Section VII: Implications Beyond High-Level Waste Disposal

The abandonment of explicit groundwater protection, if adopted by the EPA for its Yucca Mountain standard, would set a dangerous precedent. Industry will likely begin to clamor for its extension to all radioactive waste disposal and to cleanup standards for the nuclear weapons complex and other contaminated areas. That could mean the abandonment of clean water standards for vast sections of the country. In the current anti-regulatory climate, it is not at all out of the question that the approach may be extended to cover all toxic materials.

To treat groundwater, and by implication all other water, as if it is not a common resource for humanity is a sad abandonment of basic principles of ecology and of environmental protection. Any extension of such a philosophy would negate a central ecological presumption of radiation protection: that all other forms of life would be protected if human health is protected. While one may assume technology will save humanity if we all earn our living as casino operators and defense workers, other living beings do not have the same options.

It is relevant to note here that Yucca Mountain is claimed by the Western Shoshone people as their land. The NAS committee chose to entirely ignore not only their claims, but also their customs and their idea of what is to be protected. The recommendation of the NAS committee, which ignores groundwater protection as an explicit goal, along with the majority's probabilistic critical group method could provide the first step along a disastrous road to the abandonment of protection of other living beings.

Here is how Corbin Harney, an elder and spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone people, sees life and environmental protection on that same land:

"We've been taught this from the beginning of our lives: take care of this land and everything that's on it; take care of it well in order to bring good to all the plant life and all the things that are here. We have to take care of them all." (13)

• Return to beginning of article.
  

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Comments to Outreach Coordinator, Pat Ortmeyer: ieer@ieer.org
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA

Revised March 21, 1996