"The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.
"Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.
"#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.
"Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.
"Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.
"More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.
"In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.
"'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.
"The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.
"'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.
"'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.
"Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.
"Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.
"#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas. #Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."
After several legal hurdles, the Apache Stronghold will file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court in a final effort to protect the sacred land of Oak Flat
"For nearly a decade, Apache Stronghold has been fighting in federal court to preserve the heart of their spiritual practices: Chi’chil Biłdagoteel (Oak Flat). The equivalent of Notre Dame or the Temple on the Mount, Oak Flat is a sacred site threatened with destruction by the bottomless hunger of #capitalism in the guise of #ResolutionCopper, which promises to turn the vaulted arches of #oak and #juniper into a two-mile sinkhole.
"On 14 May 2024, Apache Stronghold’s tireless march for justice via the legal system turned on to the final approach, when the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to re-hear the en banc arguments before the entire bench of 29 judges. The next and final stage will be filing an appeal before the United States Supreme Court later this summer.
"CPT stands with Apache Stronghold and the next leg in this quest to make the United States recognize the truth: that Oak Flat is #SacredLand. As sacred land, Oak Flat is part of the delicate and resilient web of relationships between soil and stone, water and wind that make this biosphere a home for all our relations. For all our sakes, Oak Flat must be protected.
"Please continue your support for and solidarity with Apache Stronghold through prayer, and action including signing this petition [link below] and organizing groups to sign amicus briefs committing to support Oak Flat and all sacred sites.
"CPT has been accompanying Apache Stronghold since May 2023 in prayer and action to protect Oak Flat.
"Oak Flat is under threat from the mining corporation Resolution Copper (a wholly owned subsidiary of #RioTinto and #BHP). In 2014, legislation in the United States Congress laid out a plan for a land transfer to give the area to Resolution Copper. While the legislation requires an Environmental Impact Statement before the land transfer, it allows Resolution Copper to do whatever it wants and exempts them from environmental regulation.
Resolution Copper plans an underground mining technique (“block cave”) that would turn this sacred site into a two-mile wide 1,000-foot crater and destroy it. Even though the land transfer has not yet taken place, Resolution Copper has already begun '#dewatering' which removes the #groundwater from shafts they drilled into the earth from property they already own. This endangers #OakTrees and other plants that depend on groundwater to survive."