By JAMIE VALDEZ
Colorado legislators have introduced House Bill 25-1040, which seeks to classify nuclear power as a clean energy resource even though it requires the extraction and processing of uranium and produces waste that remains dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
The bill has bipartisan support among some state legislators who claim nuclear energy is both safe and clean, while environmental organizations nearly unanimously oppose the bill pointing to the waste and disproportionate harm done especially to the Diné (Navajo people) by the extraction and processing of uranium.
Passage of HB 25-1040 could lead a nuclear plant being built to replace the Comanche plant in Pueblo. The waste, which must be stored onsite where it’s produced, would be a problem we would be handing down to future generations of Puebloans to try and solve. Pueblo deserves better than that and with Xcel Energy agreeing to pay property tax revenues for a full ten-years after the Comanche plant is retired, we’re in a prime position to take our time and make better decisions about our energy future than have been made in the past with regard to public health and the environment.
If passed, this handout to the nuclear industrial complex would divert important funds and resources away from the renewable energy and storage technologies that are already proving they can power our energy future and advancing at a much faster rate than nuclear power. It would also make it much more likely that we would see a dangerous, expensive nuclear power plant in Colorado, most likely in Pueblo.
Pueblo is already one of the most heavily and disproportionately impacted communities in Colorado according to data from the state health department and this would perpetuate that paradigm. Nuclear power produces waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years, uranium must be constantly extracted and processed, and enormous amounts of precious water resources are needed to cool reactors, threatening our delicate river systems. This bill represents an attempt to take advantage of a technicality in the state’s definition of “clean energy”, which only requires that a technology be carbon free and completely overlooks other hazardous types of waste and pollution undermining truly clean technologies like wind, solar, and battery technologies. Nuclear is not clean – full stop.
Pueblo has a poverty rate of 20.6% and a large Latino/a/e and Indigenous population – nearly 50% of the city’s total population – and doesn’t have much political power or influence so it’s no surprise that we’re being targeted. In the words of Hop Hopkins of the Sierra Club, “you can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones, and you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people, and you can’t have disposable people without racism.”
We need to change this paradigm and bring environmental justice to overburdened communities like Pueblo and a nuclear reactor simply is not conducive to that goal, not to mention it’s the most expensive way to generate power and would therefore harm Xcel ratepayers who are mostly in the Denver area.
Pueblo community members worked hard for several years to get Xcel to agree to retire the Comanche unit 3 plant a full 40 years earlier than planned because of disparate health and climate impacts associated with it. We didn’t do all that work just so a costly, dangerous nuclear power plant could be built in its place, heaping more injustice on our already overburdened and underrepresented community. Children living within 5 miles of a nuclear reactor have been found to have higher rates of multiple types of cancers and Pueblo is only 11 miles long. I don’t want my grandkids or their grandkids to have to deal with that and I don’t want them to have to try to figure out how to solve the problem of radioactive waste left behind for them by us. We are the ancestors of our progeny and we need to start acting accordingly.
Many Indigenous American tribes have various versions of the Seventh Generation Principle which says that in all our actions, we must consider the consequences upon the next seven generations and if each generation practiced this, imagine the world we could have. I want that world for my grandkids and their grandkids. I want a world where they and all children can not only live, but thrive.
The bill has passed the state House and is now headed to the Senate. Please contact your Senator, Nick Hinrichsen, or find your Senator at this link, and tell them to oppose this misguided, shortsighted piece of legislation because Pueblo and Colorado deserve better. The Nuclear-Free Colorado coalition has also put together a one-click letter you can personalize and send if it might be helpful. If you represent an organization, please consider signing onto our organizational sign-on letter by filling out the form at this link and feel free to send an email to nuclear-free-pueblo@googlegroups.com if you would like to be added to our mailing list.
