ONEOFMANYFEATHERS
Yellow Dust
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Northeast Church Rock Mine Disaster
The largest accidental surface release of radioactive materials in the United States occurred July 16 1979, when a uranium tailings pond collapsed near Church Rock, New Mexico, releasing 378,500 m3 of liquids and 1000 mg of solids into the Puerco River. The resulting wave distributed radioactive thorium-230 through-out a 50 mile stretch of river.
The Church Rock disaster was the largest single release of radiotoxic materials into the environment prior to the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. Wholesale slaughter of contaminated cattle and animals downstream from the accident was required. The Church Rock dam was brand new and promoted by those in the uranium industry as a "state of the art" structure. In the Elliot Lake region, there have been over thirty tailings dam failures.
The Northeast Church Rock Mine is a former uranium mine that was operated by United Nuclear Corporation from 1967 to 1982. Most of the 125-acre mine permit area is held in trust for the Navajo Nation by the United States Government and is immediately adjacent to the Navajo Reservation. Approximately 40 acres are patented mining claim land owned by United Nuclear Corporation. A small community of residents live immediately next to the mine site on the reservation, downstream and down-wind of the waste piles, where they graze their sheep, cattle and horses.
New Mexico was a significant uranium producer since the discovery of uranium by Navajo sheepherder Paddy Martinez in 1950.
For parts of four decades between 1952 and 1986, the residents of Church Rock Chapter of the Navajo Nation lived with uranium mining. For the two decades since the last mine shut off its underground pumps, stopping all mine water discharges to local streams, questions have lingered in the minds of community members and tribal officials about the extent of environmental impacts from past mining and milling operations. Many are convinced that uranium mining caused the deaths and illnesses of family members, however from a medical and epidemiological perspective, the human health consequences of living in mining-impacted areas remain a mystery. Why? Because not a single population health study has ever been conducted in the Church Rock area, despite its mining history.
"The Spirits said it had to be left alone." From the late 1940's through the mid-80's, yellowcake was picked and shoveled and blasted and hauled in open-bed trucks, dumped and then dried in mountainous piles at multiple sites in the American West. The Navajo, whose lands extend over western New Mexico, eastern Arizona and southern Utah, were at the epicenter of the uranium-mining boom, and thousands of Navajos have worked in the mines. On Navajo land, there are more than 1,000 abandoned mine shafts.
Under lease agreements with the Navajo Nation, From 1944 to 1986, mine operators extracted nearly four million tons of uranium ore. As a result, uranium mining has left the Navajo Nation with over 500 abandoned uranium mines, four inactive uranium milling sites, a former dump site, contaminated groundwater, structures that may contain elevated levels of radiation, along with environmental and public health concerns.
From 1950 to 1990, more than 500 uranium miners died of lung cancer. A Public Health Service study predicts that hundreds more will die of lung cancer in the coming years. A majority of the deaths caused from exposure to radiation from the breakdown of uranium products. These so-called radon daughters attach to dust particles, and when inhaled lodge in the lungs where they release high doses of radiation.
A study in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine show that a Navajo uranium miners risk of developing lung cancer is 28 times as great as those Navajos not exposed to uranium. The Navajo are also more vulnerable to the toxic kidney effects of uranium because they already have three times the national rates of diabetes and kidney disease.
Despite efforts made in cleaning up uranium sites, significant problems still exist today on the Navajo Nation. Today hundreds of abandoned mines have not been cleaned up and present serious environmental and health risks for many Navajo communities.
New Mexico uranium miners from the 1940s and 1950s have had abnormally high rates of lung cancer, from breathing radon gas in poorly ventilated underground mines. The effect was particularly pronounced among Navajo miners, because the incidence of lung cancer is normally low among Navajos. The Navajo tribe, whose reservation contains much of the known ore deposits, declared a moratorium on uranium mining in 2005. In May 2007, the US EPA announced that it would join the Navajo Nation EPA in cleaning up radioactive contamination near the Church Rock mine.
Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using sand and rock from the mines and mills.
We brought dust home on our clothes, we contaminated our families. ~ Navajo mine worker ~
BUSH Abandoning R.E.C.A. - While setting aside $30M to start new uranium mining! "Last year, Congress clearly mandated payments under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to former uranium miners, workers and Downwinders," said Melton Martinez, President of Eastern Navajo Uranium Workers. "But now, the government is denying and delaying justice by changing the rules, and have even stated clearly their priority constituents." Martinez was referring to a bill introduced by Rep Wilson (R-NM), House Energy Bill (HR4) that would give $30 million dollars to companies to start uranium mining, in the same area, where ill miners denied compensation live.
Those who ignore mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. This seems to be what the Bush administration is doing in failing to recognize the injuries and injustices to the previous generation of uranium miners, by supporting new mining ventures without correcting old wrongs. Where is the compassion in even considering inflecting the same harm on the next generation without a thought for those presently suffering?Uranium mining in the United States declined drastically in the 1980s, but has revived since 2001 due to higher uranium prices. The average spot price of uranium oxide (U3O8) increased from $7.92 per pound in 2001 to $39.48 per pound in 2006.
Uranium mining in New Mexico was a significant industry from the early 1950s until the early 1980s. New Mexico has the second largest identified uranium ore reserves of any state in the US, after Wyoming, however no uranium ore has been mined in New Mexico since 1998.
"Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since the prehistoric discovery of fire. This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms. For there is no secret and there is no defense, there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world. ~Albert Einstein ~ 1947
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