EXCLUSIVE: There is no permanent disposal site for high-level nuclear waste in the United States, hard as that may be to grasp.
“The nation has over 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants,” reports the Government Accountability office. “[P]olicymakers have been at an impasse over what to do with this spent fuel since 2010.”
There have been attempts to park that radioactive waste in various rural areas, as documented in To Use a Mountain, directed by Casey Carter, produced by Colleen Cassingham and Jonna McKone, and executive produced by Brett Story, Ryan Krivoshey, and Maida Lynn. The film holds its Canadian premiere tonight at DOXA, the festival in Vancouver, British Columbia. It celebrated its world premiere last month at Visions du Réel, the documentary film festival in Nyon, Switzerland.
We have your first look at the documentary in the trailer above.
“In To Use a Mountain, the fight against a nuclear waste dump becomes a battle for survival and identity in six rural American communities,” notes the DOXA program. “When the U.S. government quietly proposes burying almost 70,000 tons of radioactive waste beneath their land, it sparks decades of environmental devastation, and the ensuing resistance and grassroots activism. Through a blend of real and imagined spaces, personal stories, data visualization, and archival materials, the film explores the clash between government power and environmental justice. The film’s intricate structure pulls us into a struggle that continues to shape these communities long after the crisis has faded from the headlines.”
To Use a Mountain marks the directorial debut of Carter, who also shot and edited the film. The documentary held its U.S. premiere at the just-concluded Dallas International Film Festival.
“In 1982, the Reagan Administration enacted the Nuclear Waste Removal Act that pinpointed 7 different locations around the country that would be evaluated for the deposit of waste material,” writes Joe Baker at DallasFilmNow.com. “Through actual U.S. documentation, interviews with people in each community, and an eye for the texture of the world set to be upended by the possibility of becoming a radioactive dumping ground, To Use a Mountain paints a powerful testimony.”
‘To Use a Mountain’
Courtesy of gcciii.com/Casey Carter
Baker continues, “Alternating between cold, calculated information (the graphic design of the documentation is spectacular) and passionate conversations with the people within each community, the film moves forward with an entropy that’s hard to shake… Not only does the government displace and dispose of people, but the almost mundane, analytical way they describe portions of this country are damning.”
Watch the trailer for To Use a Mountain above.
Content shared from deadline.com.