[wvns] New Mexico Contaminated with Uranium
Tribal officials ask Congress for $500 million to deal with wastes
left by mining for bombs, nuclear power plants.
Navajos seek funds to clear uranium contamination
By Judy Pasternak
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/
WASHINGTON -- Navajo tribal officials asked Congress on Tuesday for at
least $500 million to finish cleaning up lingering contamination on
the Navajo reservation in the American Southwest from Cold War-era
uranium mining, an industry nurtured by its only customer until 1971:
the United States government.
The tribe also sought a moratorium on new mining in Navajo country,
which extends beyond the formal reservation borders into New Mexico,
until environmental damage from the last round is repaired.
The requests came at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform, marked by angry exchanges between the members and
officials from five federal agencies with varying degrees of
responsibility for protecting Navajo health and the environment.
Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) instructed the
agencies -- the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of
Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Indian Health Service
and the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- to return in December with a list
of the money and authority they need to finally finish the job.
"It's been a bipartisan failure for over 40 years," Waxman said. "It's
also a modern American tragedy."
Waxman scheduled the hearing in response to a Los Angeles Times
series, published last year, detailing the effects of mine waste on
Navajos who built their homes with it, played in it and regularly
drank toxic water for decades. Exposure continues today, as cleanup
efforts remain fitful and incomplete.
The nation's largest tribal homeland, encompassing parts of Arizona,
Utah and New Mexico, contains about 1,000 abandoned uranium mines and
four old processing mills. From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of
uranium ore were blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for
nuclear bombs. After 1971, utilities also bought uranium for nuclear
power plants.
The mine operators often left behind open tunnels, shafts and piles of
radioactive waste. Federal inspectors knew of the hazards but seldom
intervened. Meanwhile, Navajo cancer rates doubled and certain birth
defects increased.
Tuesday's hearing came almost 14 years after the House Natural
Resources Committee heard a plea from the tribe's frustrated
environment director for "speedy, thorough and permanent remediation
of all sites."
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) called on agencies to "focus and
accelerate clean-up efforts," capping the 40 most dangerous open
mines, limiting groundwater contamination and conducting human-health
surveys.
Some House members were visibly displeased by some of the responses to
their questions. When EPA Regional Administrator Wayne Nastri said he
needed "time" to protect a Navajo community from a radioactive waste
pile abandoned 25 years ago, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) snapped:
"Time passes, Mr. Nastri. People get sick. They get bone cancer, they
get leukemia while we wait."
Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) asked BIA Director Jerry Gidner if he believed
that the United States had fulfilled its pledge to protect the
Navajos' welfare.
"That's hard to say," Gidner answered.
"Hard to say?" Udall said. "I would think that you'd be outraged."
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