GaLLeRy 2008 - Peace Camp land

The land that housed the peace camp was sold for back taxes in 2006. The front porch and back of the house has since been torn down, the garage, which collapsed of its own accord, has been hauled away and the barn has been re-slatted. The pavilion is still standing while the summer kitchen and boardwalk are steadily returning to the earth. Some of the peace camp graffiti on the house, garden shed and original outhouse is still visible.
Photographs by Jesse Doe

NeWSPaPeR 6.7.08

Publication: Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
Date: June 7, 2008
PeHP source: Nancy Keefe Rhodes

Soldiers to Practice at Depot
Government to lease training space
by John Stith 

   The U.S. Army, which eight years ago pulled out of the former Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, is back. In the most recent proposal for new activity at the depot, the Army will bring in groups of 400 to 1,500 soldiers - roughly company-size to brigade-size units - to the depot two to six times a year for training.

   Fort Drum, with 107,265 acres, uses about 50,000 acres for training and needed more space, said Col. John Penree, senior planning and operations officer at Fort Drum. Penree said the base is used not only by members of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, but also by National Guard units from across the Northeast."It gets very busy here in the summer," he said.

   Penree said state officials contacted the Army in October 2004 about using the depot for training. Fort Drum officials and the Seneca County Economic Development Corp., which oversees redevelopment of the depot, are finalizing a lease agreement. County development officials did not respond to requests for comment.

   An environmental assessment prepared by the Army calls for a five-year lease, renewable for five years, to use 3,000 acres of the 10,600-acre depot. The areas include the airfield, a large portion of the bunker area and warehouse space. Penree said there is no cost to the Army to lease the land, but the Army will share maintenance costs and will repair any damage caused by the training operations. Only wheeled vehicles will be used at the depot. No heavy equipment or tracked vehicles will be used, he said.

Seneca's 25th Anniversary Celebration!

What better way to mark the 25th anniversary of the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice than by joining thousands of women in a 4-day gathering for peace at the White House?



We urge all feminists, activists and artists to heed this call from Eli Painted Crow, a 22-year Army Veteran who served in Iraq in 2004. She is a Native American from the Yaqui Nation. This is her vision:

"A gathering of women, the grandmothers, mothers and the daughters of all. To see our sisters, our friends and lovers who are ready to start something great. It is about you; it is about me, together it is "we." Imagine how powerful this can be, listening to our heartbeats growing strong. A heartbeat that is a stand for peace. We, the Turtle Women are rising, rising to help our mother, rising to witness her cries for the loss of lives. We, the Turtle Women are rising, rising to speak through our hearts, through the beat of the drum that connects all life for all time. We are Turtle Women rising, rising for peace."

Check out her web page: turtlewomenrising.org and make plans to join your peace camp sisters, October 10-13, 2008 in D.C. We're organizing rides. Let us know you're coming.

"We're gonna rise with the fires of freedom.
Truth is the fire that will break our chains.
We're gonna stop the fires of destruction.
Healing is the fire running through our veins."

GaLLeRy 1983 Hazel Brampton

Opening Day

July 4, 1983

Photographs by Hazel Brampton

 Nagasaki Day

August 6, 198

NeWSPaPeR 6.14.85

Publication: Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
Date: June 14, 1985
PeHP source: Jane Begley

Seneca Makes N.Y. No. 2 in Nukes
by Jack Anderson

   In the 40 years since the first atomic bomb exploded, the world has rushed headlong down the path of nuclear proliferation. So far, the possession of nuclear weapons by five major powers has acted as a successful deterrent.But the possibility is growing that the nuclear arsenal is getting out of control. Familiarity seems to have bred contempt for the consequences of a nuclear exchange; officials in Washington – and presumably in the other nuclear-power capitals – are thinking what was once called the unthinkable.

   Consider the testimony of a top Strategic Air Command general at a closed session of the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to the transcript, he made the obligatory bow to “the complex interaction of many elements” that add up to deterrence, but then said ominously; “However, should deterrence fail between strategic nuclear powers, all but one of these factors become irrelevant, and we must then look to the ultimate measure of merit: raw military power.

   The general proceeded to plead the case for deploying more nuclear warheads in this country and abroad.

   We doubt that even the experts of the Strategic Air Command, let alone President Reagan and his advisors have a clear idea of just how extensive the nuclear arsenal has become. A fresh picture is presented in a new book, “Nuclear Battlefields: Global Links in the Arms Race,” by William Arkin and Richard Fieldhouse.

   With a minimum of rhetoric and a maximum of mind-numbing facts and figures, the book lists every nuclear warhead in every facility related to the production and deployment of nuclear weapons.

   The greatest shock for most Americans will be the discovery that there are nuclear warheads practically in their back yards. Only 22 states and the District of Columbia have no nuclear warheads within their borders. The greatest contiguous warhead-free zone is a roughly Y-shaped, 15-state cordon sanitaire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean (Deleware and Maryland) to the Mississippi River, north to the Canadian border (Minnesota) and south to the Gulf of Mexico (Alabama and Mississippi).

   There also is a chart that ranks the states by the number of warheads and also by nuclear facilities. Surprisingly, the two states with the most nuclear weapons are on the eastern seaboard, not the Great Plains where the intercontinental ballistic missiles are deployed.

    South Carolina heads the list with 1,962 warheads. The Navy weapons stations at Charleston stores 1,482 warheads, mostly as spares for submarines being overhauled. Three subs berthed there account for the remaining 480.

   Second is New York, with 1,900 warheads, most of which are at Seneca Army Depot in the Finger Lakes region. A secret Pentagon report we have obtained discloses that the Army has been stockpiling warheads for neutron bombs there since 1981. These and other warheads were made from nuclear material recovered from 1,200 “retired” 8-inch artillery shells, which yielded about 78 tons of highly enriched uranium or alloys.

   The rest of the Top 10 and the number of nuclear warheads in each are North Dakota (1,510); California (1,437); Washington state (1,172); Michigan and Texas (630 each); Virginia (542); Louisiana (530); and Arkansas (430).