Navajo Nation Slams Door on Deal That Would Have Allowed Uranium Mining [View all]

[KamaAina]

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/08/01/navajo-nation-slams-door-deal-would-have-allowed-uranium-mining-156143

The Navajo Nation has blocked a backdoor deal that would have allowed uranium mining to restart, despite lingering waste from past mining and a reservation-wide ban that’s been in place since 2005....

During its Summer Session last week, the Navajo Nation Council voted 18-3 to rescind legislation passed in December by an unauthorized committee. It would have allowed a Colorado-based company called Uranium Resources Incorporated (URI) to conduct in situ – literally “on-site” – mining on private lands near Church Rock, at the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and then transport the uranium across Navajo trust lands.

The uranium industry saw its first successes in the Four Corners region during World War II; a full-on heyday hit during the Cold War. Afterwards, former mining areas lay in ruins. By one estimate, the state of Colorado has spent $1 billion to clean up mill sites, and 1,300 abandoned sites remain across the state. The EPA razed an entire mining town, Uravan, near the San Miguel River in west-central Colorado, because it was so contaminated.

Past uranium mining has also contaminated homes, land and soil at 520 sites across the Navajo Nation, and possibly more. Drinking water from at least 22 wells is unfit for consumption by people or livestock. Researchers at regional universities have documented numerous cancers and other ailments among Navajo people that are attributable to radiation.