[News] A new demand for uranium power brings concerns for Navajo groups

[Anti-Imperialist News]

A new demand for uranium power brings concerns for Navajo groups
Mining planned at a mountain considered sacred

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/24/AR2009102402023.html?referrer=emailarticle
By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 25, 2009

ACOMA, N.M.-- Uranium from the Grants Mineral 
Belt running under rugged peaks and Indian 
pueblos of New Mexico was a source of electric 
power and military might in decades past, 
providing fuel for reactors and atomic bombs.

Now, interest in carbon-free nuclear power is 
fueling a potential resurgence of uranium mining. 
But Indian people gathered in Acoma, N.M., for 
the Indigenous Uranium Forum over the weekend 
decried future uranium extraction, especially 
from nearby Mount Taylor, considered sacred by 
many tribes. Native people from Alaska, Canada, 
the Western United States and South America 
discussed the severe health problems uranium 
mining has caused their communities, including 
high rates of cancer and kidney disease.

Uranium companies and government authorities do 
not dispute this, and federal environmental 
remediation and workers' compensation programs 
related to past uranium mining are ongoing. But 
mining companies say today's methods and 
regulations have improved so much that locals have nothing to fear.

Uranium mining and milling in New Mexico began in 
the late 1940s but nearly ceased in the late 
1980s as prices dropped. In 2007, prices climbed 
to a record $139 per pound, and companies applied 
for or renewed permits and staked new claims. The 
economic crisis has had a chilling effect, with 
prices now at about $43 per pound. But industry 
officials say they expect high prices soon, 
especially with the likely passage of a climate 
bill putting a price on carbon emissions.

The Grants Mineral Belt, extending 100 miles west 
from Albuquerque, holds 300 million pounds of 
extractable uranium. Companies are hoping to mine 
the country's largest single deposit, about 100 
million pounds, around Mount Taylor. This year 
the National Trust for Historic Preservation 
named it one of the nation's 11 most endangered 
places, and the state granted protected status to 
a swath of the mountain. The company Rio Grande 
Resources wants to reopen a former Mount Taylor 
mine that yielded 8 million pounds of uranium for 
previous owner Chevron from 1986 to 1989.

About 50 miles from Mount Taylor, the company 
Hydro Resources Inc. (HRI) also plans to begin 
mining 101 million pounds starting around the 
Navajo towns of Church Rock and Crownpoint, N.M. 
HRI plans to do most of its extraction through 
in-situ leaching (ISL), where chemicals are 
injected into an aquifer to mobilize uranium 
deposits, then the metal is sucked out while the 
water is purified and returned to the aquifer. 
Rick Van Horn, senior vice president of 
operations for HRI's parent company, Uranium 
Resources, said the process is environmentally 
safe. Opponents fear it could contaminate their water supply.

"This has multi-generational effects. I won't 
even live long enough to see what it does to 
people in 500 years," said Earl Tulley, who lives 
near Church Rock and is vice president of the 
Navajo environmental group Diné Citizens Against 
Ruining Our Environment. His wife had breast 
cancer and his daughter had an ovarian tumor 
removed, both of which were attributed to uranium 
exposure. "People are being taken apart from the inside out."

The Grand Canyon watershed also holds vast 
uranium deposits, with more than 8,000 mining 
claims filed over a 1 million-acre area. Interior 
Secretary Ken L. Salazar over the summer 
instituted a two-year moratorium on awarding new 
claims or beginning production on claims not 
already established as viable. While it is not 
tribal land, this region is considered sacred to 
many Indians. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley 
Jr. and other tribal leaders testified in support 
of a House bill introduced this year by 
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/g000551/>Rep. 
Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) that would ban Grand Canyon watershed uranium mining.

Shirley is a staunch proponent of existing and 
proposed coal mining and coal-fired power in the 
Navajo Nation. For several years his 
administration has been fighting Navajo and 
outside environmentalists over the proposed 
Desert Rock coal-burning power plant, which would 
bring increased coal mining on the reservation. 
Shirley, who could not be reached for comment, 
has said the coal plant would be an economic boon 
for the reservation. Uranium proponents, 
including some Navajo, likewise say the industry 
would create badly needed investment and jobs on 
a reservation where unemployment regularly tops 50 percent.

Van Horn said HRI would create about 120 jobs for 
locals and would result in nearly $1 million a 
year in royalties to the Navajo Nation. Mount 
Taylor mine manager Joe Lister said their planned 
operations would create about 600 temporary 
construction jobs and 400 permanent jobs.

"Everyone is paying attention to the Native 
Americans and the environment, but where is Joe 
Public, that working man who comes in his car 
with his family from Arizona or Texas and asks, 
'Are there any jobs here?' " he said. "No, 
there's no jobs now. But we hope there will be."

Chris Shuey, a specialist on uranium mining at 
the Southwest Research and Information Center, 
says many uranium companies do not intend to mine unless prices soar.

"I don't think they're being honest about the 
chances of new mining. They're . . . setting up 
false expectations," he said. "It doesn't take a 
lot of money to put up a fancy Web site. It's a 
whole other thing to actually reopen a mine, hire 
staff and produce that first ton of ore. If 
you're going to propose mining uranium, you 
should either put up or shut up. And these guys aren't doing it."




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