Navajo officials detail Cold War legacy before Congress
Posted on October 24th, 2007By Katherine Ling
E&E News: House members expressed shame and outrage at an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing yesterday after representatives of the Navajo Nation told the panel their children played freely in uranium mining tailings and family members died for years of unexplainable illnesses.
The Navajo Nation contains some of the richest uranium deposits in the United States. They were extensively mined by private companies to feed the federal government’s appetite for uranium for the past 60 years — first for the Manhattan Project and later for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
From 1944 to 1986, nearly 4 million tons of uranium ore were mined from the land from over 500 mines, according to U.S. EPA.
When the Cold War ended, the demand for uranium disappeared and the mines on the Navajo land were mostly abandoned. The mines were also left exposed with no warning signs or protective fencing around hundreds of 50-foot high piles of mining tailings, Navajo witnesses said at the hearing.
“It’s been a bipartisan failure for over 40 years,” said Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in his opening statement, adding that the mess ought to be cleaned up before even considering any new uranium mining in the area spurred by the nuclear energy revival.
Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), an honorary member of the committee for the hearing as it affects his district, cautioned members to remember the Navajo’s plight when nuclear power is called “green” power.
“The real legacy of nuclear power is here,” Udall said.
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) apologized to the Navajo witnesses and said he would “support any legislation and speak to anyone in the government and my colleagues” to address this issue.
Contaminated soil
The danger the Navajo face everyday echoed in the rapid-fire beeps presented by a gamma-radiation detector when it was waved over a police-escorted sample of soil taken from the Navajo land, which lies near the borders of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
The soil presented by Stephen Etsitty, director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, contained radiation 30 times that of normal levels — and it wasn’t even the most contaminated soil on the land, Etsitty said.
It was as high as the levels acceptable by shipping and Capitol Hill police regulations.
Other witnesses told of family members dying of lung cancer, leukemia, or sick with stomach ailments, skin ailments, hearing problems and other illnesses which have a proven or near-proven causal link to uranium and its radioactive decay products.
While a more comprehensive study on uranium-exposure on the Navajo Nation would be informative, Doug Brugge, associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, told the committee “it is not necessary to proceed with remediation.”
Etsitty called the federal government response “pitiful” and said the small level of remediation accomplished came about after extensive work initiated and paid for by the Navajo, not EPA or any other federal agency.
The Navajo Nation has asked for an initial appropriation of $500 million to begin to address the environmental cleanup.
When asked after the hearing why he thought EPA had done so little so far, Etsitty said it was the agency’s lack of authority and lack of resources.
“They need a higher authority from Congress to address this,” he said.
Government inaction
The biggest step the federal government has taken to clean up the Cold War legacy was taken by EPA in May, Etsitty said.
The agency officially removed 6,500 cubic yards of radium contaminated soils around residences near the Northeast Church Rock Mine in New Mexico (Land Letter, May 17). It is the only abandoned mine site thoroughly assessed in accordance with EPA’s Superfund program, said Wayne Nastri, the administrator for the agency’s Region 9, at the hearing.
The Church Rock site was identified by the Navajo and EPA as the highest priority of about 40 sites at dangerous levels of contamination. The Navajo Nation EPA has identified more than 600 former uranium mines and 1,200 mining-related hazards on their lands.
When Nastri replied that his agency needed more time to complete studies, the committee members were not satisfied. Nor were they content with any of the answers from the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Indian Health Service or the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Waxman told the agencies to coordinate action on testing the health and environmental effects from the uranium mines and report back Dec. 12. “Tell us where you are … [and] what you need to get the job done,” he said.
Waxman was not alone. Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Udall said they would be watching for the line items on this issue in the agencies’ budgets in the House Appropriations Committee.
Future implications
Although the hearing focused on past actions, the prospects for future mining ventures in the area crept into testimony and comments from the House members.
In his closing remarks, Waxman said he didn’t have any expertise to evaluate the wisdom of resuming mining on or near the Navajo Nation, but “as a general rule, however, I think we ought to correct the wrongs of the past before inflicting new damage and … ensure that mistakes of the past aren’t repeated,” he added.
Even so, rising uranium prices and a nuclear power renaissance have mining companies showing interest in mining the uranium ore in the Navajo Nation.
NRC granted a license in 1999 to Hydro Resources Inc. — a subsidiary of Texas-based Uranium Resources Inc. — to mine near Gallup, N.M., at Crownpoint and Church Rock. The company would use a water-based “in-situ” type of uranium extraction that the company says is much safer than traditional mining.
“In-situ” mining relies on a great deal of water and may end up contaminating the only water source for 15,000 Navajo residents, critics say.
The Navajo Nation Council voted to ban uranium mining on Navajo land in 2006.
“Our demands are very simple,” said George Arthur, chairman of the Resources Committee of the Navajo Nation Council after his testimony. “Until prior negative impacts have been addressed, primarily the human factors … to the extent that there is no more negative impact by this industry, then we will look at the new possibilities.”
URI owns over 183,000 acres in New Mexico and estimates there are over 90 million pounds of uranium resources. They are not currently producing any uranium from their New Mexico properties but are pursuing several other mines in McKinley County.
Other companies pursuing uranium mining in the “Four Corners” area are Canadian based Energy Fuels Inc. and Denison Mines Inc.
NRC is expecting 14 to 22 new uranium mining license applications, mostly in the West.