This podcast is Half 3 of a five-part sequence. Hearken to Half 1 here and Half 2 here. The podcast sequence is part of “The New Nuclear Age,” a particular report on a $1.5-trillion effort to remake the American nuclear arsenal.
[CLIP: Audio from Association of Air Force Missileers video: “After over 50 years of incredible service, the Minuteman III will be replaced and modernized with a new generation ICBM. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent Systems Directorate team will deploy 400 new missiles, update 450 silos and modernize more than 600 facilities across almost 40,000 square miles of U.S. territory. This undertaking is a true megaproject that will require radical teamwork, disciplined execution and historic resolve.”]
[CLIP: Music]
Ella Weber: This true megaproject is now known as the Sentinel missile program. It’s the Air Pressure’s most bold navy development and weapons mission in many years.
Weber: The brand new weapon is one a part of a plan that was began underneath former President Barack Obama. It was accelerated by the Trump administration to switch and improve all the U.S. nuclear arsenal — at a projected price of upward of $1.5 trillion over the subsequent 30 years.
It’s a mission that may perpetuate, till at the very least 2075, the little-known position that my tribe—the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota—performs in U.S. Nationwide Safety coverage: to be a nuclear goal.
You’re listening to Scientific American’s podcast sequence The Missiles on Our Rez. I’m Ella Weber, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, a Princeton scholar, and a journalist.
That is Episode 3: “The Air Force’s New Nuclear Missile.”
On this episode, we’ll be speaking about how the Air Pressure got here to our reservation to current its new missile mission to the tribe, and the way this matches into the broader patterns which have characterised our historic relationship with the U.S. authorities.
[CLIP: Air Force environmental impact statement video: “The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, is a federal law that requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision-making process. NEPA review is required when a federal action is proposed that may have impacts on the human or natural environment. NEPA includes requirements for involvement of the public and government entities and, in the case of this project, 62 Native American Tribes.”]
Weber: Beneath the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act, the U.S. Air Pressure is required to supply an environmental impression assertion. On this case, it’s to “analyze the potential effects on the human and natural environments from deployment of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system.” Additionally, it’s to “provide the public and other stakeholders an opportunity to comment on the action and associated analyses, and to consider all alternatives.”
[CLIP: MHA Nation honor song]
Weber: The Fort Berthold reservation was the primary place picked by the Air Pressure to current this report at a public listening to and acquire public feedback on the file. This was a possibility for the Air Pressure to attach with the MHA Nation and to clarify the navy department’s plans and what they meant for the reservation.
Sadly, this isn’t precisely what occurred.
Logan Davis: That public listening to? Meaningless. You recognize why it’s meaningless? As a result of no one was actually knowledgeable, no one was capable of give the testimony they needed to do, and no one had a transparent image as a result of no one was ready. I actually wasn’t ready.
Weber: Logan Davis is a contract journalist, a military veteran and an elder of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa of North Dakota. He’s been reporting on the MHA Nation for a long time and occurred to be on the reservation that day. He realized concerning the EIS assembly by likelihood.
[CLIP: Music]
Davis: I used to be consuming, speaking, visiting, and I noticed this policeman that’s a good friend of mine. He’s like, “Hey Logan, you going to that environmental impact study meeting?” I used to be like, “What?” I’m a journalist, and no one instructed me. I didn’t find out about it till this cop known as me.
So no one knew about it. So I used to be calling individuals, “Hey, you gotta get over here; you gotta testify,” you already know?
Weber: Davis’s wrestle to search out the place the assembly was going down was complicated. The Air Pressure had marketed for weeks in native newspapers and on the radio that the assembly would happen on the New City Powwow grounds. However for some purpose, the placement of the assembly was modified final minute—to the 4 Bears On line casino.
Davis: The cop was there. I sat with him. And I mentioned, “Are you going to testify?” “Oh, I don’t know,” he goes. “If somebody else does.” And I simply seemed round, and there’s simply only a few individuals from this neighborhood. It was largely Air Pressure individuals. No person instructed any of the journalists or any information individual. It was so extremely secretive. And that bothers me.
So that they did this entire video factor [on] how nice it’s going to be, blah, blah, blah, jobs, and it was identical to, okay, you guys usually are not telling the reality.
Weber: In case you’re questioning, the video that’s being talked about is the one which we performed firstly of this episode. It’s concerning the environmental impression assertion of the Sentinel Program.
Davis: They by no means talked about battle. They didn’t speak about jobs. They talked about the way it’s going to learn the neighborhood, for probably the most half.
My forte is journalism—and I began asking questions and so they took the final out of the assembly, out of the constructing, out of the realm of testimony. They left! After which we’re, they mentioned we’re going to have an intermission.
Once we come again, they had been beginning the general public testimony. However the place the hell is the chairman, the place the hell is the foremost normal? They need to be right here listening to the general public testimony.
Weber: Because it turned out, Davis was the one one who had stuffed the sign-in sheet on the assembly entrance. And he was known as up first.
Davis: I’ve at all times felt nervous about being in North Dakota as a result of there’s so many nuclear missiles right here.
I testified that I do know there’s at all times an opportunity for incidents and accidents and nuclear accidents. They’re not all going to be like Chernobyl, nevertheless it could possibly be. And once you’re messing with warheads, you already know, you need to be, you already know, so exact, and, you already know, there’s a course of and process and security.
Weber: So Logan’s a reporter. However he was additionally stationed in Germany within the 1970s, when the nation had short-range nuclear missiles, so he has some prior data on this space.
Davis: I’m not probably the most smartest, probably the most educated, about nuclear missiles. I do know sufficient that it’s a harmful occupation. I imply, any sort of quantity of radiation publicity can kill you or damage you—reduce your well being.
Weber: Another person spoke up, too.
Jerry Ruth Birds Invoice Ford: Jerry Ruth Birds Invoice Ford. My mom is a Cherokee from Oklahoma, from Claremore, Oklahoma. And my dad is Lawrence Birds Invoice, from right here. He’s Mandan and Hidatsa.
Weber: Jerry was one of many two girls that testified that day after Logan spoke up. She’s married to a retired Air Pressure colonel. Her daughter’s within the Air Pressure, too. I requested what introduced her to testify that day.
Birds Invoice Ford: Nicely, they requested me if there was a detailed working relationship between the tribe and the, and the USA Air Pressure. And I inform them no, there wasn’t one in any respect, that everybody right here knew that there have been silos on the reservation, however there was simply, like, little-to-no communication between the Air Pressure and the tribe.
Weber: If you happen to listened to the previous episode, you’ll know that there are 15 nuclear missile silos on the reservation itself. However Jerry didn’t know there have been that many.
Birds Invoice Ford: There are 15? I couldn’t bear in mind. All on the reservation? Or…okay…wow. I didn’t know that.
Weber: Throughout her testimony, Jerry urged that the Air Pressure develop a everlasting partnership with the Tribal Council itself and the representatives of a better stage.
Even though the Air Pressure modified the placement of the particular assembly with the tribe so near the occasion that the chairman and veterans went to the flawed location, Major General Michael Lutton, commander of the twentieth Air Pressure, got here on the reservation to speak about how grateful he was to the tribe for displaying up.
[CLIP: Major General Michael Lutton speaking at visit to the MHA Nation: “And when you combine knowledge and time, you have wisdom. And we’re so thankful for your time and the time of the people here, and we look forward to cooperation as we share a common goal to defend our nation and our land. Thank you so much.”]
Weber: In an e-mailed assertion in response to this reporting, the Air Pressure mentioned, “The Nationwide Climate Service issued a extreme climate storm wind advisory alert for Northwest and North Central North Dakota for July 18, and 19, 2022. MHA Management, Veterans Teams, Tribal Regulation Enforcement, safety and facility safety administrators consulted with one another.
The choice was made for the safety of human well being, security and cultural assets that the listening to be moved to the deliberate again up, indoor venue, 4 Bears On line casino and Lodge.”
Although there was one extreme climate alert for these dates, on the day of the listening to on July 19, 2022, it was sunny by 4:15 P.M. native time, previous to the assembly’s begin at 5:30 P.M.
I requested Logan if, throughout its 30-minute PowerPoint presentation, the Air Pressure had mentioned the position of the silos in U.S. nuclear technique, the rationale behind the modernization program and the dangers which might be concerned for the tribe, if nuclear battle or accidents had been to happen.
Davis: The one factor they talked about is that they had been going to verify the whole lot was protected. We now have to take it as a right and, and depend on that phrase of the navy and the politicians.
Weber: Throughout Main Basic Lutton’s go to to the tribe, he exchanged presents with the MHA Nation’s chairman, Mark Fox.
Six months later, Fox signed a programmatic agreement with the Air Pressure. The agreement streamlines the exchange of historically and culturally relevant information of sites that could be impacted by the missile modernization program, which is able to embrace deploying Sentinel and quote “decommissioning and disposing of the Minuteman III ICBM system.”
In its e-mailed assertion, the Air Pressure mentioned that, quote, “the radiological effects of a strategic nuclear attack on the continental United States are beyond the scope of this Environmental Impact Statement.”
Mark Fox, the MHA Nation’s chairman, didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
MHA was one in every of two tribal nations to signal this settlement out of 63.
Davis: Did we actually want that Minuteman change? Do they actually? I imply, it’s not going to essentially deter any greater than they have already got.
Nothing will change as a result of nothing is basically—we don’t know if it’s going to have an effect on us besides if there’s an accident.
[CLIP: Music]
We’re speculated to be protecting of the land. You see, the system has modified us—modified the final couple generations to not respect the land like we’re speculated to. Our ancestral teachings as Native People train us to respect, honor Mom Earth, to not put toxics, crap in her.
Weber: This was lots to soak up. I requested Logan what made him converse up so freely in the present day, particularly contemplating the truth that he’s been anxious about retribution previously.
Davis: I’m attempting to guard the surroundings and my grandchildren’s future. And my little granddaughter, she’s born in the present day. I wish to come right into a world that’s protected and safe and doesn’t must have the desires and nightmares I did once I was a bit of boy anxious about nuclear battle.
Weber: To higher perceive who within the tribal authorities had been consulted concerning the environmental impression assertion, I met Edmund Baker, environmental director of the reservation, who’s liable for implementing the Three Affiliated Tribes’ environmental safety code. You may acknowledge him from the earlier episode. I instructed him concerning the EIS listening to.
Weber (tape): I assume they mentioned, like, it was like a city corridor, community-type assembly. However …
Edmund Baker: Actually?
Weber (tape): Yeah.
Baker: Nicely, you perceive that [on] the reservation, there’s form of the official launch of data, both in a newspaper or perhaps on the radio. Besides I haven’t heard the fellows within the workplace mentioning something like this.
I am a bit of shocked that—I don’t know what they consider this workplace. Possibly within the scheme of issues, with all of the initiatives happening—and this can be a busy council—that when you’re going to take care of things like government-to-government relations and a re-signing or an extension or an settlement to maintain nuclear warheads inside or close to your tribal nation’s homeland, that in some way [the] Environmental Division could be considerably related.
Weber: Edmund wasn’t precisely thrilled.
Baker: I’m simply attempting to think about how they see us. Possibly they see us as “This is not important to them. They handle the oil field” or—I don’t know what they’re pondering, really. However what surprises me most is [that] this has not been a difficulty.
Weber: Given his experiences with environmental impression research and different allowing points, I requested Edmund whether or not it was vital for members of the tribe to know what could be the potential nuclear dangers related to dwelling with the silos.
Baker: You recognize, simply technically talking, I don’t—when you’re going into one other individual’s home, we’ll say—effectively, we’ll make this candid.
[CLIP: Music]
Let’s say you come into my home. You wish to construct one thing in there. You assume it’ll be good for me. And also you’re going to inform me, “Oh, this is what it does. I’m not going to harm anything.” And I ask you, “Okay, well, what are the risks?”
And also you inform me. At that time, I’ve the flexibility—now, that is small scale, however these ideas are in there—I’ve the flexibility to say, “No. That ain’t gonna fly here. Thank you. Have a good time. I’ll see you later. No. Door closed.”
In plenty of sense, that’s, that’s what the EIS form of capabilities as, proper?
[CLIP: Music]
Weber: Within the subsequent episode, I’ll interview nuclear weapons consultants to raised perceive what was not mentioned through the EIS public listening to: the true dangers for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation from dwelling with nuclear silos on our lands.
This present was reported by me, Ella Weber, produced by Sébastien Philippe and Tulika Bose. Script modifying by Tulika Bose. Submit-production design and mixing by Jeff DelViscio. Because of particular advisor Ryo Morimoto and Jessica Lambert. Music by Epidemic Sound.
I’m Ella Weber, and this was The Missiles on Our Rez, a particular podcast collaboration from Scientific American, Princeton College’s Program on Science and World Safety, Nuclear Princeton, and Columbia Journalism Faculty.
