The government routed nuclear fallout toward Shoshone territory and miscounted their exposure.

Evidence

According to Sanchez, the Atomic Energy Commission and then the Department of Energy would deliberately wait for the clouds to blow north and east before conducting above-ground tests, so that the fallout would avoid any heavily populated areas such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. This meant that the Shoshones would get a larger dosage. They literally had no protection. … When the federal scientists began to look at the Department of Energy’s dose reconstruction of the off-site fallout, [they found that] we were put under the shepherd lifestyle. So we weren’t even looked at at all. The scientists…figured that a one-year-old child who ate a contaminated rabbit within a month’s time after the test probably had six times the dose of what DOE’s figures were saying. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 502

Categorization

• XREF: Direct echo of the doctrine-of-discovery theme: state power deciding whose land and bodies absorb externalized costs, as in the White Earth and Innu cases. — connects to: Government radiation estimates undercounted public exposure by up to 3,000-fold. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 496; US tribal lands are prime targets for nuclear and toxic waste disposal. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 53; Prairie Island residents were informed of leaks only via radio and later reports — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 556