Photographs for a Healthy Environment

As many of you know I am on the Board of Directors of HEAL Utah.

HEAL is a grassroots non-profit initially focused on keeping Utah free of toxic and nuclear wastes but now also leading the charge for a sustainable future via renewable energy. They believe in actively involving citizens in the decisions affecting our health and environment and have grown to become one of the foremost groups engaged in community organizing and outreach in the state.

The current HEAL Utah campaigns include:

• Watchdogging the nuclear waste industry and fighting to keep hotter and increasing quantities of radioactive material from being dumped in our state
• Organizing regulatory, political, and grassroots opposition to build Utah’s first commercial nuclear reactors on the Green River
• Mobilizing support for the development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy storage technologies in Utah
• Bringing increased public pressure on state regulatory agencies to begin the transition of Utah’s coal power plants to non-polluting renewable energy sources
• Educating state leaders about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and how its ratification will ensure that Utahns never again suffer the ill effects of being downwind of nuclear weapons explosions at the Nevada Test Site.

HEAL’s History and Top Successes

1. Preventing hotter and increasing quantities of nuclear waste from coming to Utah. Utah houses the country’s largest low-level nuclear waste disposal site, EnergySolutions, which takes over 95 percent of the nation’s commercial Class A low-level waste. In the last decade, HEAL:
2. Helped pass a state ban on the disposal of hotter Class B and C wastes in Utah (2005),
3. Prevented the expansion of nuclear waste disposal (2006).
4. Foiled plans to make Utah the world’s nuclear dumping ground when EnergySolutions sought to take 20,000 tons of waste from Italy (2010).
5. Halted the imminent shipment of depleted uranium, a unique waste stream that grows in radioactivity over time, from coming to Utah (2010).
6. Worked with the Skull Valley Goshutes to stop 40,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste from reactors around the country from being stored on their tribal reservation 80 miles west of Salt Lake City (2001-2007).
7. Ensuring renewed nuclear weapons testing does not threaten the public health or environment of Utah.
8. HEAL led the grassroots campaign to pressure the Defense Department to cancel its Divine Strake test at the Nevada Test Site (2007), which was meant to simulate a nuclear explosion but raised concerns about uplifting and spreading long-lived and dangerous radionuclides that could negatively impact public health.
9. HEAL was also instrumental in creating pressure on Utah’s Senators to cut funds for the “Bunker Buster,” a program which combined the specter of renewed nuclear weapons testing with a more aggressive nuclear weapon posture.
10. In 2010, HEAL helped pass a unanimous resolution through the Utah House of Representatives urging ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would forever protect Utah’s health and environment from renewed nuclear weapons testing.
11. Promoting sustainable energy alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear power. In the fall of 2007, plans were announced to build Utah’s first commercial nuclear reactor on the Green River. HEAL has worked since then to oppose the proposal due to the huge water requirements, high cost, waste concerns, and safety issues surrounding nuclear power, which make it ill-suited for Utah.
12. In 2010, HEAL published the eUtah Report, which is the first state-based study of its kind in the nation, showing how Utah can transition toward a renewable energy system to meet our electricity needs by 2050.

How do they accomplish all of this with a staff of five? A cadre of volunteers helps but in these recessionary times and with the anti-regulatory crowd (including our current legislature!) snapping at their heels, funding has become problematic. This is where you can help.

Each Board member has taken up the fund-raising banner by agreeing to raise needed contributions. I am "sweetening" the appeal by offering signed and custom-printed images from my large and diverse galleries (samples of which are on this page).

I am happy to do this because in many cases all that stands between us and a far different, less pleasant future is the dedicated staff of a visionary non-profit.

Jeff Clay

Clayhaus Photography