Uranium legacy outrages Congress

[struggle4progress]

Waxman: 'The primary responsibility for this tragedy rests with the federal government'

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

... Chairman Henry Waxman’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard from a Navajo Nation delegation about the health and environmental impacts of uranium contamination during a four-hour hearing ...

Waxman’s committee has held a series of hearings throughout the year, focusing on programs or agencies that once were effective but are now broken or dysfunctional. “This morning we are looking at an instance where the government has never worked effectively. It’s been a bipartisan failure for over 40 years. It’s also a modern American tragedy,” he said.

“The primary responsibility for this tragedy rests with the federal government, which holds the Navajo lands in trust for the tribe. Our government leased the lands for uranium mining, purchased the uranium yellowcake produced from the mines to supply our nuclear weapons stockpile, and then allowed the operators of the mines and mills to walk away without cleaning up the resulting contamination,” Waxman said.

“Over the years, open-pit mines filled with rain, and Navajos used the resulting pools for drinking water and to water their herds. Mill tailings and chunks of uranium ore were used to build foundations, floors, and walls for some Navajo homes. Families lived in these radioactive structures for decades,” Waxman said ...

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/october/102407kh_urnmlgcy.html

[Alameda]

1. what can be done?

This is outrageous.

[TheWraith]

4. Nothing, really.

Uranium is a heavy metal, like mercury and lead. It's there pretty much until it filters out of the ecosystem and becomes fixed somewhere that it's no longer in circulation. The levels of radiation from uranium ore would be pretty low, barely worth noting, but the chemical toxin effects would be a lot more pronounced. Even with a decent cleanup, it could take decades for the established damage to be contained.

[troubleinwinter]

16. You are wrong. Much needs to be and can be done.

Have you been there? I have, many times.

Frankly, your post is so incredibly stupid, I don't know where to begin.

[TheWraith]

19. Would you care to offer something more useful than insults?

There's very little that can be done to reverse the environmental damage. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, and you can't sift heavy metal out of the environment.

[troubleinwinter]

30. I am not talking about toothpaste. I am talking about people.

Your comment: "The levels of radiation from uranium ore would be pretty low, barely worth noting" is trash. Where do you get this? NOWHERE do I find any argument about the devastation and polution caused by uranium mining on the Navajo reservation. It has been acknowlegeded for decades by scientists and the EPA.

I have seen the effects with my own eyes. I don't want to post some of the things I've seen. To claim that the suffering and death is "barely worth noting" is despicable. I have seen children playing in uranium waste heaps yards from their home, while their brother without eyes sits next to his sister who has no lower leg bones in their contaminated home.

I cannot go along with you on any idea of throwing up one's arms claiming "nothing can be done", and walking away like the mining companies and the gov't. have done for so many years. Much can and must be done. Some has been done. Waxman seems to deeply care about the issue. We shall see. Promises have been made before.

The Navajo have sealed hundreds of the mines themselves as best they could, on their own dime, but erosion has reopened many.

Open shaft mines must be properly sealed or capped. Mine tailing heaps must be sealed (from wind, erosion and leaching downward into water tables) or removed. Mining ponds must be cleared, cleaned, filled and sealed. Homes built with or on uranium refuse must be tested and replaced. Contaminated dirt must be removed. Runoff areas must be cleaned and/or re-engineered. New good wells must be drilled into safe water sources and pipelines built. WEEE have water pipes, don't we? The Navajo live scattered in extremely remote areas, and won't have water to their homes, but AT LEAST they should be able to get clean, uncontaminated water at communal well-sites, rather than uranium contaminated water that kills them, their children and the flocks they use for food.

I know Mary H., whose hogan (traditional Navajo home) had to be razed to the ground after it was found to have been built of contaminated uranium mine refuse. Her son, who grew up in the hogan died of lung cancer at age 38. Only a very TINY percentage of homes have been tested for uranium contamination. I know Mary and her neighbors. Her neighbors' homes have not been tested. They are surrounded by mines and were not told of the hazards of uranium.

Much can and must be done. The EPA sees and acknowledges the need and that there are certain solutions for cleanup of these mines, the refuse and pollution.

You can read some things if you get over the view that it is "barely worth noting" and that "nothing" can be done (an attitude of turning away that does not help at all)...

Enron prosecutor takes on Navajo uranium cleanup http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo25feb25,0,7225407.story

Company joins Navajo fight for uranium cleanup
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo17may17,0,5320290.story

EPA Agrees To Clean Up Contaminated Soil on Navajo Nation (one mining site out of over a thousand)
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apsoil05-01-07.htm

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo19nov19,1,3773810.story

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo20nov20,1,234850.story?ctrack=4&cset=true

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-navajo21nov21,1,6980467.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

[H2O Man]

21. In some ways,

you are both right. Now, that might sound odd, because it appears on the surface that you are saying opposite things. But let's look closer.

In terms of the environmental damage that has been done, I am reminded of when I worked on a couple Superfund Sites in Delaware County, in rural upstate NY. I was involved in that effort for over 20 years. A small lesson I learned was that I could never trust corporate "experts"; that I had to evaluate government bureaucrats as individuals, as some were very honest, some kind of honest, and many were just liars; and that the environmental advocate organizations, including those that we hired as consultants, were trustworthy.

I remember being surprised that when the consultants told me that, with the present technology, there was sadly little they could do to repair the damage done to the ground, water, and air that had been poisoned by industrial wastes. It was not the answer I wanted to hear. Like many people, I have a belief that the well-educated and very capable professionals can fix what we humans have broken. They can't.

But what can be done iscludes reducing further pollution; to try to "isolate" toxic wastes that spread; and to take steps to protect those who have been victimized by having the most dangerous wastes dumped on their lands.

There are obvious reasons why the most dangerous wastes are dumped on Indian territory, and not stored in rich folks' neighborhoods. But it is also true that what happens to the least, will happen to others. We see this when we look at what has happened to traditional Indian communities, and many non-Indian communities across North America. We are not at a point in time where we have the luxury of ignorance, because what is real in an isolated area in the southwest today is just below the surface in every town and city, and will come to the surface tomorrow.

[EFerrari]

28. I only became aware of eco discrimination after watching

a documentary on LinkTv on this very topic. As soon as the idea was expressed, I had a forehead slapping moment.

Thanks to struggle4progress for this thread.

[troubleinwinter]

31. Yes, environmental damage has been done. Areas of that land will not be virgin or pristine again.

All we can do now is what we can do now. There are steps that can be taken to improve the safety of the land and water for the people to some degree.

Maybe people will notice (?) when Los Angeles and Las Vegas realize they are drinking radioactive uranium polluted water (see post #24) "Downstream... sits Lake Mead... that supplies drinking and irrigation water for southern California, Las Vegas, and parts of Arizona... leaks on average 57,000 gallons per day of contaminated fluids into the river... The implications of a contaminated western water system are catastrophic."

The Navajo are the largest nation and I hope their efforts will help draw precident so that other tribes obtain mitigation and justice on similar issues.

[H2O Man]

36. Years ago

I mentioned to Onondaga Chief Paul Waterman that I noticed a curious relationship between things such as toxic waste dumps and what we call Sacred Land. And he said yes, this is real. In old times, people had spoke of things that came from under the ground, and threatened life on the land.

[troubleinwinter]

40. The Navajo elders held the same view.

Chief Waterman said, "things that came from under the ground, and threatened life on the land."

Navajo have a tradition against digging up the earth. An elder was once asked, "What would happen if a man dug up the earth with steel tools?" The elder responded, "I don't know what would happen, but it would tell us much about that man."

Navajo elders told that what is underground "should be left in the depths of the earth. To bring this to the surface of the earth would cause disharmony".

You can hear this at photo pages 2, 3, 4, & 5 in the FOURTH part of this short four part flash with audio and pictures of the people and their land and the uranium pollution.

http://www.latimes.com/extras/navajo/Day1/

The Navajo were never told by the gov't & mining companies (though they knew) of the risks of uranium. The Navajo had no idea it was dangerous until the mining companies were long gone and the people and animals were dead, diseased and dying. In early 1950s, scientists actually believed that the Navajo were "cancer-immune", as there had been no cancer to be found anywhere among the people. Since the mining and pollution, cancers (and other horrific radiation-related diseases) are rampant from very young to old.

[gateley]

2. K&R nt

[OneBlueSky]

3. interesting . . . and here I thought Congress had lost its capacity for outrage . . .

if it's indeed still extant, maybe they should try applying it to the ILLEGAL and IMMORAL war in Iraq . . . and the coming war against Iran . . .

[troubleinwinter]

15. I think we can have concern and require action for our own as well.

[Thickasabrick]

5. Outrage is pointless without action. Whenever I hear a politician

is outraged - it triggers a yawn.

[troubleinwinter]

11. Please read my posts and send Rep. Waxman

a note of support for looking into this important issue. It won't take much more time or effort than a yawn to support these people in seeking justice.

[troubleinwinter]

6. Trying to type through tears of joy and sorrow.

These are my friends. My father and I spend a week a year on the reservation with our Navajo friends.

I know these families. I know people who have lost husbands, fathers, mothers, children to this poison. I know people who are blind and crippled from it.

I have lived with them in the village that has to leave the poisoned stream and drive an hour each way and wait in line every fucking day 365/yr over dirt roads to fill water barrels at the trading post well in their pickup trucks to haul water for their small sheep flocks.

A woman told me that the white people complain about gas prices, but "we feel it first. We have to drive a long way to get water at the trading post every day, whatever the price of gas is. But when the gas goes up, tourists stop coming and we have no income."

I have tears of sorrow for my friends as always, but now(!) some joy, knowing that FINALLY their plight is being noticed???!!! Please, please follow and support this issue!

And, yes, much can be done to help with cleanup and restoration. But we MUST support the issue.

I have many stories to tell from the people.

[troubleinwinter]

7. Here:

A four part article from LA Times 2006 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo20nov20,0,4270583,full.story

This http://www.navajoboy.com/radsalt.htm is a very old article about my friends Jim Chee, wife Elouise, and her mother-in-law, Libby. Libby is 95 now.

"they would drill a well so they wouldn't have to make almost daily trips to the nearby Gouldings Trading Post for drinking and irrigation water." The money is still stuck in red tape. Still. A well would serve a great many households.

Libby~



BY THE WAY~

Many of these people have been dienfranchised from their voting rights by the republican SoS of AZ in 2006. "Voter I.D." shit. Many do not have birth certificates, utility bills (they have NO utilities), they have NO mailing addresses. They traditionally vote Dem. "The Navajo, the largest Indian nation in America, voted to endorse Sen. John Kerry for president of the United States in 2004. Kerry got 67% of the Navajo vote."

[merh]

8. OMG, the drilling of a well is tied up in red tape

What the hell is wrong with that picture?

How much can a well cost and what type of red tape can be delaying it so?

K&R and prayers for these people.

[troubleinwinter]

10. The people wait for due compensation

so that they can drill a well themselves for their people.

The gov't doesn't really argue that the compensation is due, it's just taking decades to pay off. Libby is 95. When she dies, so does the claim.

In the mean time, the people drive EVERY DAY to get good water. For themselves and for the elders.

I am sooo glad that FINALLY their plight and the injustice is being noticed.

People always talk about the injustice towards the Native Americans, little noticing that it continues today. They are ignored and shoved aside.

A note of support to Rep. Waxman would be nice!

[merh]

12. I'll send Waxman a letter thanking him for bringing this to light

I'm had no idea that this situation existed.

.

[troubleinwinter]

14. Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!

And my thanks to Rep. Waxman!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I knew the situation existed, but Waxman has brought it to light.

In June, I was visiting, and Elouise pointed to a small ridge. She said, "Nobody goes into the valley beyond, because of the miniature cows."

"Miniature cows??!!", I said. She said, "Yes, uranium. Those cows are poison."

For many years the people watered their sheep flocks on uranium poisoned water from the mines, and ate the meat. The people were poisoned... the children, too. People were twisted, blinded and killed. The gov't. knew, but did not tell the people that it was poison, then walked away.

The beautiful Moonlight Creek, where they watered the flocks for many generations is poison now.

[EFerrari]

9. Somebody is going to have to answer for a great deal.

K&R

[troubleinwinter]

13. There are answers.

It will take time and money and dedication, but the situation can be helped.

Until now, all that has been given is time. Time. Time. And more time. Attempting to run time out.

It CAN be helped! But has not been.

Bless Rep. Waxman and any who will help support these Americans.

[merh]

18. Writing a letter or two is the least I can do.

I had no idea that this situation existed.

Maybe on Saturday or Sunday you should post a thread in GD to inform more folks about this.

It's horrible and we need to do something to help these people.

Thank you for caring and helping as you and your father have over the years. :hug:

:loveya:

[H2O Man]

20. That is a good idea.

I think having it in GD over the weekend would give it more coverage.

[merh]

22. Good morning

I hope trouble does post another thread in GD on this, her personal knowledge and relationship with the people affected will have a greater impact than anything I could post.

No wonder our government isn't concerned with the Depleted Uranium concerns in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have poisoned the Navajos and they are suffering from the pollution of their lands and waters and no body gives a shit - they have been able to get away with it.

:cry:

[troubleinwinter]

24. The poison is beyond the Navajo people, too...

Leetso is the Dine'(Navajo)word for the yellow monster: uranium

Leetso, the yellow monster, had released evil into Dinè'tah. The industry went bust in the ‘80s; the ghosts continue to congregate. A flood of eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid poured down the Rio Puerco drainage at Church Rock, New Mexico, on July 16, 1979, thirty-four years to the day after Leetso’s birth.

The disaster at Church Rock was not an isolated event. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledges ten accidental releases of tailings solutions into major watercourses in the region between 1959 and 1977. Runoff of rainwater from tailings piles also contributes to the contamination of surface water. In 1984, a summer flash flood in Hack Canyon washed four tons of high-grade uranium ore into Kanab Creek and on to the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. In many communities, abandoned open pit uranium mines serve as stock tanks and swimming holes.

Downstream from most of America’s uranium mines and mills sits Lake Mead, a huge reservoir that supplies drinking and irrigation water for southern California, Las Vegas, and parts of Arizona. The 40-year-old Atlas mill tailings pile at Moab, Utah, located 750 feet from the Colorado River, covers 130 acres and leaks on average 57,000 gallons per day of contaminated fluids into the river. The radioactive isotopes that are released in the mining and milling process have very long half-lives and are slowly making their way downriver into the sediments and water of the lake. The implications of a contaminated western water system are catastrophic.

http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Change/uranium.htm

[merh]

26. post a GD thread on this

educate us - inform us so that we can inform others and try to bring about change.

:hug:

[EFerrari]

27. Good idea, merh. If the thread is posted, I'll help kick. n/t

[merh]

32. Maybe trouble is composing it as we speak!

:hi: :hug:

[troubleinwinter]

33. Oh, you!

I am trying to center (calm) myself to post probably in the morning. It's pretty personal and I get all riled up.

I'll post here then.

I thank you all so very much again!

[merh]

34. who me?

Just take your time and write a post for GD folks that has this information and part of what you know. I know it is close to your heart and very emotional for you, but that is why we must not let this attention fade. It needs a brighter spotlight.

This deserves our attention.

Take a deep breath and write what you can. Leave it for this evening and come back in the morning and reread it, tweak it and then post it.

:hug:

[EFerrari]

37. I'm sure she'll let us know what the drill is.

:hug:

:hi:

[merh]

38. she knows where to find us when she is ready

:hi:

:hug:

[troubleinwinter]

43. Somebody has a post on GD (?)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2150861&mesg_id=2150861

[merh]

44. There ya go, others are trying to keep this in the spotlight

others care. :hug:

You can still post your thread, if you began to put one together, or we can just kick this one and add to it.

:hi:

[troubleinwinter]

45. (pffft.... a dupe)

[troubleinwinter]

42. Elouise, Jimmie & Sally.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo-series,0,4515615.special?coll=la-home-headlines

We arrived at 9 in the morning at Elouise and Jimmie's home in our Navajo friends' village of Oljeto. We'd been told by our friend the day before, "Come at 9 o'clock! Not 'Navajo Time', nine o'clock!".

At nine o'clock, we asked Jimmie where his wife, Elouise, was. He said, "She left a while ago to get water."

Elouise arrived with the the plastic water tank in the bed of the pickp truck around 11:30. The line for water had been long that morning at the trading post water-well where the people fill barrels and tanks for their flocks and families each day. Every day. 365.

It used to be (before the uranium mines) that the people got water from local nearby streams, springs and ponds. Those are poisoned now.

With Elouise now present, we left for our planned journey to visit Sally B. at her home on the top of a high mesa, an hour and a half away.

We drove over windy rough dirt roads up onto the high mesa. Sally has lived on the mesa her whole life of 90 years. When she was young, the water caches near her home were pure and clean. Now the water is poison. Sally lives alone on the mesa with her (nearly blind due to uranium) daughter and "a handicapped boy" (a young man in his 20s physically and mentally disabled from uranium pollution).

Now her grandsons drive an hour and a half EACH WAY, EVERY DAY from the trading post to bring water for the two women, the 'boy', a few horses and the sheep flock that are source of food and income. In winter, the road is snowed in, and the grandsons cannot drive water up onto the mesa. The tribe sends a helicopter to place a tank each day (yes, the tribe cares for the elders well-being).

Sally:

[struggle4progress]

29. Thank you for these important and informative posts

[troubleinwinter]

35. Thank YOU, struggle, for your OP

...telling us of the hearings on this very important issue.

[troubleinwinter]

17. I THANK YOU all for

Libby, Jim, Elouise, Eldon, Billy, Rose, Sally, Harold, Tono, Mary, Charlene, Ian, and a great many others, for getting this on the greatest page.

[merh]

23. "Every month one or two more die."

~snip~

We have today registered 2,450 eligible Navajo uranium workers. Eligible meaning that they worked between January 1, 1947 and December 31, 1971. Also we had 412 deceased miners from way back, those that began the mining process. Every month one or two more die.

There are other tribes that had some mines during this period who are also eligible for the compensation.

The Navajo Nation president has put a moratorium on the uranium mining.

Responsibility

These mine operators, these mill operators, they were not held responsible because they said we just did the mining for the government, and the government is the one that's responsible for it. But the Navajo people that live on the reservation, complained about the damages that were done by the mining.

As well as the harm to the miners, the Navajo people say the operators went up into the mountains and pushed a lot of the dirt that contained some radiation or uranium off the side of the mountains and they were just scattered down below. When it rains and when it thaws in the springtime, a lot of the water washes into the riverbed and flows down into the stream and eventually comes out on the farms and does other damage. It's like a chain reaction. The food you raise may have some radiation, and you eat it. They feel that a lot of this is taking place right now because of the way they handled the initial mining.

Human Radiation Experiments

Currently, Office of Navajo Uranium Workers staff has been working on an amendment of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) legislation so it will be easier for miners to qualify. We testified before the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, and the committee will make a recommendation to the president to liberalize RECA legislation.

Several conferences have been held on Navajo Nation with the miners, relatives, and others in this change request in RECA. It looks very good.

Also read:

* Memories Come To Us In the Rain and the Wind,
Oral Histories and Photographs of Navajo Uranium Miners & Their Families (Extracts)
Navajo Nation
Arizona and New Mexico

* Leetso: the Powerful Yellow Monster
A Navajo Cultural Interpretation of Uranium Mining
by Esther Yazzie and Jim Zion
Albuquerque, New Mexico

* Interview with Wahleah Johns and Lilian Hill
of Black Mesa Water Coalition
“We don’t have to be the battery for America” / Sustainable Development: It’s Old But It’s New
Kykotsmovi, Hopi Nation
Arizona

* Interview with Tom Goldtooth
of the Indigenous Environmental Network
“First and foremost is our right to exist and to make our own decisions ...”
Johannesburg, South Africa

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/miners.html

:cry:

[EFerrari]

25. Kick

[troubleinwinter]

39. ::::: LOOK HERE :::::

A four-part Flash slideshow with audio about the effects of pollution from the uranium mines. The people tell their stories, and you will see the people and their land.

Four parts: http://www.latimes.com/extras/navajo/Day1/

[EFerrari]

41. Thanks, trouble.

kick

[slipslidingaway]

46. Kick :( and thanks to all for the replies as well. n/t