Protesters Block Tests of Soil at Ward Valley Dump Site
About 200 protesters from Indian tribes and conservation clubs camped in the desert for a second day Friday to block soil tests at the proposed Ward Valley radioactive waste dump.
The demonstrators said they wouldn’t leave despite a closure order from the Bureau of Land Management, but Friday’s mood was mostly relaxed and upbeat, said Bradley Angel, a spokesman for the Greenaction protest movement.
The state has licensed the dump to accept “low-level” waste from hospitals, laboratories and nuclear plants, to be buried in unlined trenches.
Environmentalists say that contamination might leak and eventually reach the Colorado River, about 20 miles to the east. People of the Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Quechan, Cocopah and the affiliated Colorado River Indian tribes maintain that the project desecrates their homeland.
The federal government, which owns the site, has hesitated to sign it over to the state because of safety concerns. Federal experts now plan to use radioactive tritium to test the soil and say that the encampment must be moved.
Ironically, the protesters’ main adversary, the Wilson administration, also opposes the testing, but for different reasons. Wilson says that the project is safe and the tests are unnecessary foot-dragging by the federal government.
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