Snake River Alliance

The Snake River Alliance is a strong grassroots network of individuals and families. For 36 years, we've fought to protect Idaho's beautiful high desert and priceless Snake River Plain aquifer from nuclear contamination. We've represented concerned citizens at the Statehouse and in Congress and we've demanded the safe handling of nuclear waste at hundreds of meetings and hearings. We've supported clean, renewable energy since our founding in 1979, and we've involved hundreds of Idahoans in clean energy activism at Idaho Power and the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. Nuclear contamination is being reduced, nuclear waste is being shipped out of Idaho not brought in, nuclear weapons production plants have been nixed and coal-fired power plants are being closed because of the Snake River Alliance. The Snake River Alliance was founded in 1979, soon after the Three-Mile Island accident, by a handful of people who had just learned the Idaho National Laboratory routinely injected hazardous and radioactive waste into the Snake River Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for a quarter of a million people. The first focus of our efforts was to build public pressure to stop this irresponsible practice, and the “injection well” at INL was in fact in capped in 1989. From our founding, the Alliance has been actively and absolutely opposed to nuclear weapons, and we threatened litigation early on to stop construction of the first New Production Reactor, a weapons material production reactor, at INL. We educated Idahoans throughout the 1980s on weapons issues through our Hazardous Materials Transport Project, steady publication of our research findings, and educational events such as our Peaceful Priorities conference, which featured activists such as Helen Caldicott, and Swimming Upstream to Protect Communities Downstream celebrating our 25th anniversary. In 1984 we began a 2-year project, Children in the Nuclear Shadow, to bring attention to children's fears about nuclear war. Between 1987 and 1990, the Alliance focused on blocking construction of the Special Isotope Separator, which would have produced weapons-grade plutonium. We worked with a broad range of public interest groups and state regulators to achieve passage in 1992 of the Federal Facilities Compliance Act, which forced the Department of Energy to obey our country's core hazardous waste law. In 1992, the majority of Idahoans, with our leadership, blocked construction of a second New Production Reactor and the revamping of the nuclear weapons complex. Our Stop the Shipments campaign in the early 1990s trained public attention on nuclear navy waste coming to Idaho, which ultimately led to reduced shipments. Ever since INL was named a Superfund site in 1989, the Alliance has been the most active advocate of cleanup there. We analyze cleanup plans, helped prepare the first non-governmental study of the nuclear threats to the Snake River Aquifer as well as other reports, and publicize environmental problems through aggressive outreach and education, having presented our Idaho's Water at Risk presentation to a broad range of audiences. We have long been recognized nationally as one of he sharpest critics of reprocessing, the must-take step between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb, and were plaintiffs in an effort to force thorough cleanup of the high-level waste reprocessing produces. In 1999 we helped lead the Back from the Brink national campaign to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. In 2001 we helped stop the construction of a plutonium incinerator at INL. All our work is informed by cooperation with other groups working on similar issues, and in 1987 we helped found the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, which brings together people from across the country who live in the shadow of the nuclear weapons complex. We have traveled to Washington, DC, each year for the past two decades to discuss our concerns. We help sustain and invigorate Idaho's progressive community through an array of events such as concerts with the likes of Jackson Browne, Carole King, and Steve Miller, rallies and demonstrations, community dinners, public workshops, and celebrations such as Give Peace and Dance and the Peace Fair. Since 1979 the Alliance has worked to protect Idaho's people, environment, and economy from nuclear weapons and waste at the Idaho National Laboratory. Today we are one of Idaho's strongest advocates for clean and renewable energy, leading the charge for the development of a sustainable energy plan for Idaho and providing leadership and coordination amongst our allies.