an artist to help these communities heal and to tell their stories. We must work together to oppose the repetition of history—the repetition of the unacceptable devastation of the Nuclear West.

 

If you are part of a community (or know of one) interested in collaborating with me to have its story told artistically, please email me at emma.art.mcallister@gmail.com.

 

If you are interested in learning more about Midnite Mine and its ongoing reclamation efforts, check out the links below:

SHAWL (Sovereignty, Health, Air, Water, Land) Society: http://shawlsociety.blogspot.com

EPA Superfund Entry: https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=1001070

News Coverage: http://www.spokesman.com/tags/midnite-mine/hg.    k54` 

 

Downwind author Sarah Fox to speak at 2018 Remembering Downwinders Events in Salt Lake

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJanuary 7, 2018

Author Sarah Fox to speak at 7th Annual Remembering Downwinders Day events

in commemoration of the 67th anniversary of the inception of nuclear testing in Nevada

Salt Lake City, UT, January 7, 2018– Seattle author, historian, and professor of environmental studies Sarah Fox will speak at the Downwinders Remembrance Day event at 6:30 pm on January 20 as a guest of UCAN (Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), and UNAU (United Nations Association of Utah).  

The Remembering Downwinders Day event will be hosted by Congregation Kol Ami at 2425 East Heritage Way, approximately 2760 South. Fox, author of Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West (University of Nebraska Press, 2014, www.downwindhistory.com), will address the history and health and environmental impacts of nuclear testing in Nevada. Songwriter Kate MacLeod will also be featured in this program, along with candle lighting and sharing of stories.

January of 2018 marks the 67th anniversary of the first nuclear test conducted in Nevada; over 900 additional nuclear explosions followed by 1992.  For the first 11 years, the tests took place in the open air; Atomic Energy Commission policy dictated that tests go forward only when the wind blew east, away from Las Vegas and California and out across Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, and states beyond. Massive amounts of toxic radiological pollution entered into the environment, contaminating the air, food, and water that local citizens relied on, and creating a legacy of health problems that ripples forward to the present day. The tests weren’t the only source of radioactive pollution in the West; the uranium industry that sprang up to fuel the bombs contaminated thousands of sites, communities, waterways, and families.  Many of these uranium-affected regions also bore the brunt of contamination from nuclear tests in Nevada. Remembering the downwinders requires that we do more than mark the past: we must reckon with the persistent and dangerous ways this history of contamination impacts us today and looms over our childrens’ futures.

The Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is a collection of concerned citizens who join a growing and diverse group of leaders and fellow citizens from across the political spectrum who believe that now is the time for the United States to lead the world in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. United Nations Association of Utah seeks to heighten public awareness and increase knowledge of global issues and build support for constructive national policies on global concerns.

Fox will speak at the following public events (all are free and open to the public):

Saturday, Jan. 20, 6:30 pm, “Remembering Downwinders” at Congregation Kol Ami, 2425 E. Heritage Way, approximately 2720 South (just south of I-80).   Kate MacLeod will also be featured in this program, along with candle lighting and sharing of stories.

Sunday, January 21, 1:30, “Bearing Witness: Retelling the Past in Pursuit of Social Justice” talk, potluck lunch at 1, St. Marks, Deans Hall, 231 East 100 South.  

Monday, January 22, “Stories from Downwind: Investigating the Nuclear West” talk at 11:00 am at Utah Valley University, Classroom Building room 317.

Monday, January 22, Tea with the Author, Jane’s House, 3:00-5:00 pm. A chance to ask in-depth questions and share stories at length. 444 E 200 S.

Tuesday, January 23, 12:30 pm, “From Personal Narrative to Policy: Downwind Stories Shifting the Status Quo” Pizza and Politics with the Hinckley Institute of Politics, 332 S. 1400 East, Building 72, room 102 (The Old Law College Moot Courtroom).

Tuesday, January 23, 7 pm, “Raising our Voices Downwind: Citizen Narratives as a Force for Nuclear Policy Change.” United Nations Association of Utah, talk at Millcreek Community Center and Library, 2266 E. Evergreen Ave.

 

# # #

If you would like more information about any of these events please contact Deb Sawyer of UCAN at dsawyer@xmission.com or Sarah Fox at 206 930 3921, email at downwindhistory@gmail.com.