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Another major review on the health and impacts of uranium mining on Dineh (Navajo) People.

Residents living close to uranium mines, especially large mines, are more likely to have kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes, and autoimmune disease, according to a University of New Mexico health researcher. Johnnye Lewis, Ph.D., principal investigator for the DiNEH Network for Environmental Health Project and director of the Community Environmental Health Program at the UNM Health Sciences Center, briefed a joint state Indian Affairs/Radiation and Hazardous Materials Committee Thursday at UNM on results of an ongoing study.

IN A DINE CREATION STORY, the people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder-uranium-in the soil and never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a great evil would come. The evil came. Over one thousand uranium mines gouged the earth in the Dine Bikeyah, the land of the Navajo, during a thirty-year period beginning in the 1950s. It was the lethal nature of uranium mining that led the industry to the isolated lands of Native America. By the mid-1970s, there were 380 uranium leases on native land and only 4 on public or acquired lands. At that time, the industry and government were fully aware of the health impacts of uranium mining on workers, their families, and the land upon which their descendants would come to live. Unfortunately, few Navajo uranium miners were told of the risks. In the 1960s, the Department of Labor even provided the Kerr-McGee Corporation with support for hiring Navajo uranium miners, who were paid $1.62 an hour to work underground in the mine shafts with little or no ventilation.

The Navajo Nation's top health official told the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Navajos continue to live with the Cold War legacy of uranium mining, and that a long-term, comprehensive assessment and research program with adequate resources is needed to address it. Anslem Roanhorse Jr., executive director of the Navajo Nation Division of Health, said 520 radioactive uranium mines on the Navajo Nation were abandoned without being cleaned up. The uranium taken from Navajo land from 1944 to 1986 was used to meet the federal government's demand for nuclear weapons material, he said. Testifying Thursday before the bi-annual CDC and Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry Tribal Consultation session on the Environmental Public Health in Indian country, Roanhorse said four million tons of uranium ore, known as "yellow cake," were mined from Navajo land for more than 40 years. "There are about 500 abandoned uranimum mine sites throughout the Navajo Nation and only one has been fully assessed,

A one-size-fits-all analysis is inappropriate when it comes to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities," according to the Navajo Nation. "The jurisdictional issue involving the Navajo Nation cannot be looked at in a vacuum. It involves substantial environmental justice implications for a Native Nation uniquely impacted by past activities now under the direct control of the NRC, " David Taylor, principal attorney with the Natural Resources Unit, stated in comments to the NRC sent Nov. 7.

A delegation from the Navajo Nation and officials from five federal agencies went before U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman's committee Thursday in Washington to follow up on actions taken so far under a five-year plan to clean up Cold War uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission came to town Monday to receive comments on its Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement for proposed in-situ leach uranium milling facilities in northwest New Mexico, and it didn't go away empty-handed. Cradling her infant daughter, Lynnea Smith of Crownpoint - who helped push the Navajo Nation's ban on uranium mining and milling - tried to hold back her emotions as she spoke, but the tears of frustration came anyway.

Environmentalists and Navajo groups who have been fighting a proposed coal-fired plant on tribal land in northwestern New Mexico have appealed an air permit granted for the plant. The petition filed Thursday alleges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to complete required analyses of the project, and instead was stampeded into granting the permit because developers of the Desert Rock power plant filed a lawsuit contending the EPA was taking too long.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Navajo EPA, along with four federal agencies, outlined a five-year plan Wednesday to clean up 50 years of uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation.

Soil being used by the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise for construction of its Fire Rock Casino parking lot has been analyzed and shown to be free of any uranium radiation contamination. Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency Executive Director Stephen B. Etsitty said Friday that his agency's Superfund Program conducted a surface radiological survey of the Becenti Trails Road borrow pit and determined the soil is safe to use.

Teddy Nez, a Navajo rancher and Vietnam War veteran, lives practically in the shadow of a 40-foot-high pile of radioactive waste abutting his small home outside of Gallup, N.M. Nez has colon cancer, which he treats with herbs - but not with ones growing near his house, because those could be contaminated with uranium.

Despite the lure of potentially big money, the Navajo Nation has banned uranium mining on its reservation, which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. In part, the decision reflects deep Navajo concerns about how past mining activities have damaged health and the environment.

ALBUQUERQUE -- A state committee has approved a proposal from five American Indian tribes to give central New Mexico's Mount Taylor temporary protection as a cultural property at a contentious meeting. The state Cultural Properties Review Committee voted 4-2 Saturday in Grants for an emergency listing of more than 422,000 acres surrounding the mountain's summit on the state Register of Cultural Properties.

The U.S. government will spend tens of millions of dollars to assess and clean up uranium contamination across the vast Navajo Reservation, but the effort is unlikely to erase decades of frustration over what has been characterized as a slow and sporadic federal response. The new five-year plan is the first coordinated push to measure and fix the environmental damage that resulted from a Cold War hard-rock mining boom in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

WINDOW ROCK - Producers of the 2000 documentary, "The Return of Navajo Boy," were back on the Navajo Reservation Tuesday to showcase an epilogue to the acclaimed film before Navajo Environmental Protection Agency staff.

Interviews and documentation of navajo miners

This PDF Report is an extensive history of the history and impacts of uranium mining on the Navajo People