By Monica Reilly

The Yucca Mountain has, for centuries, been a home and a sacred space to the Shoshone and Paiute peoples. So when there were plans in 2004 to turn the mountain into a nuclear waste dump, people fought back: first the Shoshone and Paiute peoples themselves, followed by environmentalists, and finally the government of Nevada. These collective protests seemed to prove successful; plans to store nuclear waste in containers buried underneath the mountain were largely abandoned, and the whole affair was lauded as an example of the government listening to the voices of the people. However, at a 2024 House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Energy hearing, Republican leaders pitched restarting work at the plant in Nevada, meaning that the people living on and around the Yucca Mountain have been put at risk once more.

Global powers like the US have a history of offloading the ecological impacts of nuclear weapons and waste onto marginalized communities and less-developed countries. Nuclear waste containers are notorious for leaking, leading to groundwater contamination and nearby plants, animals, and humans absorbing dangerous toxins like plutonium. These are resulting from small leakages, and it has been known for decades that if enough nuclear waste is leaked from its container, the nearby area will become completely inhabitable. This trend can be traced as far back as the original nuclear weapons tests, otherwise known as the Manhattan Project. These tests took place near the Moapa reservation in Nevada, with only a few mountains separating the two locations, thus endangering indigenous communities. The US is not the only country to commit an act such as this, as evidenced by similar actions in the Soviet Union. The infamous Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), for example, was an extremely tense point in the Cold War, resulting from the Soviet Union placing nuclear missile launch pads on Cuba, thus making America even more vulnerable to an attack. The Soviet Union used Cuba’s fear of a full-blown invasion by the US—especially following the Bay of Pigs Invasion—in order to return to an even nuclear playing field with the US. Both of these global powers were largely concerned with maintaining equal power in the nuclear arms race, and the potential environmental destruction that Cuba could undergo was largely ignored. The relationship between the Soviet Union, Cuba, and nuclear reactors, can be seen in the Juragua project. Originally projected to be a major success for Cuba’s economy, the nuclear reactor site was eventually deemed too dangerous to ever actually run. Juragua has even been described as a potential Cuban Chernobyl, as any serious incident at the plant would utterly strip the nearby area of all life. The 18-mile radius around the project would be a dead-zone, or somewhere where absolutely nothing could live. Additionally, food production would be impossible in a 200-mile radius and harmful nuclear waste could be carried as far as 900-miles outside of Juragua. More recent attempts in Cuba to become a nuclear powerhouse in order to reduce its reliance on oil have failed similarly, and Juragua continues to stand, unfinished, to this day.

In a desperate attempt to preserve their environments, some countries have even attempted legal action to defend themselves against nuclear waste disposal. One such example is the 2001 International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) court case, in which Ireland filed a claim against the UK, requesting that the ITLOS place provisional measures onto the country. Ireland claimed that the UK was polluting the Irish Sea by transporting nuclear waste through it, as well as opening a Mox fuel processing plant that was allegedly discharging nuclear material into Ireland’s marine environment. It was ruled that Ireland had failed to properly show that the defendant had actually been causing the alleged damage to the marine environment, and no provisions were placed upon the UK. Japan, France, and the UK have also all been guilty of transporting nuclear waste through the Caribbean states, mainly Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, which puts said states in a very vulnerable position. This nuclear waste can cause water contamination and damage the marine life which Caribbean states have come to rely on for their economy. Attempts to take legal action are almost always unsuccessful, though as intergovernmental organizations like the Central American Water Tribunal are powerless in enforcing their verdicts on great powers they so often prosecute.

Nuclear disarmament and nuclear waste are not just matters of politics. If not disposed of or constructed thoughtfully and carefully, millions of people, plants, and animals could die. Less dramatic impacts are the slow infiltration of radioactive matter into water, soil, and eventually food production, inflicting largely marginalized communities like the Moapa tribe in Nevada with severe health impacts like cancer. The current state of nuclear waste storage operates on the infamous Athenian dictum: “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” But this is not Ancient Greece, and global powers should not be exploiting vulnerable nations and communities just because they can or because it is the easiest option. Our world is supposed to be governed by laws, and ideally no one nation can violate the sovereignty or health of another nation or marginalized community. Nuclear power may not be wholly destructive, but a nation abusing its power most certainly is.

This piece is a reproduction from its original issue in Hemispheres Volume 48 Issue 1. Read more here.