Resolution To Ban the use of Depleted Uranium

Resolution No. 00-40, Series 2000 Resolution To Ban the use of Depleted Uranium

Whereas, on the 14th day of November, 1984, by resolution, the City Council of Davis, California, declared that the City of Davis be a nuclear Free Zone;

Whereas, on that occasion,the City Council stated that the present nuclear arsenals of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics contain sufficient destructive force to kill all human life on Earth; that nuclear war is a grave threat to the health and safety of the citizens of this community, to the survival of the human species, and to the continuation of life on this planet; and that the desire to end the nuclear arms race must start at the bottom, because if people lead, in time the leaders will surely follow;

Whereas, the City Council also resolved to urge Congress and the President to renounce the first use of nuclear weaponry, and to do all things necessary toward that end and toward the elimination of the international threat of nuclear war;

Whereas, the Pentagon has developed a new class of weapons called Kinetic Energy Penetrators composed of depleted uranium (waste from preparing uranium for bombs or reactor fuel) which was first used in battle in the Gulf War, 1991;

Whereas, depleted uranium (DU) has radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years;

Whereas, the Army has declared depleted uranium a radioactive waste that should be isolated in a licensed repository for radioactive waste;

Whereas, the DU weapons not only penetrate armor and other hardened targets, but also burst into flames releasing quantities of aerosolized uranium particles into the environment that are easily carried by wind or water and are easily resuspended, blowing radioactive contamination to locations quite distant from battlefield locations;

Whereas, ingestion or inhalation of DU causes short- and long-term adverse health effects closely related to complaints of Gulf War Veterans whose ailments are called Gulf War Syndrome;

Whereas, the Department of Defense has denied for years the legitimacy of the medical conditions dubbed Gulf War Syndrome, but has now acknowledged the existence of the Gulf War Syndrome and the necessity of its treatment;

Whereas, the Army knew, in advance of the 1991 Gulf War, that inhalation or ingestion of DU particles could have an adverse effect on our service personnel, and had advised leaders to provide protective measures and warnings for those who may be exposed, and medical testing and treatment for those already exposed;

Whereas, when damaged US armored vehicles were collected for return to the United States, it was found that some of the M1A1 tanks armored with depleted uranium, and which had been struck by Ñfriendly fireæ using depleted uranium penetrators, were too radioactive to be salvaged so they were buried at the salvage site in Kuwait;

Whereas, despite known effects on service personnel and civilians in the Gulf War, DU weapons were again used in Bosnia in 1993, and in Yugoslavia in 1999;

Whereas, there has been no effort to clean up contamination of DU at any of the battlefield locations;

Whereas, it has been reported that residents in Iraq near those 1991 battlefields have shown increased birth defects, leukemia and other cancers;

Whereas, thousands of U.S. Gulf War Veterans now have serious health defects, and many have children with gross birth defects that may be due to their contamination from depleted uranium;

Whereas, use of DU weapons may be a violation of International Law, relating to indiscriminate harm and damage to the environment;

Whereas, there is concern that DU is used widely as ballast in commercial and military planes and helicopters; and

Whereas, the U.S. has sold the DU weapons to at least 17 other countries;

Now, Therefore Be It Resolved, that the City Council petition the President and members of Congress including all of the Senators and all of the members of the House of Representatives to demand the President and the Department of Defense do the following:

• Ban the further use of depleted uranium weapons and armor and also destroy our stores on hand;

• Ban the sale of uranium weapons and/or depleted uranium to any other country, and urge those countries which already possess DU weapons to also destroy those weapons;

• Provide appropriate medical testing and medical care for veterans and others suffering from DU contamination;

• Provide appropriate protective measures, monitoring and medical care of Service Personnel who handle DU weapons or cleanup of DU contamination;

• Clean up the DU contamination in the battlefields of Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq, utilizing the unused monies budgeted for the Yugoslavian conflict; and to

• Ban all commercial uses of DU.

Passed and adopted by the Davis City Council on this 15th day of March, 2000, by the following vote:

AYES: BOYD, FORBES, FREEMAN, WAGSTAFF, PARTANSKY. NOES: NONE. ABSENT: NONE.

_____(signed)____________________ JULIE PARTANSKY, Mayor

ATTEST:

______(signed)___________________ BETTY E. RACKI, City Clerk