The Snake River Alliance. What do I find when I come to the Snake River Alliance? I find a dedicated staff:

• Brilliantly articulating the status of the AEHI nuclear plant which just shifted its proposed site to Elmore County (near Mountain Home)

• Passionately advocating on behalf of the cause to efficiently protect and increase the donation base of the Alliance

• A director holding the reigns on a powerful advocacy machine. Balancing a staff, a board, a coalition, and a constituency.

Thankfully, all of these folks are here to deal with the "Issue". In this instance, that issue is a multi-pronged set of issues within the context of Nuclear frames. Opposing proposed nuclear power plants in the state, fighting for the clean-up of hazardous waste, promoting alternative energy ideas and advocating for the implementation of substantive policy proposals. But yesterday I learned something new. A new term, that the newness of reveals my naivete with nuclear issues. DOWNWINDERS. "Who are the downwinders? Downwinders, in general, refers to those affected by nuclear fallout which has been carried by the winds 'downwind'. Downwinders of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) were those affected by fallout carried east or northeast from the NTS during the 1950's and 1960's. The tests were conducted when the winds blew in these directions so that more densely populated areas to the south and west of the NTS would be spared the fallout. The National Cancer Institute identified Idaho as one of five western states with the highest per capita thyroid doses of iodine." Iodine-131 is a radioactive isotope released during the production and testing of nuclear weapons. Contamination was spread via the isotopes dispersing through nuclear fallout and depositing dry or wet (due to atmospheric integration) onto a large geographical area. Are you ready for this? The isotopes were on the pasture grass that dairy cows ate. Their milk was contaminated. People drank the milk. Thyroid cancer is highly prevalent in those exposed. Between 11, 300 and 212,000 excess thyroid cancers. That is just an estimate. So another, perhaps the largest of the issues within the nuclear frame, is the issue of Weapons Testing, past, present, and future. Nuclear energy is fashioned as the clean energy source of the future. But it is also used as a destructive and threatening weapon, hoisted up as the key to our national security. The irony, the clean energy solution is fed and propagated by the defense industry. There is really no bright line here. If nuclear technology is nuclear technology the advancement of either or both is in the interest of defense, and in the disinterest of safety. Nuclear energy is not green or clean. The waste produced could never be considered either of those things. The potential threat of an accident is never tenable. So I cried. I just cried and cried. I cannot believe what our government allowed to happen with nuclear testing. It is outrageous! I spoke to my mother about this today. She said, "we live in a crazy, dangerous world." She remembers getting up high in Boise when the testing was happening in Nevada. All the kids in her little Boise neighborhood reaching a vantage point where they could see the amazing light from the tests. They had no idea. Our government has yet to acknowledge that they have an idea either. In 1990 the United States Senate passed The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA): "The law provides modest compensation to individuals exposed to radiation who meet certain criteria" (The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability). Ironically, the law does not include claimants in Idaho. Although legislation by Idaho Senators was presented last year to include Idaho, it has not moved forward. The Senators claim that there is isn't any funding for the program. Need I point out here, the obvious problematics of this given the amount of funding going to the war in Iraq and the defense industry in general? So, this is what I find at the Alliance. My challenge: learn to not cry every time I read about downwinders; become conversant in nuclear vocab and paradigms; communicate the information and need to all facets of our community; mobilize folks to oppose nuclear "solutions"; advocate for truly clean and green alternatives; effect policy change. Wow, that'll be a piece of (yellow) cake!