One Utah

Testimony before the Divine Strake hearings at the Utah State Capitol Jan 24, 2007

If you were to awake tomorrow, with no previous knowledge of the event, to learn that someone had detonated 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil directly under an area of the West where tons of radioactive debris still scars the ground from 928 previous nuclear tests, throwing tons of radioactive debris into the atmosphere, in a 10,000 foot mushroom cloud, you would assume that we had been struck by terrorists. You would be right. The radioactive debris above this huge detonation in our own heartland will contaminate our air, our water, our land, and our food. Who but an enemy would do this? If this benighted administration insists upon committing an act of war upon the West, then at least Mr. Bush should ask Congress to declare war upon us, thus giving us fair warning of his intent.

This self-destructive explosion is designed to produce another generation of nuclear weapons. How can we do this when we already possess more nuclear weapons than all other nations combined? And at the same time demand that North Korea and Iran halt their nuclear program? Just how effectively can the town drunk call upon his community to go on the wagon? And in the process of testing further weapons we radiate our downwind communities, from St. George to Salt Lake City and thousands of miles eastward? We should be using the bully pulpit of government to rid ourselves and other nuclear weapon-states from the weapons we have, and not to build even more rubble bouncers. Instead, we encourage other nations to test and deploy nuclear weapons by our own example.

After the military test these weapons , we’ve faced in the West the attempts of our own government to deploy such weapons in our backyards. And then when these monster nuclear weapons are finally decommissioned, the government wants to bury their radioactive core right here in the West. So EnergySolutions (Envirocare by whatever name) can continue to make a million dollars a day for contaminating once again our land, our water, our air, and our food supply. Test, contaminate; deploy, decommission, bury, and contaminate once again. One eternal round. For the half-life of radioactive weapons goes on forever.

In democratic government we have the right and the power to change our mind and change our direction. We must stop our march toward the spread of nuclear weapons. Every weapons system ever developed has been eventually used. Let us stop this degradation of our environment and at the same time stop the relentless progression of nuclear weapons. If we reverse our course on nuclear weapons, we have the power of example and the integrity to encourage other states not to develop such weaponry.

We are encouraged to denounce war and proclaim peace. The defeat of Divine Strake is a good place to begin. Thank you.

Ed Firmage
Utah Capitol
West Building, room 135
January 24, 2007

This entry was posted Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 11:59 am and is filed under Divine Strake, Ed Firmage, National Politics, Utah Politics, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.