Tribal officials blast new wave of uranium mining

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Representatives of the Navajo Nation and the Pueblos of Acoma and Laguna told a state committee this week that a new wave of uranium mining will further contaminate their lands and precious water resources, in addition to damaging the health of tribal residents.

Members of the New Mexico Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee expressed little sympathy and even less understanding of the potential dangers associated with uranium exposure during a meeting Monday in Grants. Still, the tribes made a valiant effort to present the reasons for their opposition to new uranium mining before what appeared to be a largely pro-uranium mining committee.

Navajo Nation Vice President Bennie Shelly spoke of working with a group from Grants back in 1999 which went to Washington to lobby on behalf of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

“The funny thing that they always used to joke about, this group, they would always say, ‘Don’t turn the light off. We glow in the dark,’ ” Shelly said. Two members of the group, including Chairman Paul Hicks, have since passed away. Hicks “donated his body for science to study further the uranium effects on human beings,” Shelly said.

The vice president told the committee that the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation “has devastated both the people and the land. Workers, their families, and our communities suffer increased incidences of cancer and other disorders that trace back to uranium exposure.”

Abandoned mines represent an ongoing health and environmental hazard, he said. “While the Navajo people and Navajoland have suffered from the effects of uranium mining, perhaps the greatest tragedy is the prospect that many companies are attempting to come back to Navajo Indian Country to mine uranium once again.

“How can the federal government allow a new generation of contamination when we are still dealing with the legacy of prior uranium mining?” Shelly asked.

The Navajo Nation has taken steps to stop this new threat to the health of the Navajo people. “No. 1, the Navajo Nation is opposed to any and all renewed uranium mining on or near Navajoland.” Renewed uranium mining poses a threat to the aquifers relied on by the Navajo people for their drinking water, he said.

The Navajo Nation also is calling for a change to RECA to ensure proper compensation for those who suffer from uranium exposure, and is demanding that the federal agencies accept their responsibility for cleanup of uranium mining and processing sites, Shelly said.

He also reminded the committee that the Navajo Nation approved the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005 which states that there is to be no uranium mining on or within the borders of Navajo Indian Country.

“We cannot allow this company to return to our land to mine uranium with new or old technology. The risk is too great. Once you contaminate water, you can’t change it. Why chance it? Why doubt it?

“I know the almighty dollar speaks. But there are also humans out there, your constituents. People that are out there will have to face what you allow to happen. ... Radiation is a problem and it’s always going to be a dangerous problem,” he said.

Charles Long, legislative staff assistant from the office of Navajo Nation Council Speaker Lawrence Morgan said very few Navajos were helped through RECA. “The health problems of the miners still exist today. For a lot of those miners that have been affected by cancer from these mines, there is no cure for them. All you can try to do is make them comfortable.

“Speaker Morgan says we know that URI is proposing to begin operations of mining and processing uranium in the Ambrosia Lake area using the in-situ leach process. Speaker Morgan is of the opinion that this type mining method hasn’t really been determined to be safe. It will still cause contamination.”

Long said there are many Navajo family home sites near the Ambrosia Lake area. “Speaker Morgan believes that if this operation is allowed to move ahead, it would jeopardize the health of these families.

“Speaker Morgan says that, for now, his office will not even discuss uranium mining with companies that are in that business until it has been determined that any type of uranium mining is safe and there is a cure found for cancer,” Long said.

Laura Watchempino of the Haaku Water Office at the Pueblo of Acoma, presented comments on behalf of Gov. Jason Johnson as well as the Acoma Tribal Council.

“I would like to caution all of you, you have a very heavy responsibility, members of the Radioactive Materials Committee, to carefully look at this issue. Matters of not only human health, but this fragile ecosystem that was once pristine before the original uranium mining and milling, are in your hands.

“I come here to speak not only for the protection of human health for those unborn as well as those present in this room, but for all of the species that this beautiful mountain (Mount Taylor) and region supports,” Watchempino said.

“I hope you do not overlook the water source that this mountain provides to the Rio San Jose, the River of Life, to not only the communities of Grants, Milan, Acoma, as well as Laguna, all the way to the Rio Puerco and on to the Rio Grande.

“The Rio San Jose below San Manteo Creek is dry,” she said, as well as a spring in San Rafael. “All these events happened after the previous uranium mining was done in the region and we have not been able to return the area to its pre-mining condition.

“We are still faced with these effects down through Acoma and Laguna. If it were not for the springs that are protected on Acoma land, we would have no river, and our way of life in this region depends on that river and on its source.”

Watchempino said Acoma recently revised its water quality standards to account for elevated levels of total dissolved solids and sulfates. “I cannot tell you conclusively that these come from the previous or historic uranium mining and milling that occurred in the area, but we definitely do not have that dilution factor that was referred to earlier because we have no water upstream entering the Pueblo of Acoma.

“If there is any new development in the area, it could not only affect the water quality of the region, but the water supply itself,” she said.

Gov. John Antonio Sr., Pueblo of Laguna, said his pueblo has spent 54 years of dealing with uranium mining and its impacts.

“For these reasons, and based on its experience, the Pueblo of Laguna is absolutely against any proposals to resume uranium exploration and/or mining activities in the Grants Uranium Belt, or anywhere near Indian Country.

“The Tribal Council for the Pueblo of Laguna passed Resolution No. 07-07 on March 6, 2007. This resolution expresses our strong opposition to Senate Joint Memorial 10, which was calling upon the Department of Environment and the Energy Minerals & Natural Resources Department to collaborate with the New Mexico uranium industry to resolve existing barriers to advance consideration of uranium production in New Mexico,” Antonio said.

“Our pueblo was once the operator of the world’s largest open pit uranium mine,” he said. The Village of Paguate and other communities lie within a 10 mile radius of the former Jackpile Mine. “Of course now we have the challenge of trying to reclaim this area.”

The mine was operated by Anaconda Mining Co. from 1953 to 1982. It operated with three shifts going 24 hours per day for 29 years and handled 400 million tons of rock that yielded 24 million tons of uranium ore which was shipped to processing facilities, some in the Grants/Milan area.

“You may ask why we are against uranium because we have benefited, and I’ll tell you. Over the span of the mining, yes, we did receive $71 million in royalties, $200,000 in lease payments, and the fee that went to our community members is estimated over $85 million.

“Yes, financially we did benefit. But the cost of lives now, the impacts, the cancer we have brought in … it’s not worth any other community to forgo. Our brothers here, the Navajo, have been attesting to the same impacts that we have all felt as Native communities.

“We have seen an increase in the number of cancer-related illnesses in those tribal members who live in the village of Paguate right next to the mine, and also with those individuals that worked all those years at the mine.

“How do we know this? By the number of patients now receiving cancer treatments, by the number of birth defects in newborns of those individuals living near the mine, and the number of ex-miners and their widows applying for benefits under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act,” he said.

“The impacts of mining have been felt long after the closing of the mine and will continue to be felt long into the future.”