Letter to the editor:
Published in the Mille Lacs Messenger
September 10, 2003

Nuclear waste

Grace Thorpe is a leading organizer against nuclear waste dumping on Indian lands. She is the president of the National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans and sits on the board of directors of the Nuclear Information and Research Service. Thanks to her efforts, 20 nuclear-free zones have been established on reservations, and 14 of the 17 tribes who had sought nuclear waste zoning have withdrawn their applications. Thope, also a Sac and Fox tribal court judge, is the daughter of legendary Olympic champion athlete Jim Thorpe. She led the campaign for the return of his 1912 Olympic medals and to declare her father "American Athlete of the Century".

On Aug. 22, I sent an email to Thorpe informing her I am spearheading a national movement to change the derogatory name of the Rum River. I am also in the process of establishing an environmental movement. It is on my environmental agenda to help shut down nuclear power plants on Indian reservations. I wrote that I could use her support behind my geographic name change initiative. My name-change and environmental movement Web site is www.towahkon.org. An article of mine there, titled "Moral standards," addresses this nuclear issue.

On Aug. 25, I received this response: "Hi Tom; OK to use my organization's name. National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans, as a supporter. Good Luck... Grace Thorpe."

While reading some material about both nuclear power plants and nuclear waste dumps on Indian land, I came across some interesting information. For instance, did you know that;
1) "Tribal sovereignty can be used to bypass state environmental laws;"
2) After centuries attempting to destroy American Indian sovereignty, the U.S. government is suddenly interested in promoting it just so it can dump its lethal garbage on Indian land;
3) A New Mexico tribal leader said, "If the public does not want a tribe to store the (nuclear) waste, it should put pressure on lawmakers to put a halt to the expansion of gaming off reservations."

The greed for casino gambling money is influencing tribes to legally blackmail state governments to halt bills that would expand gambling to the detriment of their casino gambling interest by threatening to have nuclear waste put on their tribal land.

By Thomas Dahlheimer, Wahkon