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Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly is in Paris this week to look at renewable energy and the recycling of nuclear fuel. Sherrick Roanhorse of the Vice President's Office said Shelly is one of nine tribal leaders invited by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management in Denver. "The trip is purely educational. It's to educate tribal leaders about energy policy, energy technology, and it's to make the tribal leaders aware of energy projects.

Mitchell Capitan points to a flock of sheep grazing in the shadow of a sandstone mesa. The sheep belong to Capitan's family, along with a few head of cattle and twelve quarter horses standing in a corral near his mother-in-law's house in Crownpoint, New Mexico. Shelley Smithson: Navajos say "No!" as the return of uranium mining threatens to despoil their lands and health. "All of this area," Capitan says, gesturing to the valley of sage and shrub brush below, "there's a lot of uranium underneath there. That's what they're after." Capitan and his Navajo neighbors are battling a license granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Hydro Resources Inc. (HRI)--a subsidiary of a Texas company, Uranium Resources--one of several firms that have laid claim to the minerals beneath thousands of acres on and around the lands of the Navajo Nation and three American Indian pueblos in northwestern New Mexico. A group called the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining is suing the NRC to block mining in Crownpoint and another Navajo community. A panel of federal judges in Denver heard the case in May 2008 but has yet to issue a ruling.

The Navajo Nation has weathered severe drought conditions for about the last 20 years, so when a water source presents itself, the last thing usually considered is whether it might be contaminated. "Water is precious," said Eleanor Peshlakai, 67, of Black Falls. "Last year I was hauling water in my truck during the middle of a real dry spell. As I was filling up at a water trough, some of the water sprayed out from the hose and out of nowhere the lizards came running. They were thirsty. They, too, are suffering the drought, just like the humans, waiting for any form of moisture."

Katherine Peshlakai, Faye Willie and Elsie Tohannie have a lot in common, besides their years.Following the Long Walk in the 1860s and the imprisonment of Navajos at Bosque Redondo, their families settled in an area later known as Wupatki National Monument. Recognition of Navajo occupancy was not included in enabling legislation that created the park, and in the early 1960s, the families were kicked out. Driven from their winter sheep camps at Wupatki and across the Little Colorado River to make way for the national monument near Flagstaff, they settled in Black Falls, an area contaminated in the 1950s by radioactive fallout from above-ground atomic testing at Nevada Test Site.

Two American Indian tribes say their pleas to have the federal government remove medical, uranium and other radioactive waste from their land near Tuba City have been ignored, and they want it cleaned up. Navajo and Hopi officials say the waste is contaminating the land and threatening water supplies. The Hopi Tribe has put the federal government on notice that it plans to sue over the cleanup. On May 26, the Navajo Nation filed a motion to intervene in a 2007 lawsuit that was brought against the federal government by the operator of a uranium mining mill where some of the waste originated. "I think everybody is starting to come together to accept the conclusion that there are contaminants affecting the shallow groundwater," said Stephen Etsitty, director of the Navajo Environmental Protection Agency. "But we still have differences in what the tribes believe and what the U.S. government is willing to accept, how grave the situation is and what the remedy should be in the end." El Paso Natural Gas Co. claims that the federal government is responsible for the cleanup of the mill, the Tuba City open dump and another landfill north of U.S. Route 160. The mill and the U.S. 160 landfill are on Navajo land. The 30-acre Tuba City dump is on Navajo and Hopi land.

The Navajo Nation's anti-uranium mining ban scored a victory April 17 when the 10th Circuit Court upheld federal, rather than state, control over a permit for a proposed in situ leach uranium mine in a mixed-ownership area of northwestern New Mexico. Hydro Resources Inc. asked the federal appeals court to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency determination that HRI's proposed mine near Church Rock was in "Indian country" as legally defined and therefore must be permitted by EPA and not by the state.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, in Dallas will discuss ground water cleanup efforts at the former United Nuclear Corp. mill site May 5 at a community meeting in Pinedale. In short, cleanup efforts are no longer working. Contamination from the UNC site - which is in Pinedale Chapter right in the middle of Indian Country - is nearing the Navajo Nation boundary. And though the cleanup remedy at the Superfund site is no longer effective, because no one is drinking the contaminated water, the remedy is still considered protective of human health and the environment.

Ever since Johnny Livingston was a little boy, he remembers seeing Navajo families grazing their livestock on a portion of land within Churchrock Chapter known as Section 8, now owned by uranium mining company Hydro Resources Inc. In 2006, as part of his declaration to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding jurisdictional issues over the land, the former Churchrock Chapter president identified Navajo families having Bureau of Indian Affairs grazing permits for the disputed area.

A grassroots effort to help uranium mine workers' children affected by diseases and birth defects is picking up steam on the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation Dependents of Uranium Workers Committee will meet for the second time in a month to update community members and hear feedback from residents who suffer from cancer, kidney disease, birth defects and other illnesses resulting from prolonged radon exposure from uranium mines. The health problems date back to work in the 1950s and '60s, said Phil Harrison, Council Delegate for Red Valley/Cove Chapter of the Navajo Nation. During that time, uranium mine workers were exposed to high levels of radon, which has caused inter-generational bouts of illnesses in communities across the Navajo Nation. "A lot of people don't want to talk about this in the public," Harrison said. By holding public meetings, organizers hope to garner enough support to lobby government officials in Washington, D.C., to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has upheld a 2007 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior decision that Hydro Resources Inc.'s Churchrock Section 8 mine site is located in "Indian Country." HRI challenged the decision last May before the Court of Appeals. The decision means that HRI will have to obtain an underground injection control permit from EPA rather than the New Mexico Environment Department before it can move forward with its plans for in-situ leach uranium mining in Section 8. Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Churchrock Chapter, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Southwest Research Information Center and Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining all participated in the matter, filing comments on the proposed determination in 2006.

They're uniting in an effort to influence the federal government to act. Former workers of the region's uranium mines and their families will tell their stories today at a town-hall style meeting dubbed "Families of Uranium workers United," in Teec Nos Pos, Ariz. Their saga includes countless incidents of birth defects, lung cancer and kidney disease, which were a result of radon exposure from the uranium mines. It's a push to encourage federal legislators to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. "We're expecting 1,000 people," said Phil Harrison, Council Delegate for Red Valley/Cove Chapter of the Navajo Nation. "We'll be satisfied if we can get that many people there." The fight for fair compensation has gone on for decades.

Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act providing for compassionate payments to individuals who contracted certain cancers and other serious diseases as a result of their exposure to radiation released during above-ground nuclear weapons tests or as a result of their exposure to radiation during employment in underground uranium mines. Northern Arizona RESEP (Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program) through North Country HealthCare is set up to provide education to the public concerning the effects of nuclear radiation due to nuclear fallout or nuclear materials such as uranium.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has upheld an Environmental Protection Agency decision that a proposed uranium mine in western New Mexico would be on American Indian land. A three-judge panel on Friday denied a petition from the New Mexico-based uranium producer, Hydro Resources Inc., challenging a 2007 EPA decision that an area where the company hoped to develop uranium mines is in "dependent Indian Country." The ruling means Hydro Resources must get a groundwater injection permit from the EPA, rather than use a permit already issued by the state of New Mexico.