The Tainted Desert: Environmental and Social Ruin in the American West

Description

For decades, nuclear testing in America's southwest was shrouded in secrecy, with images gradually made public of mushroom clouds blooming over the desert. Now, another nuclear crisis looms over this region: the storage of tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste. Tainted Desert maps the nuclear landscapes of the US inter-desert southwest, a land sacrificed to the Cold-War arms race and nuclear energy policy. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of Illustrations/Maps Legend of Map Symbols List of Acronyms Preface Acknowledgments ONE: Mapping the Nuclear Landscape 1. Introduction Mapping the Invisible Nuclear Landscape Interlocking Desires: Science, Industry, and the Military 2. Tragedy at the Center of the Universe The Uranium Story Science as a Mechanism of Exclusion The Global Picture 3. Science Cities in the Desert Outdoor Laboratories and Theaters of War Zones of Concentration on the Nuclear Landscape Zone One Zone Two 4. Nuclear Wasteland The Nuclear Legacy Confusion in the Field: Problems with the Nuclear Industry and Its Regulation Nuclear Waste and Indigenous Communities Deep-Geologic Repositories: The Yucca Mountain Project and WIPP Monitored Retrievable Storage Sites Low-Level Nuclear Waste: Ward Valley and the Mojave's Indigenous Peoples The Nuclear Waste Crisis in Context TWO: Power, Representation, and Cultural Politics at Yucca Mountain 5. The View from Yucca Mountain Perspectives and Boundaries Perceptions of Nature and Their Material Consequences Protest at the Margins 6. Cultural Politics Indian Perspectives on Yucca Mountain Cultural Resource Studies Tribal Representation in Cultural Studies Removal of Artifacts, Removal of Presence Different Ways of Knowing 7. The Country of Lost Borders A Historical Sketch 8. Aboriginal Homeland The Cultural Politics of Difference Indian Geography and Mythopoetic Knowledge Inter subjectivity and Ecological Ethos (Re)Assembling Knowledge 9. The Experimental Landscape Intellectual Precursors to the Experiment at Yucca Mountain: Ecology, Energy, and Radiation Managing the System: The Yucca Mountain Project and the Technology of Knowing 10. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index