indigenous

Uranium – the raw material for nuclear power and nuclear weapons – is having a moment in the spotlight. Companies such as Energy Fuels, Inc. have played well-publicized roles¹ in lobbying the Trump administration to reduce federal protection for public lands with uranium deposits.² The Defense Department's Nuclear Posture Review calls for new weapons production to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which could spur new domestic uranium mining.³ And the Interior Department is advocating more domestic uranium production, along with other materials identified as "critical minerals."⁴

What would expanded uranium mining in the U.S. mean at the local level? I have studied the legacies of past uranium mining and milling in Western states for over a decade. My book examines dilemmas faced by uranium communities caught between harmful legacies of previous mining booms and the potential promise of new economic development.

These people and places are invisible to most Americans, but they helped make the United States an economic and military superpower. In my view, we owe it to them to learn from past mistakes and make more informed and sustainable decisions about possibly renewing uranium production than our nation made in the past.

Mining regulations have failed to protect public health

Today most of the uranium that powers U.S. nuclear reactors is imported. But many communities still suffer impacts of uranium mining and milling that occurred for decades to fuel the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race.⁵ These include environmental contamination⁶, toxic spills⁷, abandoned mines, under-addressed cancer and disease clusters⁸ and illnesses⁹ that citizens link to uranium exposure despite federal denials.

As World War II phased into the Cold War, U.S. officials rapidly increased uranium production from the 1940s to the 1960s. Regulations were minimal to nonexistent and largely unenforced, even though the U.S. Public Health Service¹⁰ knew that exposure to uranium had caused potentially fatal health effects in Europe¹¹, and was monitoring uranium miners and millers for health problems.

Today the industry is subject to regulations that address worker health and safety, environmental protection, treatment of contaminated sites and other considerations.¹² But these regulations lack uniformity, and enforcement responsibilities are spread across multiple agencies.¹³

This creates significant regulatory gaps, which are worsened by a federalist approach to regulation. In the 1970s the newly created Nuclear Regulatory Commission initiated an Agreement States program, under which states take over regulating many aspects of uranium and nuclear production and waste storage.¹⁴ To qualify, state programs must be "adequate to protect public health and safety and compatible with the NRC's regulatory program."¹⁵

Today 37 states have joined this program and two more are applying.¹⁶ Many Agreement States struggle to enforce regulations because of underfunded budgets, lack of staff and anti-regulatory cultures.⁴ These problems can lead to piecemeal enforcement and reliance on corporate self-regulation.

For example, budget cuts in Colorado have forced the state to rely frequently on energy companies to monitor their own compliance with regulations.¹⁷ In Utah, the White Mesa Mill – our nation's only currently operating uranium mill – has a record of persistent problems related to permitting, water contamination and environmental health, as well as tribal sacred lands and artifacts.¹⁸

Neglected nuclear legacies

Uranium still affects the environment¹⁹ and human health in the West, but its impacts remain woefully under-addressed. Some of the poorest, most isolated and ethnically marginalized communities in the nation are bearing the brunt of these legacies.

There are approximately 4,000 abandoned uranium mines in Western states.²⁰ At least 500 are located on land controlled by the Navajo Nation.²¹ Diné (Navajo) people have suffered some of the worst consequences of U.S. uranium production, including cancer clusters and water contamination.²²

A 2015 study found that about 85 percent of Diné homes are still contaminated with uranium, and that tribe members living near uranium mines have more uranium in their bones than 95 percent of the U.S. population.²³ Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump's decision to reduce the Bears Ears National Monument²⁴ has reinvigorated discussion over ongoing impacts of uranium contamination across tribal and public land.²⁵

Despite legislation such as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act²⁶ of 1990, people who lived near uranium production or contamination sites often became forgotten casualties of the Cold War. For instance, Monticello, Utah, hosted a federally owned uranium mill from 1942 to 1960.²⁷ Portions of the town were even built from tailings left over from uranium milling, which we now know were radioactive.²⁸ This created two Superfund sites that were not fully remediated until the late 1990s.²⁹

Monticello residents have dealt with cancer clusters, increased rates of birth defects and other health abnormalities for decades.³⁰ Although the community has sought federal recognition and compensation since 1993, its requests have been largely ignored.³¹

Today tensions over water access and its use for uranium mining are creating conflict between regional tribes and corporate water users around the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.³² Native residents, such as the Havasupai, have had to defend their water rights³³ and fear losing access to this vital resource.

Uranium production is a boom-and-bust industry

Like any economic activity based on commodities, uranium production is volatile and unstable.³⁴ The industry has a history of boom-bust cycles. Communities that depend on it can be whipsawed by rapid growth followed by destabilizing population losses.³⁵

The first U.S. uranium boom occurred during the early Cold War and ended in the 1960s due to oversupply, triggering a bust.³⁶ A second boom began later in the decade when the federal government authorized private commercial investment in nuclear power. But the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1985) disasters ended this second boom.

Uranium prices soared once again from 2007 to 2010. But the 2011 tsunami and meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant sent prices plummeting once again as nations looked for alternatives to nuclear power.

Companies like Energy Fuels maintain – especially in public meetings with uranium communities³⁷ – that new production will lead to sustained economic growth.³⁸ This message is powerful stuff. It boosts support, sometimes in the very communities that have suffered most from past practices.

But I have interviewed Westerners who worry that as production methods become more technologically advanced and mechanized, energy companies may increasingly rely on bringing in out-of-town workers with technical and engineering degrees rather than hiring locals – as has happened in the coal industry.³⁹ And the core tensions of boom-bust economic volatility and instability persist.

Uranium production advocates contend that new "environmentally friendly" mills⁴⁰ and current federal regulations will adequately protect public health and the environment.⁴¹ Yet they offer little evidence to counter White Mesa Mill's poor record.

In my view, there is little evidence that new uranium production would be more reliably regulated or economically stable today than in the past. Instead, I expect that the industry will continue to privatize profits as the public absorbs and subsidizes its risks.

Stephanie Malin is the author of the 2015 book, 'The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice', published by Rutgers University Press, www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-price-of-nuclear-power/9780813569789

Reprinted from The Conversation, 22 Feb 2018, https://theconversation.com/before-the-us-approves-new-uranium-mining-co...

References:

1. www.cpr.org/news/story/why-a-colorado-uranium-company-lobbied-to-shrink-...

2. www.denverpost.com/2017/12/13/energy-fuels-was-one-voice-among-many-in-b...

3. www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-unveils-new-nucl...

4. www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-price-of-nuclear-power/9780813569789

5. www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-na...

6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b01408

7. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1963288/

8. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222290/

9. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08941920903005795

10. https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/final/chap12_2.html

11. https://upcolorado.com/utah-state-university-press/item/2171-uranium-frenzy

12. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.92.9.1410

13. www.nap.edu/read/13266/chapter/10#225

14. www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/state-tribal/agreement-states.html

15. www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/state-tribal/agreement-states/wyoming-faq.html

16. www.nrc.gov/images/reading-rm/doc-collections/maps/agreement-states.png

17. www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-price-of-nuclear-power/9780813569789

18. www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-pollution-a-uranium-mill-in-utah-threatens-...

19. www.hcn.org/articles/pollution-a-26-000-ton-pile-of-radioactive-waste-li...

20. www.abqjournal.com/1129580/researchers-to-measure-mixed-metals-mining-co...

21. www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-na...

22. www.sric.org/

23. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.5b01408

24. www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/native-tribes-sue-trump-bears-ears-monume...

25. www.hcn.org/articles/tribal-affairs-trumps-message-for-tribes-let-them-e...

26. www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca

27. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920903005795

28. https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0800679

29. https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0800867

30. www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/MonticelloMillTailings/MonticelloMillTailingsP...

31. https://aeon.co/ideas/rural-communities-can-t-afford-the-cost-of-nuclear...

32. www.indianz.com/News/2017/12/13/havasupai-tribe-sees-mixed-victory-in-li...

33. www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/17/grand-canyon-uranium-mining-...

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36. www.csis.org/analysis/governing-uranium-united-states

37. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/13/the-uranium-widows

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In a new book, “Yellow Dirt. An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed”, award-winning environmental journalist Judy Pasternak follows four generations of Navajo families in a uranium mining area. She chronicles the cultural stoicism that prohibited them from complaining for so long about the alarming rates of cancer deaths, the betrayal of trust by corporate and government interests, the growing awareness of the tragedy visited on them in the name of national security, and the efforts to fight for restoration.

The crime story in "Yellow Dirt" develops around early tensions within the Atomic Energy Comittee. Pasternak quotes AEC safety inspector Ralph Batie telling a Denver Post reporter in 1949: "Definite radiation hazards exist in all the plants now operating." Batie was ordered to "keep your mouth shut." Jesse Johnson, the liaison between Washington and the mining companies, cut Batie's travel budget and strong-armed him into transferring out of the area. Pasternak writes that "Johnson simply would not allow uranium to pose a distinct peril of its own; he would not let cancer be an issue."

Sixty years later, while U.S. Congress considers amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA)  which would specifically allow compensation to workers exposed after 1971, make qualification for benefits easier to obtain, incorporate additional exposure testing and apply to those exposed to fallout from nuclear testing in more geographical areas, additional RECA coverage efforts are in the works.

One movement seeks to expand RECA to cover members of the Navajo Nation who were workers or children of workers in the uranium industry. Navajo workers and their descendants have experienced unique and devastating effects since uranium mining began on or near reservation lands.

Uranium Mines on Reservation Lands
As the largest Native American tribe in the U.S., the Navajo Nation covers about 27,000 square miles of parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. Because some of the uranium mines operating during the 1950s and 1960s were located on Navajo reservation lands in these states, many of the uranium mine workers were members of the Navajo Nation and were repeatedly exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. This caused the uranium miners, their families and later generations throughout the Navajo Nation to experience radiation-related illnesses like cancer, kidney disease and birth defects.

In addition, there has been a significant environmental impact on Navajo lands. According to Navajo President Joe Shirley, some uranium mines and milling sites were never properly closed or cleaned up. Residents near exposed areas have experienced sickness from radiation and pollution to the land and water surrounding their homes. This resulted in a tribal decision in 2005 to ban all uranium mining and milling on Navajo lands, but as the cost of uranium rises, companies have been knocking on the Navajo Nation’s door.

Efforts to Expand RECA
The Navajo Nation Dependents of Uranium Workers Committee has led a grassroots effort in recent years to aid the children of Navajo uranium miners who suffer ongoing effects related to radiation exposure. This group claims that many Navajo people who would otherwise be eligible for RECA coverage cannot get the help they deserve because the medical records from 50 or more years ago they need as proof no longer exist.

In past meetings with the Navajo nation about the continued effects of uranium mining, U.S. Senator Tom Udall has stated that “he is committed to continuing a dialogue on the effects of uranium mining on Navajo people and to seek justice for those who have been harmed.” His recently proposed amendments to RECA could benefit many members of the Navajo nation.

In addition to adding areas of coverage and including post-1971 workers, the RECA amendments could help the Navajo by allocating funds for further research on the impact of radiation exposure to workers, their families and communities. They could also allow RECA claimants to use affidavits in place of non-existent records and grant more compensation and medical benefits to eligible victims.

Respect and Support
Navajo President Joe Shirley continues to fight for RECA amendments, a moratorium on uranium mining in the U.S. and help with addressing the reservation environmental issues. The first step in compensating the Navajo people exposed to radiation and uranium activity who need help today would be for Congress to pass the proposed amendments, which are currently awaiting a hearing before the Senate or House Judiciary Committee.

Source: http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2010/Oct/145201.html and “Yellow Dirt. An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed”, written by Judy Pasternak, Sept. 2010, Free Press.  317 pp. ISBN 978-1-4165-9482-6

For more information look at the Navajo Justice Page at: http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/sdancy.html

Navajo Attitudes Toward the Resource. In the Navajo creation story, there is mention of uranium. Uranium - called "cledge" - is from the underworld, and is to be left in the ground. According to the creation story, the Navajo were given a choice between yellow corn pollen and uranium. In Navajo belief, the yellow corn pollen possesses the positive elements of life. The pollen is prayed for and carried in medicine bags. Uranium was thought of as an element of the underworld that should remain in the earth. When uranium was released from the ground, Navajos believed it would become a serpent. Evil, death and destruction were seen as the problems the Navajo would face. These problems have become reality to the Navajo since mining began.