A PERFECT PLACE FOR A WASTE DUMP
Barry Siegel’s article on the Texas radioactive waste dump struggle was excellent (“A Perfect Place for a Waste Dump,” Dec. 22). The same attention needs to be drawn to the Ward Valley nuclear dump, next to Needles and just 15 miles from the Colorado River, that is slated to receive plutonium and uranium.
Cerrell Associates’ cynical formula for the targeting of a poor, rural community, well-described by Siegel, was used at Ward Valley. But what the formula didn’t factor in is the presence of desert tortoises, an endangered species, and petroglyphs near the site, and the fact that the proposed dump is on land sacred to the Indians on the Chemehuevi Valley, Ft. Mojave and Colorado River reservations.
LAURA LAKE
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
UCLA
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