Tribal Court Case Against Line 3 Pipeline Is First to Invoke “Rights of Nature

Update

Great article.  Giant ponds of radioactive waste are kept here under the loophole of recycling it. The mill gets some uranium out of the waste, and then the mill puts the  tons of leftover waste into toxic ponds, some of which only have a minimal lining. It has weaker laws to follow as it is not a nuclear waste site.  The tribe expects the toxic ponds to leak. The company wants to import 2000 barrels of radioactive waste from Estonia.  The mill uses its political power to get Utah and Federal agencies to allow it to expand and to be allowed to violate health standards,  The mill claims that increases in plumes of underground pollution are caused naturally or by former mill operators. The 290 acres of toxic tailings ponds are next the Ute tribe's land and the uranium mill.  The Ute tribe fears that their drinking water will be contaminated.  This is on the eastern edge of the Bear's Ears national monument.  Please ask Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior,  to protect the tribe, the anir and water, and the wildlife.   Yoland Badback,  a Ute Tribe activist, said,  “I will stand my ground,”  “I will not stop until the day that I get this mill to close and get it cleaned up.”   

Trump and EPA head Pruitt just reversed the protection of Alaska's Bristol Bay salmon rivers. Please write your politicians and letters to the editor to protest this. Pruitt is approving a mine that will produce 10 million tons of mining waste at the headwaters of the watershed. Native-Americans, Alaskans, fishermen, and enviros oppose the Pebble mine.

Link: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/12/trumps-epa-chooses-foreign-mining-interests-over-critical-alaska-watershed

"Bristol Bay is a critical wild salmon fishery, providing 46 percent of the world's supply of wild sockeye salmon, according to the NRDC. Its fishery is worth $1.5 billion a year, and it provides habitat for 29 fish species, 40 terrestrial mammal species, and 190 bird species."

Fusion video on oil and gas pipeline accidents.