Yucca_Mountain

Yucca Mountain History For more than two decades, the Shoshone tribe, scientists, environmentalists, the federal government, Nevada citizens and politicians have wrestled over the fate of Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is located within the Western Shoshone Nation and has long been a place of powerful spiritual energy for the Shoshone tribe. The water in the area is also sacred, as it is with many desert peoples. Yucca Mountain, and the surrounding area, was never actually deemed government land. According to the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty that the Shoshone signed with the U.S. government, most of the area now used by the U.S. military for nuclear weapons testing and the proposed waste storage site was recognized as Shoshone land. However, the Shoshone are unable to control what happens on their ancestral land. Instead, legislators continue to try to persuade the Shoshone to accept financial compensation for their land, which most view as a way to overshadow native title and prohibit future land claims. In the late 1970s government scientists began to study Yucca Mountain as a possible repository for nuclear waste, and since 1987 it has been the only site considered for 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste. 98% of yucca, mountain, waste, nuclear, water, shoshone, years, repository, radioactive, been, tons, over, land, government, energy, bush, site, dump, country, , states, scientists, power, plants, plan, lot, long, federal, area, already, about, votes, very, until, tribe, time