Homeland Contamination: Destroying Indigenous Lands and Populations

Homeland Contamination: Destroying Indigenous Lands and Populations pacific Free Press 20 June 09  “………………..Homeland Contamination

There is uranium all around the Black Hills, South and North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Mining companies came in and dug large holes through these lands to extract uranium in the 1950’s and 1960’s prior to any prohibitive regulations. Abandoned uranium mines in southwestern South Dakota number 142. In the Cave Hills area, another sacred place in South Dakota used for vision quests and burial sites, there are 89 abandoned uranium mines.

In an essay called “Native North America: The Political Economy of Radioactive Colonialism,” political activists Ward Churchill and Winona LaDuke state that former US President Richard Nixon declared the 1868 Treaty Territory a “National Sacrifice Area,” implying that the territory, and its people, were being sacrificed to uranium and nuclear radiation.

The worst part, according to White Face, is that, “None of these abandoned mines have been marked. They never filled them up, they never capped them. There are no warning signs … nothing. The Forest Service even advertises the Picnic Springs Campground as a tourist place. It’s about a mile away from the Cave Hills uranium mines.”

The region is honeycombed with exploratory wells that have been dug as far down as six to eight hundred feet. In the southwestern Black Hills area, there are more than 4,000 uranium exploratory wells. On the Wyoming side of the Black Hills, there are 3,000 wells. Further north into North Dakota, there are more than a thousand wells.

The Black Hills and its surroundings are the recharge area for several major aquifers in the South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming regions. The crisis can be gauged from the simple description that White Face gives: “When the winds come, they pick up the [uranium] dust and carry it; when it rains or snows, it washes it down into the aquifers and groundwater. Much of this radioactive contamination then finds its way into the Missouri River.”…………………………….The Ogala Sioux are engaged in ongoing legal battles with the pro-uranium state of South Dakota. They are aware of the unequal nature of their battle, but they cannot afford to give up. White Face explains how “… Our last court case was lost before learning that the judge was a former lawyer for one of the mining companies. Also, the governor’s sister and brother-in-law work for mining companies [Powertech] and a professor, hired by the Forest Service to test water run-off for contamination, is on contract with a company that works for the mining company. When I found out the judge was a lawyer for the mining company I knew we would lose, but we went ahead with the case for the publicity, because we have to keep waking people up.”

Other tribes, such as the Navajo and Hopi in New Mexico, have been exposed to radioactive material as well. Furthermore, the July 16, 1979, spill of 100 million gallons of radioactive water containing uranium tailings from a tailing pond into the north arm of the Rio Puerco, near the small town of Church Rock, New Mexico, also affected indigenous peoples in Arizona.

Her rage and grief are evident as White Face laments, “When we have our prayer gatherings we ask that no young people come to attend. If you want to have children don’t come to Cave Hills because it’s too radioactive.”

The exploitative approach to the planet’s resources and peoples that led to these environmental and health disasters collides with White Face’s values: “I always say that you have to learn to live with the earth, and not in domination of the earth.”

Homeland Contamination: Destroying Indigenous Lands and Populations

June 21, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

A first: Navajo’s recent court win over uranium miners

Imperial nuclear power

Examiner.com Ann Garrison 27 May 09 Corporations mined uranium all over the Navajo Nation’s famously scenic mountains, mesas and canyons after World War II,
as the U.S. built its nuclear power, weapons, and war machine.

In “Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation,” I told the story of eight Navajo veterans who died of uranium weapons poisoning within two years of returning from the Gulf War, and, of the toxic legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Reservation.  These histories inspired me, over the past five years, to study the uranium mining  industry, most of all in indigenous country in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Africa.

Earlier this month the Navajo Nation won a victory in a U.S. federal appeals court, which supported the Diné Natural Resources and Protection Act of 2005, a ban on uranium mining, and, the only indigenous assertion of  sovereignty over natural resources of its kind.

Anyone who might be persuaded by the argument that nuclear power is a clean, green “solution” to global warming , including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and San Francisco Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, should consider the devastating impact of uranium mining, the first step in the nuclear process, on indigenous peoples and environments all over the world.

http://www.examiner.com/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d27-Imperial-nuclear-power?#comments

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation

Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation – Examiner.com Ann Garrison 27 May 09  “………………

He had almost gone to Flagstaff to enlist just before the Gulf War, in 1991, but had gotten a job making better wages on the reservation instead.  Eight of his friends had gone, and all eight had returned alive, but then, all eight had died of cancer, within two years.  All eight had believed that uranium weapons poisoning caused their cancers; all eight had been on the deck of an aircraft carrier when a black cloud of munitions blowback descended upon them.

The Veterans Administration denied that their cancers had anything to do with uranium weapons, or, any sort of other toxic exposure in the Gulf,……………. I’m not going to name my friend, or the friends he lost,  because the recruiting pressure in Native America is like nothing I’ve ever seen outside New Orleans.

I also learned about the horrific, ongoing post-World War II legacy of uranium mining contamination in Navajoland, which had killed many Navajo people and left many others suffering birth defects and illnesses, including cancer in numbers far disproportionate to the general population.

The uranium in the weapons that the Navajo vets had believed to be the reason they were dying might well have been mined, in their own poisoned homeland, as the U.S. built its post World War II nuclear power, weapons, and war machine.

SF Energy Policy Examiner: Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation

May 27, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Navajo uranium mine workers seek health assistance

Navajo uranium mine workers seek health assistance— By Brendan Giusti — The Daily Times 4/22/2009  — A grassroots effort to help uranium mine workers’ children affected by diseases and birth defects is picking up steam on the Navajo Nation.The Navajo Nation Dependents of Uranium Workers Committee will meet for the second time in a month to update community members and hear feedback from residents who suffer from cancer, kidney disease, birth defects and other illnesses resulting from prolonged radon exposure from uranium mines……………………

uranium mine workers were exposed to high levels of radon, which has caused inter-generational bouts of illnesses in communities across the Navajo Nation.

“A lot of people don’t want to talk about this in the public,” Harrison said………………………….

momentum in the fair-compensation movement is growing.

Community members, especially those directly affected by the lingering health issues, are ready to travel to Washington to lobby the federal government for compensation, said Gilbert Badoni, president of the Navajo Nation Dependents of Uranium Workers Committee, a co-sponsor of the meeting.

The group plans to hold meetings across the Navajo Nation before making the trek to the nation’s capital later this year.

Badoni estimates there are 15,000 dependents of uranium mine workers affected today from various diseases and birth defects.

From 2004 to 2005 only 8 percent of Navajo claims were paid, Harrison said.

This, according to Harrison, is because many Navajo don’t have the proper medical records, marital records, birth certificates, proof of residency or work history required under the act.

Navajo uranium mine workers seek health assistance – Farmington Daily Times

April 23, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment