The geographic narratives of the Mohave and Chemehuevi people follow traditional travel routes throughout the Mojave and Sonoran Desert Regions, the Colorado Plateau and extend as far as the Pacific Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.

The desert tortoise is an ancient species remaining relatively unchanged for the last 65 million years. It can live as long as a century and can spend 90 percent of its life in its burrow. When the winter cold or blistering summer heat visits the desert, the tortoise hibernates in a burrow 30 feet down into the ground. The tortoise can slow down its metabolism as it waits for the spring and fall burst of annual plants. This magnificent survivor is seriously at risk of extinction. In the last seven years, tortoise populations have been cut in half due to habitat destruction and the introduction of the fatal upper respiratory tract disease (URTD) into wild populations. The government has presented two faces as regards the protection of desert tortoise habitat. On one hand, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has designated Ward Valley as the best of the best desert tortoise critical habitat. On the other hand, political pressure has led the Service to issue a "no jeopardy" decision, claiming that the dump project would not harm the tortoise even though critical habitat would be destroyed.

US Ecology has proposed a mitigation plan whereby tortoises found in the way of bulldozers would be simply killed or relocated to another area north of the site. They argue that the project would actually help the tortoise by reclaiming habitat previously uninhabited. Translocation of wild tortoises has been shown to result in disorientation and death. Tortoises at Ward Valley are free from URTD and represent one of the last healthy wild populations. The mitigation plan would move the closer to an infected population. It is hard to imagine how US Fish and Wildlife Service staff could approve a project that would destroy critical habitat, wrench tortoises from their burrows, invite nuclear waste to an area near the Colorado River and move healthy tortoises into a diseased population.

The desert tortoise posses special significance for the Mohave and Chemehuevi people who consider the creature a sacred teacher and essential part of their culture and landscape.

Opposition to the dump is strong and growing. Public opinion polls conducted by independent researchers found that 70 percent of Californians oppose the dump, 80 percent oppose shallow land burial of radioactive wastes, but unfortunately only 30 percent know about the issue. A diverse coalition of nuclear scientists, medical professionals, economists, community activists, city and county governments, environmental, social justice, wilderness protection, indigenous rights and endangered species organizations and Native American leaders have been working to protect Ward Valley. Their efforts are more than a political campaign. The struggle to protect Ward Valley has accumulated to become a movement linking environmental and social justice issues.

Spring and fall gatherings at Ward Valley have attracted hundreds of people. These special events include strategy sessions, informational workshops and the sharing of culture. Sunrise ceremonies by a Shoshone Indian leader, Quechan Indian storytelling, prayer rituals by Indian elders, traditional Mojave gourd songs and bird dances, Aztec dancers from Mexico, and Spirit Runs (traditional relay runs across the desert) accompany workshops on radioactive waste, desert ecology, community organizing, non-violence and political strategy. In the fall of 1995, a group of activists began a permanent occupation of the site which continues to this day.

The on-going occupation of the proposed dump site has attracted national media and has inspired many to come to visit this remote corner of the Mojave desert. The tents, banners and portable toilets have become potent symbols of the resistance. Hundreds have pledged to come at a moment's notice (contacted through an emergency response network) to defend the land. Indian elders have vowed to confront the bulldozers if necessary.

The campaign to save Ward Valley will come to head in the next few months. Murkowski will introduce stealth legislation in the coming Congressional session and the draft SEIS will be out this summer or early fall. The time is now to send an uncompromising message to the White House that the proposal for a nuclear dump in the California desert must be rejected once and for all. California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Vice-President Al Gore have refused to take a stand on the issue. Senator Barbara Boxer has shown great courage fighting the project in Congress.