Yakama Nation Environmental Leader Russell Jim Dies At Age 82

A Yakama Nation leader, Russell Jim, has died. The 82-year-old was well-known by tribes and environmentalists across the nation for his fight to clean up Hanford.

For nearly four decades, Jim led the Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program. He fought to know just what the Hanford nuclear complex released into the air, water and land. And for years, Jim fought to clean it up. He also payed a big role in blocking the plan to make Hanford the nation’s high-level radioactive waste repository.

According to Yakama tradition his pictures will be put away, and his name won’t be spoken for a year.  (Editor’s note: With respect to Yakama Nation practices, this story doesn’t include a picture of Russell Jim to honor that tradition.)

In February, the Washington Legislature honored Jim with a resolution for his life’s work on Hanford and the environment.

A new documentary called “Russell Jim, A Quiet Warrior” by a Coeur d’Alene Tribal member is set to release this year. In it, Jim talked about how Hanford’s secret mission hid its many releases to the environment for decades.

Hundreds of people mourned his death at the Yakama longhouse. They followed his body in a horse drawn procession at dawn to an Indian burial site in the nearby hills.

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