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Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, New Mexico AGENCY: Bureau of Reclamation, Interior. ACTION: Notice of Availability of the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Planning Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement FES 09-10. SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (as amended), Public Law (Pub. L.) 92-199, and the general authority to conduct water resources planning under the Reclamation Act of 1902 and all acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), in cooperation with the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation, City of Gallup, State of New Mexico, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Heath Service, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, and Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, has prepared and made available to the public a Planning Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement (PR/FEIS). This document was undertaken to provide a discussion for the (1) Various ways to provide a municipal and industrial (M&I) water supply to the Navajo Nation, City of Gallup, and Jicarilla Apache Nation; (2) identification of a preferred alternative; and (3) associated environmental impacts and costs of the No Action and two action alternatives.

"New high levels of support for nuclear power" in the US were found in a Gallup Environment Poll released Friday. In a telephone survey of 1,012 adults conducted March 5-8, 59% of respondents said they "favor the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity for the US," and 27% "strongly favor it." Gallup said "a majority of Americans, 56%, believe nuclear power plants are safe, but a substantial minority of 42% disagree."

"A recent poll, conducted by Gallup on a sample of more than 1000 adults in the United States, found that 62 per cent of respondents supported the use of nuclear power. This in itself is not surprising since the majority of Americans have favoured the use of nuclear power to provide electricity since Gallup began asking about this topic back in 1994. Further, nuclear is responsible for a healthy 20 per cent of the US' power generation mix, and traditionally, unlike its European cousins, American citizens appear to be less squeamish about the potential dangers of nuclear power."

The New Mexico House barely passed a bill Monday that calls for the creation of a task force to look into uranium mining in the state. The House passed the measure 31-28 and it now goes to the Senate. State Rep. Patty Lundstrom, D-McKinley County, said the bill calls for the task force to prepare a report by October on the feasibility of bringing uranium mining back to the state. All of the Gallup area representatives, with the exception of Sandra Jeff, voted in favor of the bill, said Lundstrom. The task force would also look into existing state laws, she said, to make sure that they are adequate in handling the problems that could arise out of uranium mining. "The uranium industry fought to keep this resolution from passing," Lundstrom said. "They don't want this kind of scrutiny."

General Electric and its subsidiary United Nuclear Corp. are preparing to spend $5 million to remove about 97,000 cubic yards of radium-contaminated soil from around three households on Red Water Pond Road and an unnamed arroyo next to the former Northeast Churchrock Mine. Seven Navajo families live in the three households, but for the next five months they are facing "relocation" to apartments in Gallup as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's interim removal action.

Danes don't support the use of nuclear power despite a poll indicating a majority is in favour A new study on attitudes towards nuclear power counterclaims one published two weeks ago, which demonstrated a majority support the use of the energy source, reports trade publication Ingeniøren. Two weeks ago, a Gallup/Berlingske Tidende newspaper poll claimed a majority of people supported the use of nuclear power. The new A&B Analyse poll, conducted for political news website Altinget.dk, shows there is considerable resistance to atomic energy.

Danes don't support the use of nuclear power despite a poll indicating a majority is in favour A new study on attitudes towards nuclear power counterclaims one published two weeks ago, which demonstrated a majority support the use of the energy source, reports trade publication Ingeniøren. Two weeks ago, a Gallup/Berlingske Tidende newspaper poll claimed a majority of people supported the use of nuclear power. The new A&B Analyse poll, conducted for political news website Altinget.dk, shows there is considerable resistance to atomic energy.

When the EPA evacuates your town for Superfund cleanup, what happens to the people left behind? After decades of uranium mining turned the tiny town of Church Rock, New Mexico, into a Superfund site, in August the EPA moved seven resident Navajo families to Gallup apartments, where they'll wait for five months while the EPA scrubs their town of radioactive waste. But as the EPA hauls away the uranium tailings and radium-infused topsoils that have been permanent fixtures since mining ceased in the 1980s, Church Rock's remaining residents are asking why they have been left behind. In 1979, the largest spill of radioactive waste in US history occurred in Church Rock when 94 million gallons of mine waste were accidentally released into a stream. Children swam in open pit mines and the community drank water from local wells as recently as the '90s. (Now they haul in drinking water.) Cancer rates and livestock deaths remain higher than they should be. As for the families who remain, Church Rock evacuee and local activist Teddy Nez says the agency "drew an imaginary line in the sand" that excludes a residential area half a mile west of the Superfund site.

When the EPA evacuates your town for Superfund cleanup, what happens to the people left behind? After decades of uranium mining turned the tiny town of Church Rock, New Mexico, into a Superfund site, in August the EPA moved seven resident Navajo families to Gallup apartments, where they'll wait for five months while the EPA scrubs their town of radioactive waste. But as the EPA hauls away the uranium tailings and radium-infused topsoils that have been permanent fixtures since mining ceased in the 1980s, Church Rock's remaining residents are asking why they have been left behind. In 1979, the largest spill of radioactive waste in US history occurred in Church Rock when 94 million gallons of mine waste were accidentally released into a stream. Children swam in open pit mines and the community drank water from local wells as recently as the '90s. (Now they haul in drinking water.) Cancer rates and livestock deaths remain higher than they should be. As for the families who remain, Church Rock evacuee and local activist Teddy Nez says the agency "drew an imaginary line in the sand" that excludes a residential area half a mile west of the Superfund site.

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.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached an agreement with United Nuclear Corp. and its parent company, General Electric Co., to clean up soil near the most badly contaminated former uranium mine on the Navajo Nation. Rain and flash floods carry the radium-contaminated soil from the abandoned Northeast Church Rock Mine near Gallup, N.M., down an arroyo where children play and livestock graze. Long-term exposure to such soil can lead to cataracts, fractured teeth and cancer, according to the EPA. Under the agreement announced this week, United Nuclear will remove 3 to 13 feet of soil from the arroyo and surrounding areas and bring in clean dirt. The company also will regrade a uranium waste pile so that it drains back to the mine instead of where people live.

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.

A federal appeals court this week moved to allow uranium mining operations in Churchrock, a Navajo community just east of Gallup, New Mexico. The decision by the Federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals comes at a time of increased financial incentives for uranium mining-but also intense opposition from many communities, including the Navajo Nation, which outlawed uranium mining in 2005. "This ruling is a major breakthrough for URI and upholds the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] license that took us 10 years to obtain and as many to address in supplemental reviews and litigation," Don Ewigleben, President and CEO of Uranium Resources, said in a statement this week. "… The ruling also demonstrates that ISR technology, including the restoration process that follows mining activity, is safe and effective."

Nine out of ten want more wind energy "Public support for building a sixth nuclear generating facility for Finland has sharply declined in the past four years. Nevertheless, a poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by Suomen Gallup indicates that more than half of Finns are still in favour of more nuclear construction. Only about a third of respondents would grant licences to all three applicants, while six per cent would grant licences to two of the applicant companies. "

A groundwater discharge permit is being sought for Mount Taylor Uranium Mine and Mill owned by Rio Grande Resources, according to the New Mexico Environment Department. Gerald Schoeppner of NMED's Groundwater Quality Bureau said Wednesday that the company has an existing discharge plan for its mine that it's trying to renew, "but that's one of the pieces of the puzzle that's missing - how they're planning to treat their mine water for the dewatering to meet standards."

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."

Uranium Resources Inc. and Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency began a weeklong assessment Monday of Section 17 in Churchrock where its subsidiary, Hydro Resources Inc., has proposed in situ mining of uranium. Rick Van Horn, chief operating officer for URI/HRI, said Tuesday that the two entities are looking at what the radiation values are and how they impact the air, soils, and water in the area of Section 17. As part of the field work, background levels will be established under the review of Navajo EPA. "We have people that are looking over our shoulders providing oversight on-site, real time, and that will be part of the data set that we collect," Van Horn said.

Residents couldn't have been happier when, in February, a ribbon cutting was held to officially open the Black Falls Church watering point. Ideally, it meant water haulers wouldn't have to travel long distances anymore to fill their barrels with safe drinking water. For people such as Nina Tohannie, it meant that her brother Ronald wouldn't be sending her down into Dry Spring to scrub the walls of the well with chlorine and pull out the bones and carcasses of dead animals. "When it's like that, you can smell it," Ronald said. "We'd have to clean out the well and siphon all that water out with a water pump. Then somebody has to crawl down in there and get what's left. I can't get it with the water pump. It's really thick. So we have to take a bucket down there with a rope on it.