Reinhard D. Knutsen, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Samantha Senda-Cook, 3 January 2009

Transcript (23 pages) of interview by Samantha Senda-Cook with Reinhard D. Knutsen on January 3, 2009

Knutsen (b. 1964) was born in Taiping, Malasia to Methodist missionaries. He describes his upbringing (particularly his consistent work with disenfranchised communities) and how he became involved in nuclear issues, starting with his participation in a New England Walk for Nuclear Disarmament. He went on to work on nuclear testing, nuclear power, and nuclear waste issues. Knutsen discusses his time with Shundahai Network and how he came to his current job at the American Civil Liberties Union. Other topics include the nuclear waste problem in the US, ethical issues associated with nuclear waste, who is affected by nuclear waste, and who is responsible for managing nuclear waste. Nuclear Technology Project. Interviewer: Samantha Senda-Cook

REINHARD D. KNUTSEN Salt Lake City, Utah An Interview by Samantha Senda-Cook 3 January 2009 EVERETT L. COOLEY COLLECTION Nuclear Technology in the American West Oral History Project U-1993 American West Center and Marriott Library Special Collections Department University of Utah THE FOLLOWING IS AN INTERVIEW WITH REINARD D. KNUTSEN ON JANUARY 3, 2009 CONDUCTED BY SAMANTHA SENDA-COOK AT THE ACLU OFFICE IN SALT LAKE CITY. SS: Okay, so it’s recording right now and let’s see...I am Samantha Senda-Cook and it is January 3" 2009. It is five after ten in the morning and ’'m at the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] office in Salt Lake City [Utah] at 355 West—North 300 West. And I’'m here with Reinard Knutsen. And Reinard there are a couple of things I want to let you know about the process. So first the interview will take about an hour. You can stop to take a break anytime you want to. We’re doing an oral history. And oral histories ask for people’s personal life, personal information as opposed to an interview which might just dwell on specific issues. And so we would like to kind of set the stage and ask you about your personal background first and then move into your perspectives on particular issues. So you have the right to refuse to answer any question. Just say so. And then I’ll ask you a few brief questions to make sure the levels and the recorder are alright. And then we’ll move on to the specific background information. Okay, so, yeah I’ll ask you a couple of specific information questions. First could you say your full name and spell it? RK: My name is Reinard Dwayne [spelling?] Knutsen, R-E-[noise]-N-A-R-D Reinard Knutsen, K-N-U-T-S-E-N. SS: And what is your current residence? RK: I am at—Ilive at 151 Windsor Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102. SS: And how long have you lived there? RK: We’ve been in that house for just a little bit over three years. SS: And what is you occupation? REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 RK: I am currently an office manager for the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] of Utah. SS: Okay let’s stop. SS: Okay, so background information about you. Kind of get warmed up. What is your birthday and your birthplace? RK: I was born on December 15, 1964 in Taiping, Malaysia. My parents were Methodist missionaries there. I was the youngest of four children they had in Malaysia. And I lived in Malaysia until [ was about eleven years old. And when I was eleven years old, my parents got divorced. My father remained in Malaysia and my mother came back to the United States. I was in—just finished sixth grade so I came to the United States with her. And she was also involved with a religious community called the Institute of Cultural Affairs. And so [ lived in a—I didn’t actually live with my parents after sixth grade. And I lived in a series of group homes that were run by the community until I graduated high school and turned eighteen and I was on my own. SS: Wow. What—do you have siblings—you said you had four. RK: Four elder brothers. SS: Okay. RK: Lester, Andrew and Bernard. By the time [ was in first grade they had all pretty much left the house and were with the religious community in different places around the world. SS: So it sounds like you had a pretty independent upbringing. You were kind of an independent person. RK: I was forced to be. REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 SS: Yeah and so can you explain maybe how that’s affected your life today or maybe previous to today? RK: Well um I think because of my upbringing, it certainly did help me become independent at a very young age, but it also created a lot of insecurities, separation anxieties from my parents and so forth. But one of the things I think that it really had a positive effect on me was our work around the world with poor communities or disenfranchised communities. And when I was in ninth grade I went to Brazil and I lived for a year in a small village and worked helping start community farms and sanitation programs and healthcare for preschool kids. And so all of that kind of created and instilled in me a sense of service, a connection with disenfranchised communities, multicultural communities. When I came back to the United States to finish my high school, I really felt a disconnect with my peer group in the United States because I had much more of a global perspective than all of my other friends that I associated with. And I tried to—in my early late teens, early adulthood—I tried to get into the American lifestyle. And I wanted to become a—I became a restaurant person assistant chef when I was nineteen. And then I became a restaurant manager when I was twenty-one. And my goal at that time was to own my own restaurant by the time I was thirty. So I just dove head first into this kind of materialistic lifestyle where I wanted to do something and create my own business. And, but I really discovered by the time I was twenty-two, twenty—three that I was very unhappy in this kind of lifestyle. And it wasn’t giving me the kind of satisfaction that I needed. So then I kind of started a spiritual journey with yoga, meditation. My mother—I visited my mother and she took me to see Ram Dass who was—really influenced me early on and reinvigorated my sense of wanting to be REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 involved in helping change the society in some way for the better. So when I was twenty—twenty-three, I quit my work and went to Washington, DC to work in a homeless shelter for a year. And I managed there a soup kitchen for about seven months. And working seven days a week non-stop feeding over five hundred people a couple meals a day, it was really intense and I totally got burnt out at the end of that year. And I went traveling with some friends up to New England and got separated from them—which is a whole other story—but ended up hitchhiking for the first time by myself with really no direction or just kind of wondering what I was going to do next with my life. And I got picked up by this couple who were going to New England Walk for Nuclear Disarmament where a group of people were going to walk across New England advocating nuclear disarmament. This was in 1987, in August 1987. So that seemed like the right thing to do for me at that time. So I joined them and did this thirty-day walk across New England. And at the end of it—during it we did a lot of non-violence trainings and learned a lot about the nuclear issues particularly nuclear weapons issues. And then at the end of that, we ended it in Groton, Connecticut where there’s a submarine base and also where they built the trident submarines. And it’s the largest submarine base in the United—in the continental United States. And so we did a non-violent direct action. That was my first time that I got arrested. And I had a banner. Our original goal was to actually board a submarine which was a museum, it was the first nautilus nuclear powered submarine. And it was Labor Day weekend, so the place was packed with tourists. And so we were going to board the submarine and unfurl banners on the conning tower so everybody in parking lot could see it. And we weren’t able to do that, so we changed focus and we stayed in the parking lot with my little group, we called afffinity REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 groups, we all split up into little groups of like ten people each. So my affinity group decided to climb this statue of this missile being fired out of a submarine hatch. And I had a banner that said “Bread not bombs.” So I climbed the—all my other friends had been arrested by that time, and so I was left by myself and I climbed this statue with my banner. And I was singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” And there’s probably several hundred people around me. And the police came and hauled me off. And I was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. And out of thirty—thirtyseven people that were arrested that day, I was the only one who went to trial. And I had a jury trial. It took two days. I represented myself, and the jury found me not guilty on both counts, which was very inspiring to me. So that kind of led me on. From there I became very active in non-violent direct action and, in particular, first in nuclear weapons issues. And then after I came to the West and got involved in Nevada, up in Nevada test Site [NTS] I became also involved with nuclear waste and nuclear power, just nuclear issues in general I guess. SS: Okay. Can you think of major ethical influences growing up? People who—people, or maybe situations that inspired you to go on this path? RK: Well, certainly growing up I studied a lot of religious and social leaders: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Mother Theresa and also other political leaders like Mao and...I guess that was the major political influence at the time. This was in the late sixties early seventies. So the part of the religious community that I was living with, we would do daily studies of either religious or social political issues. And so all of this kind of helped me focus or know that I wanted to be part of a life of service in some way. REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 SS: Great, let’s see. So the next part is attempting to establish your relationship with nuclear waste issues or nuclear issues more broadly. And so you’ve told me a little bit about this walk across New England and the protest and the trial. Were there any other ways that you see I guess as a direct influence to you getting involved with nuclear issues or nuclear waste issues? RK: Well very early on as I began to study nuclear issues in general, I began to feel that this was one of the most important issues that I could become involved with because of its long-lasting effect. Nuclear material, once created is going to be deadly radioactive for tens of thousands of years. You know other people say well—and all these issues are important so I don’t want to say nuclear issue is the most important issue—but if we stop burning coal right now, our air would probably become cleaner within a century. But nuclear waste would still be as deadly a century from now as it is today. If we stopped clear cutting the old growth forest, we might have an old growth forest again within five hundred years. But nuclear waste would still be as deadly five hundred years from now as it is today. So I kind of feel for myself that nuclear issues needed to be my primary focus because of the long-lasting consequences of our actions today. SS: That makes a lot of sense. Were there particular people that got you involved? RK: My... Well probably my early adulthood, Ram Dass was the first person who really inspired me to take another look at my lifestyle and what I wanted out of life. Then when I was at the homeless shelter in Washington DC, I was with the community—it was run by the Community of Creative Non-Violence. The starter—the person who started, founded that organization was Mitch Snyder, who’s a well known homeless advocacy activist. In the mid-eighties there was a film made of him. Martin Sheen starred as him. REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 So I got to know him a little bit while I was working at the community, and he was certainly an inspiration to me in terms of really just dedicating your life full heartedly to service and living with the poor. And then when I got involved with the New England Walk for Nuclear Disarmament, a lot of my lifelong friends came out of that event. There’s still a group of probably over thirty of us who maintain close ties with each other even though it’s been more than twenty years since then. And I took my first nonviolence training course preparing for non-violent direct action. My teacher, John—I"m blanking on his last name at the moment—really really inspired me. He was an excellent, excellent teacher. And he’s been—continued to be an inspiration with me whenever we meet every other year or so. And then when I came out to Nevada and became involved at the Nevada Test Site [NTS], Corbin Harney who’s a spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone Nation became my primary elder or person that I respected who I wanted to work with on these issues. And he continued to be. He passed away two years ago. And he’s been the major influence in my adult life, and I’ve learned a lot from him. SS: So. And it seems like he might have been the one to get you involved in the Shundahai Network. Can you tell me a little bit more about your role? I did a little bit of background research about you and saw you were Suzi, Suzi’s assistant. Is that how you would try that person’s name? This is what was on... RK: [laugh] That was probably on Linkedin and I think. I actually wrote that as a joke. [laugh] SS: Oh, I see. Maybe you can explain that joke. And it also said maybe you were a volunteer coordinator for this organization. REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 RK: Yeah I actually served many different functions within Shundahai Network, but really the person who got me involved with Shundahai Network—his name was Mateo [Peixinho]; he currently lives in New Mexico. I became friends with him in 1991 when we were doing actions together at the Nevada Test Site [NTS] during the days of American Peace Test, which was the organization that was organizing those events. He was the manager for a rock band, and he did a lot of—a political rock band. And then like in ninety-two they did a tour across the country called Nobody for President Tour, and it was when Clinton was running for president. And they ended up at the White House. And they did a—[George H. W.] Bush senior was still in the white house at the time. They did beat around the Bush event where they had a thousand drummers that encircled the white house. And Mateo was just really important friend for me at that time and really inspirational. And his dedication and his political savvy and just who he was. And he was one of the founders of Shundahai Network and they—Corbin asked them, Mateo, his partner Julia and then a couple of other people, Corbin asked them to go to Washington DC and to be kind of a watch—to watch what was going on in Congress because there was legislation—Congress was trying to force the Western Shoshone people to accept payment for their land which was one thing. And also they wanted to restart the nuclear testing program, which there had been a moratorium in place for almost a year at that time where Bush senior actually did a good thing and stopped nuclear testing full on until Clinton restarted the program. And so Corbin asked them to go to Washington DC. They formed Shundahai Network in the fall of ninety-four. They came back to Nevada in the Spring of ninety-five to a Test Site event which was being organized by another organization called Healing Global Wounds. And they did a report about their—what REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 they were doing in Washington DC. And I was totally inspired by them, and Mateo was part of that so I was already fairly connected. And so I decided to hitchhike out there to help for three weeks on my way—I was going to go to New England to visit some people—some other friends. So [ was going to stop in Washington DC, stay for three weeks, help them out cause they just moved into a new house and office. And I ended up deciding that that was what I wanted to do. So I was the first—we—I helped them incorporate Shundahai Network. I was the first President. I was the first office manager, public relations officer, community organizer, database manager. I played a lot of different roles. And I was Executive Director for a little bit over a year. After—Corbin was the original Executive Director—and we decided—he was more of a, not a figurehead, but he never took a—he never worked with the day-to-day operations of the organization. So we decided that we wanted to have more formal Executive Director who was really running the day-to-day operations. SS: And that was you? RK: That was me. I was the first one after Corbin. And so Suzi [Snyder] who joined Shundahai Network in 1987—she’s currently a really bigwig in the peace movement. She’s secretary general of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, living in Geneva, working at the United Nations. And so that’s why I made that joke that [ was her assistant because I was helping her learn to get her skills developed so that she is who she is now. SS: Excellent. Let’s see, so... Well okay, two questions. How long would you say you’ve been involved with nuclear issues? But then that seems like that might be larger than just the Shundahai Network. So I have a follow up question about that. REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 RK: Well I became involved with nuclear issues in 1987 with the New England Walk for Nuclear Disarmament. That was really my first conscious understanding of the nuclear problem. And I was twenty-three at the time. And then that was 1987. Shundahai Network began in 1994. SS: Okay Shundahai Network began, okay. RK: And I joined Shundahai Network in 1995. SS: Okay. So that clarified that. So I’d like to move on to the third part of the oral history. And this is your perceptions on nuclear waste issues. So let’s see, what is the problem with nuclear waste from your perspective? You’ve already mentioned the time... RK: Longevity of the. . . SS: Yeah right. So what else, what else made you think this is a problem? RK: Um well just that fact that we don’t have any current technology that can safely keep this material for the tens of thousands of years that it will be dangerous. And I'm not a scientist. I’m not an academic. And I have a—I don’t really have a head for facts and figures and things like that, so I couldn’t spew out the facts on radioactive levels and possible contamination stuff. But [ understand at a gut level from reading the science, and I think science confirms this, that currently we do not have any way of safeguarding this material for the time that, you know, it’s going to be dangerous. We’re continuing to create it more and more. So right now—the analogy that I started using in the late nineties was that—nuclear waste is like a bathtub where we’ve turned on the spigots full bore. So the nuclear waste is just filling up this bathtub non-stop. And it’s starting to flow over the edges and make messes around the—on the floor. And instead of just turning off 10 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 the taps, we’re running around with a mop trying to mop it up as it spills over the edge while continuing to let the water full—run full force and it’s just, there’s just no way to solve the problem like that. The only way that we’re going to solve it is by turning off the spigots by stopping to create nuclear waste. It’s going to be around for tens of thousands of years. So we have a lot of time to figure out what the best way to do it is. But the government, and governments in general, tend to want to rush into something and they want to stick it somewhere. And say “Okay that’s what we’re going to do with it.” So their original idea was to create a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada on sacred land to the Western Shoshone Nation. They’ve been studying that mountain for over thirty years now. And while there still is segments within the Department of Energy that say, you know, “that’s the best place to put it,” there’s a lot of science that says that that is not the best place to put it. In fact, it’s a very dangerous place to put it because of the earth—earthquake fault lines that run through the mountain, because of the porous rock that allows any of the material that leaks to reach the aquifer, which is the largest aquifer in Nevada. And certainly southern Nevada depends upon that water. And so they’re, and so while they’re—I think they’re going to find out that they’re not going to be able to store the nuclear waste long-range there. So now they’re scrambling for other options. They are looking—they are particularly interested in Native American reservations because those are sovereign entities that aren’t controlled by the federal government as much. And so it’s easier to create a nuclear dump on. And other Native American communities are certainly also affected by other toxic industry because they usually need money and it’s easy to create their own regulations and stuff like that. So that’s why they’re looking at the Skull Valley nuclear and, I'm sorry, Skull Valley 11 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 Goshute Reservation here in Utah as a possible temporary storage site. That’s pretty much dead in the water now, though I think the industry is still keeping hope that that might be a future option. And things will change every decade as new political leaders come and new...As we forget what’s happened in the past, I think American culture in particular has a very short attention span, so we forget about the dangers and stuff and we forget about the ten years of struggle that we had not to get the nuclear dump here in Utah. In fact, there’s now a proposal for a nuclear power plant in southern Utah. Which is really—I just cannot believe that somebody would propose that. It’s just...Everything about it is so ridiculous I think. I mean just that fact that nuclear energy uses so much water and actually ends up costing more energy to build a nuclear power plant than what it can produce cheaply, certainly cheaply. And it’s, it always has to be heavily subsidized by the government which is one thing that they don’t talk about. So regardless of that our nuclear power—there’s a—nuclear energy currently produces close to twenty percent of our national electricity usage. But [ believe that we’re creating the longest term environmental damage with that twenty percent, even more so than coal. Coal certainly is an immediate threat to our climate change. But I think within a couple hundred years, if we stop burning coal, we could get back to a balance in terms of that kind of emission. But nuclear waste would again still be as deadly then as it is now. So I think the solution in my mind what makes sense is stop producing it, keep it onsite in above ground storage containers where you can safely, easily monitor the containers and change them or add to them or do whatever you need to them while we continue to research what the long term solutions are. And I want to make sure that the government does not, and the industry does not rush into a solution because it’s easy and affordable but it’s going to have long- 12 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 term consequences. One of the problems about nuclear waste again, I think the most dangerous aspect of it is the transportation of nuclear waste. Most of the power plants are on the east coast of the country. And most of the places that they are looking to store the nuclear waste are on the west side of the country. And so it’s going to involve a lot of moving. [ think they estimated that if Yucca Mountain opened as a nuclear power— nuclear dump—national nuclear dump that they would have three to five trucks arriving every day from around the country for thirty years and they wouldn’t even get it all there. And kind of transportation scheme involving this really deadly material just terrifies me because I think one of the statistics that really sticks with me is that—this was in a Department of Energy report—where if a nuciear waste transportation accident occurred in an urban area, it could contaminate up to forty-two square miles. It could cost, you know at that time—this is in the late eighties when they released this report, and it could cost up to ten billion dollars to clean up. And it would basically be uninhabitable area for many decades. So that kind of—and there’s no way to escape that kind of scenario because all the nuclear waste transportation routes golthrough major populated areas. SS: So you’ve anticipated my next question which was what are some potential solutions, and I think that you’ve covered those already. So I’'m wondering where you fit into this situation? RK: Well the other potential solution I think... SS: Oh okay. RK: is that we need to invest in alternative renewable energy resources. Nuclear is bad, coal is bad, so between the two that produces close to seventy percent of our energy consumption at the moment. So we’re definitely in a problem here that has to be solved. 13 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 And the only way to do that is by, which we should have started doing thirty years ago or fifty years ago, is by investing in alternative renewable energy resources which include solar, wind, geothermal. There’s a lot of potential energy sources which we have not invested as much time in studying as we have in the nuclear—in nuclear energy resources. SS: Any more solutions? [laugh] RK: No. SS: So how do you fit into this whole situation or what do you see as your role in this? You mentioned your role in the past perhaps. Do you see a current role for yourself? RK: Not currently. One of the things that—one of the problems that I had with working with Shundahai Network and other organizations that I have that have been focused on nuclear issues is a lack of funding or just being unable to have a minimum living wage or being able to take care of myself and also because of the extreme—I feel like I was involved with nuclear issues for over fifteen years. [SS coughing] Do you need to drink some water or something? SS: [coughing] I should be okay, go ahead. RK: I feel like I was involved with these nuclear issues really hard core for fifteen years and I kind of felt like I was on the front lines of a war. And through continual participation and direct actions, trying to organize large events, all the stress and strain of that, not only was I not having any money to keep myself healthy and secure or whatever with like insurance and all these different things but I was also beginning to feel almost a post traumatic stress syndrome from all these stressful situations I was putting myself in. And so after fifteen years in 2002 after the last large gathering that I organized at the 14 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 Nevada Test Site, I kind of just felt totally drained and totally burned out and kind of felt like I needed to take my life in another direction at least for a while. So I did look for other employment. And I was very happy that I found employment at the ACLU of Utah which has given me a chance to have a more sustainable lifestyle. I’ve started a family. I have a daughter now. I’'m married and stepdaughter. So for at least for the next thirteen years until my daughter graduates from high school, I need to have—maintain at least somewhat of a safe life for her. And I don’t see myself being able to do that currently while working on nuclear issues full time. Certainly it remains my main issue that’s in my heart, what [’m drawn to work on. And I do see myself getting back to it in the future. Currently I just try to maintain my awareness of what other organizations are doing, to support them financially when I can, to go to events when I can, to write letters to Congress when its necessary, to do whatever I can as a citizen activist on nuclear issues. But then you know of course for the last seven years at least, the war has also been a major focus of mine. So that’s distracted me from nuclear issues. SS: And that’s the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. RK: War in Iraq, yes, and the war on terror. SS: And the war on terror. So who has been or will be affected by nuclear waste disposal or other nuclear issues such as testing or development? RK: Well ultimately the entire world is affected by it. One of the things that I don’t think that society is looking closely enough at is the long term consequences of nuclear issues the generation of nuclear power, nuclear waste, the design and testing and production of nuclear weapons. All of this is like a spider web that circles the world really because other countries are involved with this as well. And it’s all highly radioactive in fact I used 15 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 to get the daily Department of Energy [DOE] internal news release —not news releases but they have an internal network where they talk about nuclear incidents that happen within the continental U.S. and which most of the public doesn’t—is not even aware of. And so I was getting these daily reports—and this was in 2001-2002. It seemed that at least five incidents were occurring every day on an average. Somewhere in the country there was a release of radioactivity, sometimes minimal, sometimes large scale. Of course the government’s and the industry’s first response is that there’s no danger. They kept saying that over and over again. “There’s no danger. It’s okay.” But I was just seeing all data that was coming to me about all these incidents. And we’re not looking at the cumulative effect. Maybe that one release isn’t going to harm anybody in the immediate area, but slowly, and science has verified this, our background radiation levels is increasing every year. Partly that’s due to the decrease in the ozone level. And so we’re getting more solar radiation but it’s also, I feel, that it’s also a build up of the radiation that we’re creating on this planet. And so I’m sorry I’ve lost track of your original question now [laugh]. SS: Who's affected or will be affected? RK: So I think that we are all being affected. Certainly in terms of where they want to store the nuclear waste, Native American communities are the primary communities that might be affected. That’s currently every place that they’re looking at for temporary or long-term storage is on Native American land. All the industry complexes where they produce components for nuclear plants and nuclear weapons are in marginalized communities or communities of color. All the uranium which is mined for this is coming from native--primarily Native American lands and Native American people are the 16 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 primary people who worked in the mining industry. And there’s already a long history of the consequences of that in terms of their cancers and dying at a very young age. Does that answer your question? SS: Yeah. I’'m wondering how did you gain access to those internal memos? RK: Well because I was the director of the Shundahai Network, they—this was in the last year—well before—Clinton did do some good things in terms of trying to create more transparency in government and stuff. And so in the late nineties I starting working very closely with Department of Energy [DOE] officials and in a sense they were trying to co-opt us by bringing us into the system. And they hosted meetings where activists— they sponsored these meetings where activists and community leaders came from around the country. And they did this kind of game I guess where they really pretended like they were listening to us and then nothing was ever done to address the issues that I and other activists and leaders were raising. But all the time that was spent and listening to us and trying to show that they were transparent in giving us information kind of just—it kept us not on—it kept us off the streets so to say for, you know, five to seven years. So where we weren’t organizing as much protests in our communities. Instead we were trying to work at a different level. And in some respects that was very enticing. You know for somebody who who’s a community organizer, suddenly you’re participating in these government meetings and you feel like people are really listening to what you are saying and stuff, it’s very enticing. So that’s... SS: Great. RK: That’s how I got access to all that stuff because of that whole transparency process. 1 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 SS: Let’s see. What are some of the ethical consequences or ethical issues called to mind by who is affected with nuclear testing or uranium mining or nuclear waste disposal? RK: Well again [ think they are always low income communities of color, disenfranchised communities, Native American communities are always the ones who are primarily affected. So there is an ethical dilemma or you know if we propose a nuclear waste dump in Manhattan, or Washington DC or someplace like that that would affect a different community, it would be rejected outright whereas they’re willing to look at other communities. So I think it shows that there is a racial divide, an economic class status divide. Does that address what you’ve asked? SS: Yeah sure. Let’s see. How important are these issues to your life do you think? RK: Well very important. I might not be totally active—a hundred percent active and responding to them right now, but I continually think about them. I feel that when I get older and when I have a chance, I will become more involved again in organizing against nuclear—trying to solve the nuclear issue I guess. SS: Who is generally not considered in these debates or these discussions about nuclear issues? RK: Well again [ think that the government has done a good show of trying to pretend like they’re listening to people’s concerns by holding public hearings in different parts of the country and producing all this volume in its material of people’s concerns. But then when it comes down to it, [ don’t think that they really are following—they’re really going to change what they’re doing based upon people’s concerns. I think that they try to manipulate science to come up with a solution—what they call a solution. Or what they—what becomes their program to appease the nuclear industry and the nuclear 18 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 weapons industry as part of the military industrial complex. So in the end the government is going to do unless, you know I have some sense of hope with a change in government of course, but unless the people are really, really become more forceful and are—and pressuring the government. I think the government will initially do what ever the industry wants to do. It will manipulate science; it will manipulate public opinion to achieve what the industry wants. And that’s what’s been happening for the last fifty years even though they know that nuclear testing is bad, they’re going to continue to want to test these nuclear weapons because you can’t develop new nuclear weapons without testing them. They’re going to want to continue to develop nuclear energy power plants; they’re going to want to continue to try to put the nuclear waste somewhere even though they know it’s bad, that transportation’s dangerous. They know all the different aspects of it, but it’s the easiest thing for government to do is to do whatever the people with money want. SS: So it sounds to me—my next question was who is responsible for the situation, or these multiples situations, and it sounds like you were citing government industry and the military industrial complex. Could you talk a little more about what that means, the military industrial complex? RK: Well the whole nuclear age started because of the nuclear bomb. I mean we really enter—ran into the nuclear age full throttle because of the nuclear bomb. So it started out as a military industrial establishment. After the bomb was created, after World War II was finished and we went into this cold war with the Soviet Union and other countries where we were each racing to develop bigger and better bombs, they also wanted to kind of justify this continued expenditure on nuclear research by saying, “Hey there’s a good thing, there’s a good aspect to the nuclear science. We can create this bountiful safe 19 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 energy source where people will be able to have as much energy as they want with no consequences, for virtually nothing.” Which ended up to be a total lie. But that’s how they developed the first few hundred nuclear power plants in the United States. So it’s based upon this lie that we could use this technology, which was dangerous, but we could use it for peaceful purposes and it was a good thing. But it was all the same industry establishment that created the nuclear weapons that were making billions of dollars from building these tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Basically it’s the same industry that said, “Hey let’s diversify and let’s make some more money off of nuclear power.” And they’re the ones who built the power plants who disregarded the science about how dangerous it was. So [ think it was started as a military industrial complex and they kind of broadened it to include the nuclear energy industry. But really I see it as sort of like two heads of the same serpent kind of thing. SS: Do you see these entities taking responsibility for the issues that have come up? RK: I do not. I haven’t looked at it as closely as I have in the past, but I just don’t see them taking it seriously just the fact that they’re proposing to continue to build new nuclear power plants using outdated dangerous technology that they—I feel like they really know how dangerous it is, but they’re going ahead with it anyway because they’re looking for another way of making money or continuing to make money. So I don’t think that they’re dealing with it responsibly. SS: It seems like you have sort of read a variety of different things. You’ve mentioned scientific papers and DOE [Department of Energy] documents, internal memos, are there any sources that you’ve come across maybe you think would be helpful for a listener to know about? 20 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 RK: Certainly there are many scientific people who have produced reports about the issues. I’m trying to think, this is where I’'m really bad with names and stuff like that especially after I haven’t really followed it closely for the last six, seven years. Carl Grossman is an investigative reporter who’s written several books on the nuclear industry. He’s very good. The State of Nevada has funded, you know, has been fighting Yucca Mountain for over thirty years. So they’ve developed—they’ve got a whole line of scientists, science and reports and stuff on how bad nuclear waste is and especially transportation and storage of nuclear waste. They have a huge online resource archive run by the State of Nevada Nuclear Program—I’m sorry [ can’t quite think of the title of their department but it’s a huge online archive of material which I think is very helpful for...I mean it’s hard for the layperson to really read the scientific reports and to understand all the different things about the radiation levels and radiocuries and all the different terminology. And I mean I don’t fully understand myself. But I did have to read it to kind of hopefully translate it into material that other people could understand easily. So there’s lots out there for somebody’s who’s interested in looking to it. SS: Great and can you think of other people you would recommend we interview? If you can’t think of the names right now we could take a list. RK: Yes, no no I think I sent you a list actually in one of my emails. But Jason Groenwald, he’s the past executive director of Heal Utah. He’s an excellent source and he’s going to law school at the university. And if you want help contacting any of these people, I’d be glad to help. Mary Dickson, who works at KUED. She just recently wrote a play called “Exposed” about the down winder’s in Utah’s experience with nuclear 21 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 testing. Then there’s other people in Nevada, I don’t know if you’re interested in talking with people in Nevada too or are you just focused on Utah? SS: Mountainous west, so Nevada Nevada’s in there. RK: Jennifer Viereck, who currently is Executive Director of Heal Our Mother Earth, HOME, is a really good resource. She’s been working on nuclear issues much longer than I have. There’s the Western Shoshone Defense Project which is run out of Crescent Valley, Nevada which is near Elko. They were actually the host organization for the [EN [Indigenous Environmental Network] conference that you went to. Carrie Dann who’s kind of like the spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone Defense Project is an excellent person to talk to especially for the Native American perspective. [pause] There’s also— he’s a chemistry-biology professor in Reno, his name is John Haddar. He’s got a really good grasp of the scientific aspect of nuclear energy, nuclear waste and nuclear weapons. And he’s on the board of directors of HOME with Jennifer Viereck’s organization. He’s also a community organizer in Reno. Vanessa, I can’t quite think of Vanessa’s last name, but she’s the current director of Heal Utah. SS: Pierce. RK: Yes Pierce she’s an excellent person to talk to. SS: Super. Is there anything that you’d like to add thatI didn’t ask about? RK: So much, I mean, literally I could spend hours. No. But if you have any follow up questions I’d be glad to help you in the future. SS: And if there’s anything you’d like to add, let us know. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. RK: Certainly. I think this is an important project that you’re working on. 22 REINHARD D. KNUTSEN 3 JANUARY 2009 SS: I think so too. END OF INTERVIEW 23