Navajo Nation Slams Door on Deal That Would Have Allowed Uranium Mining

[KamaAina]

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/08/01/navajo-nation-slams-door-deal-would-have-allowed-uranium-mining-156143

The Navajo Nation has blocked a backdoor deal that would have allowed uranium mining to restart, despite lingering waste from past mining and a reservation-wide ban that’s been in place since 2005....

During its Summer Session last week, the Navajo Nation Council voted 18-3 to rescind legislation passed in December by an unauthorized committee. It would have allowed a Colorado-based company called Uranium Resources Incorporated (URI) to conduct in situ – literally “on-site” – mining on private lands near Church Rock, at the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and then transport the uranium across Navajo trust lands.

The uranium industry saw its first successes in the Four Corners region during World War II; a full-on heyday hit during the Cold War. Afterwards, former mining areas lay in ruins. By one estimate, the state of Colorado has spent $1 billion to clean up mill sites, and 1,300 abandoned sites remain across the state. The EPA razed an entire mining town, Uravan, near the San Miguel River in west-central Colorado, because it was so contaminated.

Past uranium mining has also contaminated homes, land and soil at 520 sites across the Navajo Nation, and possibly more. Drinking water from at least 22 wells is unfit for consumption by people or livestock. Researchers at regional universities have documented numerous cancers and other ailments among Navajo people that are attributable to radiation.

[haikugal]

1. Good for them! Too much pollution!!

[Warpy]

2. A lot of their people were miners back in the bad old days

and as bad as coal mining is, uranium mining is 1000X worse for your health, especially if the mining company is pre OSHA and doesn't care if it kills you.

And it did, 10-20 years down the line. I took care of some of the people who worked in those mines.

The Navajo people are far from stupid and they have very long memories. That uranium is just going to have to stay in the ground.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Fortunate for the Tribal Members

there was a change in leadership. That is the real story,corruption of the previous leadership and tons of cash spread around by the Mining Companies. And they thought they had a done deal!

[Miigwech]

4. Enough

... yes, but when will some corrupt politush, slip in some rider into a Fed legislation, to override Native American rights !!!! John McCain, dirty politush !!!! Every treaty ever signed with Native Americans has been broken .... it is just a matter of time

[Mnemosyne]

7. Every single one... nt

[Miigwech]

15. You know what I am saying

The State of Michigan just allowed a Canadian mining Corp to buy 10,000 acres of land in the Upper Peninsula, that was ceded to Michigan by the Chippewa Indians, so that it could become a state .... that land was to be held in trust and to be overseen for Native America's by the State of Michigan ..... we protested the sale, we lost ..... another Treaty trashed ..... BS and no one cares ... and this just happened in 2015

[Mnemosyne]

20. I read 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' as a teen, and never saw our government the same again.

There is no honor in our government with any treaty with anyone, as the Iraq attack violations of the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Principles.

And I do care, many do, just too many feel helpless and apathetic these days, sadly, thanks in part to our media.

[madamesilverspurs]

5. Pleased with this news!

But still very concerned about the fracking operations that threaten Chaco Canyon.

[Hekate]

6. KnR. All the best to them and their descendants. nt

[brer cat]

8. K&R

[madamvlb]

9. Good news.

[asiliveandbreathe]

10. Excellent news -the newly elected Navajo President Begaye

a leader the Navajo people can be proud of - all out effort to save the Navajo Nation from developers - this is good news -

Also, some good news on the Escalade Project (for now) -

http://www.hautnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=475:developers-momentarily-defeated-in-grand-canyon-escalade-project&catid=175,146,145,144,42,62&Itemid=417

[Enthusiast]

11. I am completely in support of the Navajo Nation.

[hunter]

12. Good. The history of uranium mining in the Indian nations is horrible.

Bad enough for the miners, but then many also lived in concrete block housing, the concrete made from radioactive mill tailings, and their homes further contaminated by the dust that came home with them on their clothing and the dust blowing in the wind.

We don't need more uranium. There's more than a million tonnes of depleted uranium stockpiled around the world. The current generation of nuclear reactors can't use it as fuel, so it accumulates.

The most common use of depleted uranium is for ammunition. It's denser than lead and typically used for armor piercing weapons. The U.S.A. shot up Iraq with hundreds of tonnes of the stuff. It's a toxic heavy metal, in some ways worse than lead or mercury, damaging to the nervous system, causing birth defects, and many other health horrors.

It can be "burned" in the current generation of nuclear reactors if it is mixed with plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. This already mined uranium could even be "burned" specialized reactors.

Maybe someday, if we humans are truly intelligent, we'll be satisfied re-purposing and reusing all the metals we dug out of the ground when we were fools, and dig no more.

[Thespian2]

13. I hope the Navajo Nation prevails...

but we all know that GREEDY corporate bastards never go away...Keep fighting, Navajos...

[BeanMusical]

19. +1

Reminds me of Thunderheart with Val Kilmer and Graham Greene.

[beam me up scottie]

14. Good for them.

When I was a kid a company approached my family wanting to test for uranium on our land, my parents told them no but I caught a couple of guys on a ridge when I was riding my horse.

I got my dad and they were "escorted" off the property.

My parents never regretted not selling the mineral rights to their land.

[ellie]

16. Good.

[BeanMusical]

17. Excellent. K&R

[irisblue]

18. Good for the Navaho nation.

[Oilwellian]

21. Isn't it odd that shortly after they slammed the door

a toxic yellow river began flowing through their land?

[countryjake]

22. ...

incredible coincidence, isn't it?

[OxQQme]

23. Navajo Nation leader rejects EPA no-sue waivers

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/8/12/navajo-nation-leader-rejects-epa-no-sue-waivers.html