PO Box 420, Tecopa CA 92389
760.852.4151 fax 775.587.0766
web@h-o-m-e.org
www.h-o-m-e.org
The Yucca Mountain Legacy Project
Phase I: Groundwater Contaminant Baseline Data for the Yucca Mountain Region
May 2006
Report prepared for HþME by: Jennifer Olaranna Viereck, Ex. Director; John Hadder, Project Chemist; George Rice, Project Hydrologist
About HþME:
Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth
HþME is a nonprofit organization formed in 2000. HþME’s goal is to make radiation and health information accessible and understandable to everyone, especially in impacted rural communities. We explore the links and cumulative exposures that connect communities of uranium miners, downwinders, downstreamers, Atomic Veterans, and DOE workers to the latest stakeholders: communities near proposed or existing nuclear waste facilities. We review all aspects of federal nuclear policy in the context of environmental justice and the United States’ legal obligations through treaties with other nations abroad, and with Native Nations among us.
HþME uses an extensive website (www.h-o-m-e.org) and a 30 foot mobile teaching vehicle. HþME is the only organization focusing extensively on the impacts Yucca Mountain will have on California, only 17 miles downstream. In 2002, HþME and the San Luis Obispo Grandmothers for Peace brought together members of communities with nuclear reactors and proposed nuclear dump communities/tribes for a three day Peoples’ Nuclear Waste Forum. The purpose was to identify common goals and agreements regarding sound and safe nuclear policy in the United States, while initiating a dialogue about concerns that needed further exploration. Collaborative work resulted in the fifteen point Peoples’ Nuclear Waste Policy.
About the Authors
Jennifer Olaranna Viereck is the Executive Director of HþME, and has been working on Yucca Mountain issues since 1988, in support of Western Shoshone concerns about sovereignty, resource preservation, treaty rights and impacts on health and habitat. She is currently a local resident of the Yucca Mountain bioregion and watershed.
John Hadder is the President of the Board of Directors for HþME, and has been employed by Citizen Alert since 1997 as the resident expert on the Yucca Mt. Repository and other nuclear concerns in the state of Nevada. He has a Masters of Science degree in Physical Chemistry, and also teaches at Truckee Meadows Community College.
George Rice is a groundwater hydrologist specializing in contaminant fate and transport. As a consultant to the Southwest Research Institute he participated in the evaluation of Yucca Mountain’s suitability as a nuclear waste repository. Mr. Rice has a M.S. in Hydrology from the University of Arizona.
We greatly appreciate the patience, generosity and resourcefulness of the many people and agencies who shared data and publications, ideas and equipment with us to make this project possible. Special thanks are due to the Amargosa Valley well owners, especially Mel Bauer and Shelley Kadrmas, without whom this study would not exist. Thanks are also due to Vernon Brechin, Jacob Paz, Genne Nelson, Tom Buqo, Citizen Alert, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, the Nye County NV Early Warning Drilling Program staff, the Inyo County CA Yucca Mountain staff and Hydrodynamics Group, the Desert Research Institute, and to George English.Fiscal Sponsor for Project provided by Hummingbird Family Resources, Inc., Tecopa CA
This project was supported by a grant from the Citizen’s Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund.