Karl Grossman, a professor in the Media and Communications program within the American Studies Department at SUNY College at Old Westbury, delivered a presentation recently at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico concerning Native Americans and the nuclear fuel cycle. A noted environmental journalist, he spoke about the dangers of nuclear technology, such as the mining and milling of uranium, fuel production, and disposal of radioactive wastes.
“Native Americans—and indigenous people from around the world—have been especially hard-hit by uranium mining and other aspects of the so-called nuclear fuel cycle,” he declared. He cited widespread lung cancer in the neighboring Navajo Nation, long a center for uranium mining. As a result, the Navajo Nation has recently banned on further uranium mining, but the U.S. government and the nuclear industry, he noted, is attempting to challenge that and reopen some of the 1,200 mines on the Navajo Nation. Native Americans are also being targeted for the “last stage” of the nuclear fuel cycle, “somehow safeguarding nuclear waste endlessly,” said Grossman, with the U.S. government and nuclear industry trying to arrange to use Indian reservations as nuclear waste dumps.
During the same trip west, Grossman participated in the Indigenous World Uranium Summit held at the capital of the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Arizona. In addition to Navajos and other Native Americans impacted by nuclear technology, others at the summit included indigenous people from India, Brazil, Australia, Canada and a representative of uranium miners from Tibet. As part of the summit, the 2006 Nuclear-Free Future Awards ceremony was held. Grossman is a judge of the Nuclear Free Future Awards and last year was part of their presentation at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. The award is given to individuals from around the world who dedicate themselves to ending the proliferation of nuclear power.
“Although Native Americans have been and are major victims of the nuclear fuel cycle,” said Professor Grossman at the Institute of American Indian Arts, “the assault on indigenous people by nuclear technology is far-reaching, on a global scale.” Grossman has long specialized in issues of nuclear technology. Among the books he has authored are “Cover up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know about Nuclear Power,” “Power Crazy,” and “The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet.” He has also written and narrated television documentaries, which include the award-winning “Three Mile Island Revisited,” “The Push to Revive Nuclear Power,” and “Nukes in Space.” Grossman hosts the nationally broadcast TV program "Enviro Close-Up," and has received numerous journalism awards for his work, including the George Polk Award.
(Submitted by John Butler, Office of Public and Media Relations)
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