Snake River Alliance Records, 1946-2010

The Snake River Alliance was founded in 1979, soon after the Three-Mile Island accident, by a handful of people who had just learned the Idaho National Laboratory routinely injected hazardous and radioactive waste into the Snake River Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for a quarter of a million people.

From the founding, the Alliance has been actively and absolutely opposed to nuclear weapons, and they threatened litigation early on to stop construction of the first New Production Reactor, a weapons material production reactor, at INL. They educated Idahoans throughout the 1980s on weapons issues through our Hazardous Materials Transport Project, steady publication of our research findings, and educational events.

Between 1987 and 1990, the Alliance focused on blocking construction of the Special Isotope Separator, which would have produced weapons-grade plutonium. In 1992, the majority of Idahoans, with their leadership, blocked construction of a second New Production Reactor and the revamping of the nuclear weapons complex. Their Stop the Shipments campaign in the early 1990s trained public attention on nuclear navy waste coming to Idaho, which ultimately led to reduced shipments. In 1999 they helped lead the Back from the Brink national campaign to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. In 2001 they helped stop the construction of a plutonium incinerator at INL. They are one of Idaho's strongest advocates for clean and renewable energy, leading the charge for the development of a sustainable energy plan for Idaho.

[Modified from the "About" page on their website: http://snakeriveralliance.org/mission-vision-and-values/]