Sub-Series C: Ward Valley, 1981-2001; undated

As notated by Abalone Alliance donors: The Ward Valley Campaign took off after a phone call to the San Francisco statewide Abalone Alliance office (SFO-AA) staff person Roger Herried by retired Needles physicist (founder of the Needles group, People Against Radioactive Dumping) Charles Butler in late July of 1990. Roger had seen in the Federal Register that license approval for the dump was imminent. SFO-AA had been monitoring the issue since 1987, when the SF Examiner did an article on the proposed low-level radioactive waste dump near Needles, but we did not feel empowered to go in as “outside agitators” unless invited. Mr. Butler had been referred to us by UC Berkeley physics professor, Dr. John Gofman. Butler approached Dr. Gofman at a conference Gofman was addressing, to seek his help in stopping the dump. Dr. Gofman had conferred with Roger over the years, and had been a resource to the office from the start, so suggested Butler call us. After a long discussion with Roger, SFO-AA sent out a statewide alert to activists of the impending license approval. Response was strong, and resulted in the first delay of the project, granting a 45 day extension to the public comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. From there the campaign went statewide with dozens of groups (including Greenpeace and many former AA groups) that lasted until 1998 when the five Colorado River Indian Tribes, supported by our coalition, set up an occupation on the land that lasted several weeks.

In 1988, U.S. Ecology chose Ward Valley California as a location to build a new nuclear waste dump. The Bureau of Land Management owned the land, so in order for U.S. Ecology to obtain the rights the government of California needed to buy the land. Located in the Mojave Desert, this land was home to an endangered species of desert tortoise that is sacred to some Native American tribes. Other concerns included health risks due to the close proximity of the proposed dump site to the Colorado River. In 1995, the Colorado River Native Nations Alliance (CRNNA) began protesting the site including creating encampments and holding a Spiritual Vigil at the Federal Building of Los Angeles. Protests, blockades, and occupations of the site would continue into 1998, including an occupation in protest against a Bureau of Land Management eviction notice that lasted 113 days. In 1999, the State of California and U.S. Ecology lost a lawsuit that would have allowed for the sale of the land; and in November 2000 U.S. Ecology's appeal was rejected thus ending the plans to build a Ward Valley dumpsite.

Source: https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/native-american-and-environmentalist-groups-block-nuclear-waste-site-ward-valley-california-