Groups air uranium concerns
Seek moratorium on new uranium development in region

Residents of the Red Water Pond Road community hold signs near their homes on Tuesday, July 10. A number of state representatives from various agencies visited the area to determine how much of a role the state will play in determine whether or not uranium companies will return to New Mexico to mine. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Representatives of grassroots groups and nongovernmental organizations from New Mexico and Arizona told members of Congress last week that they want a federal moratorium on new uranium development in the region until the widespread environmental and public health damages from past mining and milling are resolved and workers and communities are fully compensated.

The organizations were in Washington to participate in the Navajo Uranium Roundtable sponsored by Rep. Tom Udall of New Mexico, and co-hosted by Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah, Rep. Rick Renzi of Arizona, and Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr.

The groups, which represented communities in the Eastern Navajo Agency, Acoma and Laguna pueblos, and the Milan and Grants area, supported the Navajo Nation’s requests for funding to clean up hundreds of abandoned mines in Navajo communities, fully compensate uranium workers, conduct health studies in uranium-impacted communities, and honor and respect the Navajo Nation’s 2005 law banning uranium mining and processing in Navajo Country.

Speakers for the grassroots groups joined President Shirley, other Navajo Nation officials, and Laguna Pueblo Gov. John E. Antonio, in calling for a federal moratorium on new uranium mining.

Mitchell Capitan, founder of Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, based in Crownpoint, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is “tilted toward industry” and cannot be trusted to properly regulate uranium in-situ leach mines and new uranium mills.

He charged that the NRC did not give fair consideration to ENDAUM’s technical and legal arguments challenging NRC’s 1998 licensing of Hydro Resources, Inc.’s proposed ISL mines in Churchrock and Crownpoint.

To illustrate his point, Capitan provided copies of a photo from the NRC’s web site showing agency officials smiling and shaking hands with executives of a Wyoming uranium company which had just submitted an application for a new ISL mine — long before the proposed facility is subjected to NRC staff review and approved by the Commission.

Larry J. King, an ENDAUM member and Churchrock Chapter resident, said his community recommends a federal uranium mine clean-up program that would address legacy sites throughout the West. He also called for Congress to force NRC to return to its mission to protect public health and safety. He cited an NRC ruling in 2006 that classified high levels of radiation from mining wastes at a proposed ISL site across the highway from his home as “background” radiation.

Robert Tohe, environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club in Flagstaff, said Congress should give federal land management agencies the authority to deny exploration and mining permits on Native American sacred sites and in sacred places. He noted that several mining companies are exploring for uranium on and around Mtount Taylor, one of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo people and a sacred place for Acoma and Laguna pueblos.

Long-time Diné uranium worker advocate Phil Harrison Jr., now a delegate to the Navajo Nation Council, Paguate resident Alvino Waconda, and Milan residents Linda Evers and Liz Lucero, all of whom are former uranium workers, supported Grand Junction attorney and Navajo Nation consultant Keith Killian in calling for amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

They want to see RECA amended to include people who worked in the uranium industry after 1971. Evers said her group has collected nearly 1,500 surveys of post-1971 uranium workers, and that the vast majority of workers are reporting a wide range of cancers, respiratory diseases and kidney disease. Evers said she expects to report the first results by the end of the year.

Milan residents Candace Head-Dylla, Milton Head and Art Gebeau, representing the Bluewater Valley Downstream Alliance, handed out information packets showing how groundwater contamination around the Homestake

Uranium Mill north of Milan has spread to three aquifers covering several miles of land since first detected in 1961.

They said the plumes contain high levels of uranium and other toxic substances and are inching toward Milan’s municipal water wells, yet no groundwater monitoring is being conducted ahead of the contamination plume.

Dozens of private wells in communities near the mill have been shut down, but until very recently some residents were unknowingly still drinking tainted water from private wells, the BVDA members said. They recommended Congress amend federal laws such as the Clean Water Act to ensure that that uranium mine and mill wastes and associated discharges are regulated as toxic pollutants.

The grass-roots people were assisted by staffs of Southwest Research and Information Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Earthworks, and The Raben Group.

Dr. Johnnye Lewis, a University of New Mexico toxicologist who was invited by the Navajo Nation and Udall staffs to provide scientific guidance, spoke to the need for a comprehensive health study, noting that the lack of health data is often misconstrued as a lack of effect.

Dr. Lewis, who is the principal investigator for the first community-based health and exposure study in Navajo communities, emphasized the need for health studies to be conducted by independent investigators to ensure the validity and scientific integrity of results.