Southern Nevada Mojave Desert with DOE map overlay entitled “Community monitoring stations around the Nevada Test Site”. To Use a Mountain (Image courtesy To Use a Mountain, LLC )
The United States has never solved one of its oldest problems: what to do with the nuclear waste piling up since the dawn of the atomic age.
In 1982, six rural communities across the country were notified that their land could become the permanent burial site for the nation's nuclear waste. Tasked with finding a location safe for 10,000 years, the Department of Energy studied, mapped, and narrowed its list — while the people living on that "sacrificial territory" fought for their homes, health, history, and dignity. In the end, one site was chosen: Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on the unceded lands of the Western Shoshone. Decades of controversy later, construction was halted, and America's 90,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste still has nowhere permanent to go.
In this episode of Big Blend Radio, host Lisa D. Smith sits down with filmmaker Casey Carter to talk about his documentary feature debut, To Use a Mountain — a people's history of resistance and stewardship told through the farmers, miners, citizen scientists, Native American leaders, and activists who lived this fight. Casey and Lisa trace that story from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act through Yucca Mountain's selection, then connect it directly to today's headlines: the current data-center boom, a so-called "nuclear renaissance," and renewed proposals for reactor sites across the country. The conversation also touches on ongoing public lands battles at places like Chaco Canyon and Bears Ears.
As Casey puts it, describing the search for a nuclear waste site: "It's a grand search for a winner of a contest everyone wants to lose."
Watch the Episode Below or Download/Listen to it on Podbean.
About the Film
To Use a Mountain opens theatrically at DCTV in New York on Friday, August 21st, with a regional theatrical expansion to follow, and arrives on VOD through Grasshopper Film in 2027. The film is also currently screening with frontline communities across the country confronting nuclear waste, nuclear weapons production, and the new generation of nuclear projects driven by the energy demands of the AI data center boom.
Official Selections & Awards:
Visions du Réel (Switzerland) — Special Jury Award, International Competition, World Premiere
Dallas International Film Festival — Documentary Feature Competition
DOXA (Vancouver) — Best Feature Honorable Mention, ParaDOXA Forum
IDFA (Amsterdam) — Best of Fest
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (Missoula) — Official Selection
And more
About the Filmmaker
Casey Carter is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary designer whose nonfiction work spans film, photography, data visualization, and cartography, centered on themes of governmentality, geography, and environmentalism. His earlier short films — Two Boys and a Dream (2023), Two Prisons (2020), and The Rights of Nature (2019) — have screened at festivals including Revolutions Per Minute, SF Shorts, and Hong Kong Film Art. He holds degrees in Physics and Photography from Middle Tennessee State University and a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan, and his work has been supported by the Sundance Documentary Film Program, IDA, the Redford Center, SFFILM, and others. To Use a Mountain is his feature debut as director, cinematographer, and editor.
To Use a Mountain is produced by Colleen Cassingham and Jonna McKone, with executive producers Brett Story, Maida Lynn, and Ryan Krivoshey.
Learn More: Visit touseamountain.com for screening updates, tickets, and release information.