Western Shoshones in Nevada and Navajos in Utah are worried about the Pentagon's plan to blow up more than 700 tons of explosives at the Nevada Test Site.

Western Shoshone activists oppose the blast. They say the federal government shouldn't use treaty lands for military testing.

Navajos in Utah represented by Rep. Jim Matheson (D) are concerned about potential safety and health risks. Matheson wrote the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in hopes of resolving some outstanding questions.

The blast is not nuclear in nature but Western Shoshones, Navajos and other tribes in the southwest remember the radioactive mushroom clouds from nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s and 1960s

Get the Story:
Native Americans Want 'Bunker Buster' Test Stopped (OneWorld US 4/11)
Concerns over blast mushroom (The Gallup Independent 4/11)

Relevant Links:
Western Shoshone Defense Project - http://www.wsdp.org
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/cerd.htm

Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act:
Bill Report | H.R.884 | S.618

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