Navajo Dine Fight Uranium Resources Inc. Mining Permits In New Mexico
by Pratap Chatterjee
CorpWatch Blog, March 25th, 2016
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16066&printsafe=1
The Navajo Dine community have notched up a victory over Uranium Resources
Inc. decades old plan to dig for uranium at Crownpoint and Churchrock, New
Mexico, by successfully appealing a state permit for the Colorado company to
dump waste into the Westwater Canyon aquifer.
The proposed mine has been opposed by the Eastern Navajo Dine Against
Uranium Mining (ENDAUM), a grassroots tribal group, on the grounds that it
could contaminate the groundwater for some 15,000 people who live in the
region.
"As a resident and former miner, I have experienced the effects of uranium
exploitation first-hand. Many of my relatives and neighbors, including
myself, have suffered health problems due to working at or living near the
mines," Larry J. King, a board member for ENDAUM wrote in a 2012 petition on
Change.org. "The Colorado plateau of New Mexico still bears the unhealed
sores of the uranium boom of the last century--radioactive waste piles,
contaminated water and hundreds of mines on Navajo land abandoned by
companies looking to make a quick profit."
Mining for uranium hit a peak during the Cold war when the U.S. was building
and testing nuclear bombs to use against the Soviet Union. Price collapsed
after the boom ended but started to climb again some 15 years ago when
developing countries like China and India started to expand their nuclear
power programs, touching off a scramble for new exploration.
One of the biggest known deposits lies under the 27,000 square miles of
Navajo territory which extends over the states of Arizona New Mexico and
Utah. Indeed Mark Pelizza, a vice president of Uranium Resources Inc., once
referred to the region as "the Saudi Arabia of uranium." The company hoped
to tap an estimated 42 million pounds of uranium over 20 years worth over a
billion dollars at today’s prices.
But access to this mother lode has been limited by the Navajo tribe which
recently passed a law to ban uranium mining. "I don’t want to subject any
more of my people to exposure to uranium and the cancers that it causes,"
Joe Shirley Jr., the Navajo Nation president, said when he signed the Dine
Natural Resources Protection Act in 2005. "I believe the powers that be
committed genocide on Navajo land by allowing uranium. As long as there are
no answers to cancer, we shouldn’t have uranium mining on the Navajo
Nation."
Unfortunately the Navajo don't legally control the land that lies outside
the borders of the reservation that has been allotted to them. Crownpoint
and Church Rock come under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government which has
issued mining licenses to several companies.
Uranium Resources, Inc. proposed to use in situ leach mining techniques
which local activists say poses a major hazard. "The type of uranium mining
(URI) is proposing would contaminate potable water with radiation and heavy
metals, making it unfit for consumption forever," says Eric Jantz, a lawyer
with New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) that helped ENDAUM fight
the mine.
While the company had a valid license to mine for uranium, it still faced
other obstacles. The company's state permit for dumping waste water had
expired in 1996 and the New Mexico Environment Department had delayed the
renewal pending a variety of lawsuits.
Then in October 2015 New Mexico finally gave the company the go-ahead. The
two activist organizations immediately challenged the renewal pointing out
that the permit allowed contamination at 5,000 micrograms/liter, which was
in violation of the state's newer 2004 uranium groundwater standard of 30
micrograms/liter.
On December 15, 2015, Ryan Flynn, the New Mexico Environment Secretary
agreed to cancel the permit.
The activists are not out of the woods yet. The federal U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency still provides exemptions to the mining, oil and gas
industry that allow them to contaminate aquifers.
This week NMELC joined forces with the Natural Resources Defense Council to
demand that this exemption be repealed. "New Mexico's desert climate makes
water precious for everyone," said Eric Jantz, staff attorney at the New
Mexico Environmental Law Center. "Rural low-income, minority and indigenous
communities, though, rely almost exclusively on groundwater for drinking
water, and are hit particularly hard by groundwater pollution from
industries like oil and gas development and uranium mining."
