24. The Spirit of Resistance: Uranium Mining and Nuclear in New Mexico

Petuuche Gilbert is an environmental and human rights activist as well as a member of the Multicultural Alliance for Safe Environment and President of the Indigenous World Association, a United Nations NGO. He lives in the Grants Mining District in New Mexico and has been working on nuclear and mining issues for 30+ years. New Mexico has no nuclear power plants, but it does have the nation's second-largest uranium resource equal to nearly one-third of U.S. known uranium reserves. We talk about uranium mining which is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. And uranium from mining is used almost entirely as fuel for nuclear power plants. The Grants Mining District, where Petuuche lives, it was the primary focus of uranium extraction and production activities in New Mexico from the 1950s until the late 1990s. Nuclear is responsible for infusing about $3 billion a year into New Mexico’s economy, Los Alamos National Laboratory is being held up by lab officials, politicians and others as an example of the kind of high-tech economic drivers. With Petuuche we talk about the Grants Mining District, nuclear activity and funding in New Mexico, what he and others have done to fight against, and what his hope for the future is.  Contact and connect with Petuuche: [email protected] or [email protected] Grants Mining District: https://www.epa.gov/grants-mining-district https://www.env.nm.gov/gwqb/grants-mining-district/ Trinity Nuclear Testing: https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/trinity-test-1945 https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/trinity-test Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP): https://www.wipp.energy.gov/ New Mexico’s income from nuclear: https://apnews.com/b39a6e39d88441099ed2f99017f9fa4a https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/709600915/new-mexico-is-divided-over-the-perfect-site-to-store-nation-s-nuclear-waste https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/region-state/newmexico.html https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NM Background Music Credits: https://www.youtube.com/c/mbbmusic https://soundcloud.com/mbbofficial https://www.instagram.com/mbb_music