Sacred Land or National Sacrifice Zone: The Role of Values in the Yucca Mountain Participation Process

Abstract

Local participation in environmental decision making is a fundamental tenet of environmental justice. This essay examines the participation process for nuclear waste siting decisions and suggests that the lack of a viable means for discussion of competing values is a flaw in the currently used model of participation. Through analysis of the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site in the USA, I show how the lack of discussion of values occludes participation by marginalized American Indians. In particular, I examine the incommensurability between American Indian nations that value Yucca Mountain as sacred land and the federal government that values Yucca Mountain as a national sacrifice zone. I argue that Yucca Mountain acts as a polysemous value term in the controversy. My findings suggest that an environmentally just model of participation in environmental decision making must include a way to account for incommensurable values and cultural differences. Further, I highlight the lessons we can learn from the Yucca Mountain project as we deliberate about what to do with nuclear waste.

Keywords:

• Polysemy
• Values
• Participation in Environmental Decision Making
• Nuclear Waste
• American Indians
• Environmental Justice

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this paper was presented at and appears in the proceedings from the 11th Biennial Conference on Communication and the Environment held in El Paso, Texas. The author would like to thank Leah Ceccarelli and Barbara Warnick for comments on a very early version of this essay, Stacey Sowards and the reviewers for their invaluable feedback on the essay, and the Tanner Humanities Center and University Research Council at the University of Utah for fellowships that gave me the time to complete this project.

Notes

1. Lidskog and Sundqvist (2004) note that the siting process in Sweden has largely been an exception to this. They argue that the Swedish Nuclear Waste Management Company (SKB) has successfully gained the consent of local populations, in part because of the local population's trust of the government and nuclear technologies.

2. Congress authorized the site after recommendations by the Secretary of Energy and the President.

3. There have been challenges to Obama's policies by members of Congress and nuclear industry people, but none of these challenges have yet materialized restarting the Yucca Mountain project.

4. The DOE filed a motion on March 3, 2010, to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application from consideration by the NRC (DOE, 2010b). Obama's budget requests between 2010 and 2012 have consistently called for reductions to or elimination of funding for the Yucca Mountain project (Murray, 2010; Tetreault, 2011; Wald, 2009). In September 2011, the NRC commissioners ordered the agency to stop assessing the Yucca Mountain license application. This effectively stopped the Yucca Mountain project under the Obama Administration, meaning that a different president could choose to revive the Yucca Mountain project by calling for the NRC to un-table the application (World Nuclear News, 2011).

5. I contend that Yucca Mountain is a concrete value, not an abstract value. Abstract values are general, whereas concrete values are personified or objectified. In this case, Yucca Mountain serves as a concrete value term for the abstract value of land. Those who adhere to them may consider both abstract and concrete values universal. See Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969).

6. The Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and Owens Valley Paiute can be further subdivided into 17 tribes or equivalent organizations (i.e., the Las Vegas Indian Center) in Nevada, California, Utah, and Arizona: Benton Paiute Tribe, Bishop Paiute Tribe, Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley, Fort Independence Paiute Tribe, Lone Pine Paiute/Shoshone Tribe, Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, Yomba Shoshone Tribe, Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, Ely Shoshone Tribe, Pahrump Paiute Tribe, Las Vegas Paiute Indian Colony, Las Vegas Indian Center, Moapa Paiute Tribe, Chemehuevi Paiute Tribe, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Kaibab Paiute Tribe, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Shivwits Paiute Tribe, Cedar City Paiute Tribe, Indian Peaks Paiute Tribe, Kanosh Paiute Tribe, and Koosharem Paiute Tribe (Stoffle, Halmo, Olmsted, & Evans, 1988).

7. Endres (2009c) argues that this logic is flawed because it subsumes Shoshone and Paiutes within the national interest instead of recognizing that Shoshone and Paiute nations have their own national interest to protect.

8. Though there is little pre-1859 archaeological data on the various tribal groups, there are data to suggest that there have been dwellers in the Great Basin for over 12,000 years (Pritzker, 2000).

9. This generalization is warranted because there are similarities in spiritual beliefs that span across American Indian cultures. Yet, even when generalizing, it is crucial to recognize that there are over 500 distinct American Indian nations in the USA, each with their own cultural and spiritual practice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Danielle Endres

Danielle Endres is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Faculty in the Environmental Humanities MA Program at the University of Utah