Navajo Utah Commission tries to help radiation victims

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — For nearly a half century, the Navajo people were unwitting victims of radioactive fallout. They labored unprotected in underground uranium mines, unaware of the dangers. But the pay was good.

Now, these downwinders and those who worked the mines and mills or hauled the ore, and even their family members are sick and seeking federal compensation.

But federal response to those applications for compensation has been slow to non-existent, according to Lucy Begay, coordinator of the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program at Utah Navajo Health System.

Begay addressed the Navajo Utah Commission Monday during its final meeting before the incoming 21st Navajo Nation Council.

Commission Chairman Willie Grayeyes said he had a number of family members affected by uranium mining. "Even though the federal compensation is available, it is so doggone difficult. It's like trying to climb Mount Everest in the winter. Either you make it or you don't make it."

He said the feds have made it so difficult to obtain the required documents, families spend all their resources just trying to gather the information. The tribe's Privacy Act also tends to get in the way.

"Sometimes it's so frustrating the people just say, 'To heck with it. Let it go,' " Grayeyes said.

Begay said Part II of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act approved last year is "very difficult in the sense of evaluation, because they base their compensation on expanded impairment (and) they base their compensation on percentage."

"Let's say, if a person was in a wheelchair, then they're able to get almost all their compensation. But as far as I know, very few miners have been compensated," at least not fully, she said. "Most of them are getting only medical benefits."

Commission member Mark Maryboy said the Navajo Utah RESEP program is a project they worked hard on, meeting with federal officials and raising complaints about the Utah Navajos being left out of the loop.

"Sometimes we think we're just talking to walls. When you talk to those senators, they don't really seem to be receptive. ... Sometimes people come to us complaining they have to go through tons and tons of bureaucratic process before they're compensated," Maryboy said.

"A lot of our Utah folks worked at the mines over at VCA, Oljato Mine,right around Cone Wash, Clay Hills and places like that. Some of those folks died trying to get compensation," he said.

"The siblings, the kids that were at the mines when they were growing up,now they have cancers and some of them have a hard, hard time getting thenecessary documents to justify that they're affected."

Some reside on lands in close proximity to the Nevada Test Site. "They'realso in the category of downwinders. Even then, they're struggling. Thesefolks are dying off and they're still struggling with paperwork," Maryboysaid.

The office of U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has been very supportive ofthe RESEP program, according to Begay. Matheson himself is a downwinder and has family members that have been exposed to radiation.

"In our area, down where Mark is (Aneth), we have families that have been affected by the radiation and nobody knows about it. Only the families tell stories about it," Begay said.

Obtaining documentation acceptable to the federal government is a constant struggle for Navajo victims of radiation exposure.

"A lot of applications are being denied because we're on the reservation and we don't have physical addresses. Most of our folks never kept records," Begay said.

The regulations are set by the National Research Council and is all very scientific, she said. Too, because the regulations were approved by Congress, it's difficult to change some of the statutes.

"There are a lot of applications, a lot of setbacks. I'm asking the commission to continue supporting our program," said Begay, who works mainly with the Idaho Falls Resource Center.

"We work with people throughout Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California. We have people all the way from Alaska and Hawaii. We don't work with only Navajo people. We work with all people," she said.

The Utah Navajo Health System now has five clinics, located in Montezuma Creek, Salt Lake City, Blanding, Monument Valley and Navajo Mountain.