I Know You are Exhausted But…
By 
This is a guest post by Western Dave.
I want to thank Erik and the other front-pagers for giving me the chance to spread the word about yet another outrage that is occurring and requires action. Like many of us in the current crisis, my friend and I felt so overwhelmed with all the things that needed action, we were frozen into inaction. So we decided we would specialize on one or two (or three) issues that were especially meaningful to us, or areas where we had expertise that would be useful. As a scholar of uranium mining on and near the Navajo reservation, I’ve focused on environmental and indigenous issues. And now it’s my time to do something.
On Monday, there is going to be an on-line (via Zoom) letter-writing workshop to help support activists who are trying to stop the reopening and new construction of uranium mines on the Navajo reservation including mines that are on one of the four sacred mountains Tóódzhił (Mt. Taylor) and if you have some time, it would be great if you could write a letter to help stop this. The details on the Z are here: tinyurl.com/lajaramesapublichearing and there’s a letter writing toolkit here as well if on-line meetings aren’t your thing. Below, I’ll briefly detail some of the history that precedes this moment and try to explain why stopping these particular mines is important, even if you support continued use of nuclear fission energy.
From 1950-1981, uranium mining was the major economic activity of what is now Cibola County New Mexico and the surrounding areas. Known as the Grants uranium belt, these deposits were some of the richest mines in the country. First discovered in 1950 by a Navajo man named Paddy Martinez, with some of the biggest deposits discovered on the land scam of convicted fraudster Stella Dysart, the uranium boom led to hundreds of mines on and near the reservation. At first, Navajos welcomed this development, especially in the 1973-1981 phase when the tribe had more leverage and not only collected royalties on mines on the rez, but also forced mining companies to hire Navajos on in these good paying, if dangerous, jobs. From 1950 to 1957, the US government promised to buy all the uranium from any mine that was producing so as to make nuclear weapons. This promise led to many small “doghole” mines, little more than shafts driven into the sides of mesas by small producers. Hundreds of these mines still exist and many have radioactive tailings piles and dust fields that make living in this part of New Mexico more dangerous. By the mid-1960s, development to supply nuclear power plants revived the industry and production was mostly controlled by a handful of major players.
But opposition to uranium mining was growing, many of the early miners got lung cancer, and it would later be revealed that government regulators knew that the original exposure levels were unsafe but did not change the regulations. More importantly, in 1979 one of the worst nuclear disasters in US history happened. Not Three Mile Island, which was the almost nuclear accident, but actually wasn’t that bad, this was the Churchrock tailings dam spill. Basically, radioactive waste was held in tailings ponds, with the water helping prevent the dust and radioactive particles from entering the air. The tailings dam at Churchrock number 2 mine failed, and tons of radioactive water and rock poured into the Rio Puerco river, eventually contaminating water supplies all the way to Phoenix. To this day, you cannot drink the water near the damn site, nor eat animals that have drunk that water. Many Navajos attributed this disaster to the recent opening of a mine on Mt. Taylor. They believed that the Holy People who lived in Mt. Taylor caused the dam spill to indicate their displeasure at the desecration of the site. Many other Navajos and other locals be they Anglo, Hispano, Mormon or other, started to put two and two together and realized that uranium mining was a heck of a lot more dangerous to them then the companies and government had led them to believe. Opposition led by various cross-racial coalitions mounted and they even put on a local benefit concert led by, if memory serves, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt.
Much of this activism proved ultimately unnecessary, when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he removed the tariff on uranium and the price of U3O8 (processed uranium called yellowcake) dropped from $33 dollars a pound to $9 a pound overnight. The uranium industry in the US was dead. Mine cleanup has proceeded slowly and somewhat ineffectively. Burying tailings piles is at pest a short term solution – after about twenty years radioactive material begins to be exposed to and spread by wind and water. More than thirty years on, the disastrous effects are still felt.
In the past, attempts to stop new uranium mining operations or reopening old ones have been stopped by local opposition. Because uranium is water soluble, “safer” mining advocates claim that pumping water into old mines, “leach mining” can safely mine uranium without exposing miners and their communities to dangers. However, they have not explained how they can prevent contamination into the local aquifer or even where the water would come from since water rights are already overcommitted in this high desert climate. And mining without miners doesn’t even come with the benefit of the high wage jobs that traditional mines provide.
Now the Trump administration has told the Forest Service to fast track the development of long-stalled mining projects. Forcing the state to hold local hearings on impacts, the direct object of these letters, slows down the process of opening the mines and helps support the people of Laguna Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo, the Navajo reservation, and their many non-indigenous neighbors who oppose these projects. If you can spare some time, a letter will help.
I wish I had more inspiring words to end with, but I don’t. Pick your battles. If you can help with mine, I’d appreciate it. And I’ll try to help you with yours. We must all hang together or we will surely hang separately.