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Exposing the horrible effects of uranium mining on Navajo people

Uranium mining on Navajo Reservation: How we did this The Republic | azcentral.com August 10, 2014 Uranium mining for America’s Cold War nuclear arms buildup has proved a lasting scourge on the nation’s largest American Indian reservation, and one that the same government that demanded the ore has been slow to address.

As the last of the sickened Navajo miners are stricken with lung diseases, younger generations are coping with kidney disease and other ailments, wondering whether the radioactive wastes have also sickened them. Meanwhile, hundreds of abandoned mines remain hazards with a cleanup cost that will stretch into the billions of dollars. Photographer David Wallace first took an interest in the problem in 2010 while on assignment documenting solar-energy installations at off-the-grid homes on the Navajo Reservation. He heard of sick miners and residents, and in 2013 began contacting activists with Forgotten People, a Navajo social-justice group.

Later that year, Wallace began visiting the homes of a sick miner and some families who had long histories of exposure to uranium-contaminated water. In January 2014, environment reporter Brandon Loomis joined the project and the two made periodic daylong visits to homes and mines in the Cameron, Gray Mountain and Black Falls areas north of Flagstaff — a quadrant of the reservation that was heavily mined and remains hazardous to many residents……….

U.S. and Navajo officials say both momentum and funding are building to enable a thorough cleanup. At the current rate of progress, though, still more generations of Navajos will face threats from hundreds of abandoned mines in the decades to come.

David Wallace

Wallace is a two-time runner-up for the Arizona Press Club Photographer of the Year award and a two-time regional Emmy winner for his videos.

How to reach Wallace

Email: david.wallace@arizonarepublic.com.

Phone: 602-653-6228.

Twitter: @DavidWallce.

Brandon Loomis

Loomis is an environment reporter with more than two decades of experience covering land and water issues in the West. He joined The Arizona Republic in 2012 after similar assignments at newspapers in Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah, and is now on a nine-month fellowship with Marquette University.

How to reach Loomis

Email: brandon.loomis@arizonarepublic.com.

Twitter:@brandonloomis.      http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/08/06/uranium-mining-navajos-how-we-did-this/13681861/

August 12, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, Uranium, USA