Tag Archives: Uranium Mining

Uranium Mining in Navajo Nation

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In 1948, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission issued a statement that it would purchase all mined uranium for the cause of developing nuclear weapons. Mining companies flocked to Navajo Nation, employing about 3,000 Navajo men. Workers were only paid an hourly wage of about $0.81 to $1.00 in 1949, yet many families initially viewed uranium mining as an employment opportunity.[1] However, obvious costs soon outweighed the benefits, and the environmental injustices committed within Navajo Nation still remain unresolved today.

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https://www.epa.gov/navajo-nation-uranium-cleanup

Unethical Practices

In 1950, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted research on health hazards and acknowledged Navajo workers were exposed to levels of radon high enough to cause cancer. While many Navajo people suspected that the dramatic increase in lung cancer mortalities were due to unsafe conditions in uranium mines, they did not have the scientific education to understand the lethal effects of uranium. In fact, the word “uranium” did not even exist in the Navajo language. The PHS did not follow through in establishing proper ventilation standards and kept the results of the study unpublished in order to avoid causing worker strikes. The ethical violations of the 1950 study are apparent in the way that informed consent, or the communication of risks and hazards to the experimental participants – the workers, was not practiced[2]. Therefore, the federal government clearly had knowledge of the lethal health affects, but did not take any action to decrease miner mortality.

Political Economic Framework

The exploitation of Navajo wage labor for the profit and prosperity of several mine company owners clearly demonstrates how the Navajo people were incorporated into the capitalist cycle of production. According to Robbins, Hintz, and Moore, “a tragic combination of high profits and bureaucratic inertia allowed for terrible mine conditions” (215).[3] Capitalists, or mine company owners, generated more profit by paying workers less than the true value of their labor. In the cycle, this extra revenue was necessary for operating costs and expanding the corporate monopoly. The capitalist system eventually exploits all readily available environmental resources or must sacrifice non-labor values for the sake of high profits. Environmental degradation, or radioactive contamination, results, posing further challenges to mining companies.[4] Because reservations are sovereign, government regulations to keep mining practices in-check are lax. Analyzing the issue through a political economic framework reveals that mining threatens the health and physical environment of targeted individuals. Therefore, the degradation of sacred land is synonymous with the destruction of Navajo cultural identity.

Upholding Sovereignty

Multiple lawsuits against mining corporations and the federal government proved ineffective, as the government repeatedly cited mining interests as necessary for fulfilling national security. The efforts of these grassroots organizations eventually culminated in the passage of Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in 1990, a law finally designed to compensate Navajo workers.[5]

Although Navajo Nation has made significant progress in seeking environmental justice, there is still much more growth necessary for the complete revitalization of Navajo culture. RECA was insufficient in its compensation to many miners, and still today, the Navajo people are struggling to ward off advances from the uranium industry. The renewed interest of mining on Navajo lands can be traced to Vice President Richard Cheney’s 2001 energy task force that prioritized the expansion of nuclear power. Mining companies campaigned for support using the lure of jobs, a drawing factor for the impoverished citizens of many New Mexican reservation towns. Hostility emerged on the side of pro-mining interests, who claimed that the Navajo were seizing public land for themselves[6], further alienating and victimizing the Navajo people.

Overall, Navajo land has not been restored to the fully habitable state prior to radioactive contamination. 409 mines have radiation levels more than twice the background level, which continues to pose a threat to people’s health.[7] Although the government has played somewhat of a role in remediation efforts, much action is still necessary to block industry advances and alleviate racial tensions.

[1] Brugge, Doug, Timothy Benally, and Esther Yazzie-Lewis. The Navajo People and Uranium Mining. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.

[2] Charley, Perry H., Susan E. Dawson, Gary E. Madsen, and Bryan R. Spykerman. 2004. “Navajo Uranium Education Programs: The Search for Environmental Justice.” Applied Environmental Education & Communication 3, no. 2: 101-108. GreenFILE, EBSCOhost (accessed October 28, 2016).

[3] Robbins, Paul, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

[4] Sbicca, Joshua. “Elite and Marginalised Actors in Toxic Treadmills: Challenging the Power of the State, Miilitary, and Economy.” Taylor & Francis Online, April 20, 2012. Accessed November 4, 2016.

[5] Voyles, Traci Brynne. Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

[6] Voyles, Traci Brynne. Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

[7] Ram, N. M., Moore, C. and McTiernan, L. (2016), Cleanup Options for Navajo Abandoned Uranium Mines. Remediation, 26: 131–148. doi:10.1002/rem.21473

Uranium Mining On Navajo Lands as a Violation of Tribal Sovereignty

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When most people think of the Cold War they think of the conflict between the U.S and Russia and how a generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. However, the Cold War also significantly affected another group of people: The Navajo Nation. The Navajo suffered the negative impacts of uranium mining that was necessary to create nuclear bombs. The legacy of uranium mining on Navajo lands is a legacy of mistrust, exploitation, disease, and waste.ap105779489776_custom-5f8b50b562658f59d256675c5265381067e39f1c-s1500-c85

Starting in 1948, at the beginning of the cold war, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) said it would buy all uranium for a guaranteed price, which set off a uranium mining boom in the Southwest. Mines were operated by private companies, but sold only to the US government until 1971[1]. The negative environmental and health effects of uranium mining in the Southwest landed heavily on the Navajo people. Currently there are 521 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo land, one for every 52 square miles of the reservation[5]. In Environment and Society, Robbins, Hintz and Moore write that the Navajo reservation “offered up an opportunity for a high rate of labor exploitation and negligent environmental practices, an avenue that many capitalists (and bureaucrats) were content to travel”[7] .

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The United States government violated the Navajo Nation’s tribal sovereignty by supporting private uranium mines on Navajo lands. This is argument is supported by two main points: 1) Navajo people were not given adequate education on the dangers of uranium mining in order to make informed decisions, and 2) the history of disenfranchisement of native peoples by the U.S. government made the Navajo vulnerable to economic exploitation.

seal1Native tribes are defined by the Supreme Court as “dependent sovereigns” because “their sovereignty predates that of the United States, but that it is nonetheless internal to, and dependent upon, the federal government[3]“. Sarah Krakoff defines environmental justice for tribes as “the achievement of tribal authority to control and improve the reservation environment,” making a respect for tribal sovereignty central to tribal EJ issues.

The Navajo Nation did have a role in choosing to have uranium mining on their land but were given little to no information on its health and environmental risks. This took away the tribes ability to make an informed choice. By the 1930s there was scientific evidence of a correlation between uranium exposure and high rates of lung cancer[1]. At the beginning of the mining boom, many Navajo workers did not speak English and lacked formal education, and there was little effort by mining companies to help educate workers across these boundaries. For example, after a 1950 Public Heath Service study on uranium, English pamphlets were given out to some miners on health risks without any translations or further explanation[1]. The U.S. government and private mining companies withheld information from Navajo miners and tribal leaders, which violated their ability to make independent decisions based on all available resources.

The Navajo people are vulnerable to economic exploitation because, since the lands they once used for subsistence living were taken away by the U.S., they are forced to depend on wage labor. Tribal councils can approve or deny mining leases, but mining is often one1406311648000-uranium01
of the only economic growth opportunities for tribes. In this way Navajo governments are basically forced into mining as a short-term solution for economic survival, which leads to disastrous long term health and economic impacts.

The U.S. government passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in 1991 which uses the distributive justice method to give former uranium miners compensation. RECA falls short in real justice because it only addresses a small part of the problem. RECA applies only to miners who worked before 1971 and doesn’t apply to non-miners in the affected community. Non-miners in Navajo communities continue to suffer from uranium exposure due to abandoned mines and water contamination. It is also hard to compensate people with money for things that are difficult to quantify, like losing a family member. The social justice framework outlined by Gary Bryner in Justice and Natural Resources should be used because it aims to tackle the root of injustices, look at power dynamics and take into account cultural losses[2]. It asserts that every single Navajo citizen has the right to clean water, affordable and adequate healthcare and safe working conditions. Using this framework, the U.S. government’s approach could address all the impacts of uranium mining and treat it as current, pressing injustice to the Navajo people.

The Navajo are fighting back against the uranium industry. In 2005, the Navajo Nation banned uranium mining on their land in the Dine Natural Resources Protection Act[4]. The kids-protest-2-1act was passed in response to a push by the Bush administration to increase the use of nuclear power as a clean energy source. In 2013, the Navajo Nation Council voted to block Uranium Resources Inc. from building new mining projects on the reservation[6]. Now that the Navajo Nation has information on and experience with the health and environmental harms of uranium mining, they are rejecting it from their lands.

It is clear that the U.S. government and private mining companies exploited the Navajo people and violated their tribal sovereignty by failing to educate the Navajo on the risks of uranium mining and taking advantage of their vulnerable economic situation. Robbins, Hintz and Moore sum it up, writing: “The Navajo uranium era, as such, represents a classic and tragic case of environmental injustice – where unhealthful or dangerous conditions are disproportionately proximate to minority communities[7].”

Sources and Further Readings: 

  1. Brugge, Doug and Rob Golbe. “The History of Uranium Mining and the Navajo People.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 92, no. 9, 2002, pp. 1410-1419.
  2. Bryner, Gary C. “Assessing Claims of Environmental Justice: Conceptual Frameworks.” Justice and Natural Resources, edited by Mutz, Kathryn M., Gary C. Bryner and Douglas S. Kenney, Island Press, 2002, pp. 31-55.
  3. Krakoff, Sarah. “Tribal Sovereignty and Environmental Justice.” Justice and Natural Resources, edited by Mutz, Kathryn M., Gary C. Bryner and Douglas S. Kenney, Island Press, 2002, pp. 161- 183.
  4. LaDuke, Winona. “Navajos ban uranium mining.” Earth Island Journal, 2005.
  5. Loomis, Brandon. “Abandoned uranium mines continue to haunt Navajos on reservation.” The Arizona Republic.
  6. Minard, Anne. “Navajo Nation Slams Door on Deal That Would Have Allowed Uranium Mining.” Indian Country Today Media Network. August 1, 2014.
  7. Robbins, Paul, John Hintz and Sarah A. Moor. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

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