The Navajo:

The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States. It is over 26,000 square miles large, and crosses over three states. According to the 2000 census it has a population of 173,987 people. Like most reservations it is relatively autonomous of the U.S. Government.

The Navajo People have built over 150 schools in the Nation, yet the high school graduation rate is on 41%, compared to the U.S. average of 75%. Unemployment in the Nation was around 35% in the 1970’s, which was five times the unemployment in the U.S. Over half the population lives under the poverty line.

This led to nearly 15,000 Navajo working in the Carizzo Mountain Uranium mines since 1940. In the 1950’s there is evidence showing that Navajo workers were paid $.80 to $1.15 an hour, less than the minimum wage of $1.25. These workers mined over 13 million tons of uranium.

1 in 2,500 Navajo children is born with severe combined immunodeficiency, also known as bubble boy syndrome, a disease which removes the body’s ability to develop any kind of immune system. This is compared to 1 in 100,000 children in the rest of the U.S.

Cancer rates have been shown to be 17 times higher than the national average among Navajo teenagers. Many scientists believe that this is because of Uranium dust that was released into the air during the 40’s and 50’s and leeched into the groundwater, contaminating it. Levels of Uranium levels found in wells were five times the level permitted by the EPA.

The Problem:

     The Navajo reservation in New Mexico has been used for the mining of Uranium and Vandium since the end of World War II.  One of the biggest problems associated with the miners was that they were underpaid.  At the time workers were suppose to receive at the least $1.25 an hour.  The Navajo workers were only receiving between $.80-$.90 an hour.  The mines were unsafe and when workers complained about their safety they were simply fired and pushed to the back.  At times miners were put back to work shortly after blasting occurred.  The Navajo miners that were working in the Uranium mines had very high frequencies of cancer, and when this problem was brought to the table politics lagged behind and the Navajo did not receive the compensations that were needed.

      The government made it even more difficult for the Navajos to receive their compensations when new guidelines were put up.  Navajos now had to get their claims certified which took an exceed amount of time.  However, it did not take as long for non-Native Americans to receive their compensations.  The Navajos also did not keep very good records which kept them from proving their work status.  The fact they did not file taxes, due to low hourly wages, prevented them from receiving their benefits.  One other problem associated with the lack on compensations was the fact that the testing of cancerous radon gases was halted after the mines were closed.

Uranium:

  From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium or were chiseled and blated from the mountains and plains. The mines provided uranium for the Manhatten Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb and for the weapons stockpile built up during the arms race with the Soviet Union. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Private companies operated the mines with the U.S. government as the sole customer. The uranium boom lasted until the early 1960’s. As the threat of the Cold  War gradually diminished over the next two decades, four processing mills and more than 1,000 mines on tribal land shut down, leaving behind radioactive waste piles, open tunnels and pits. Few people bothered to fence the properties or post warning signs, and federal inspectors rarely intervened. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Because of their proximity to the mines,Navajo residing in the area involuntarily inhale the radioactive dust from the waste piles, borne on desert winds. They also drink water contaminated from rain filled abandoned pit mines, and water their herds, and then butcher the animals for their meat.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   In addition to the abandoned mines that still exist today in Utah, Colorado,  New  Mexico, and Arizona, Navajo communities face a new proposed uranium solution mining that threatens the only source of drinking water for 10,000-15,000 people living in the Easter Navajo Agency in northwestern New Mexico.

Resolution and Consequences:

            In 1990 the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed. This agreed to the following settlements:

$50,000 to individuals residing or working "downwind" of the Nevada Test Site

$75,000 for workers participating in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests

$100,000 for uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters

          Only to collect on these settlements a worker would have to provide evidence that they actually worked in the mines. Because of their incredibly low wages the workers did not file taxes and therefore had no records to prove that they had worked in the mines.

            In April 2006, the Navajo Nation led by President Joe Shirley approved legislation banning the mining of Uranium on all Navajo land. This should have been the end of all Uranium mining, but Hydro Resources Inc. has petition the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to simply take the land away from the Navajo under 18 U.S.C.§ 1151(b) which would simply reclassify the land as “not Indian country”. This issue is still unresolved.

            There are still hundred of out of use Uranium mines all over the Navajo Nation that have yet to be cleaned up. Studies completed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency in 2007 determined that per 199 unregulated wells in the region, 9 excedeeded the limits for uranium in drinking water.

Federal Hurdles:

     Aside from not being able to claim benefits because of not filing taxes, Navajo workers faced further uphill battles.  Widows and widowers would not have been able to collect any compensation whatsoever, as traditional marriages within Navajo culture do not involve legally binding marriage certificates.  In the eyes of the government, Navajos in traditional marriages are basically unwed.  Without a documented marriage that is recognized by government, very little could be done to ensure that spouses would collect any compensation for the death of their partner due to mining related illness or injury. 

In addition, the US EPA says in its Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving and Cooperative Agreement Program form that Native Americans are not eligible for federal assistance that would help support a collaborative program to improve public health.  Specifically:  "The focus of this assistance agreement program is to build the capacity of community-based organizations to address environmental and/or public health issues at the local level.  Therefore, for this assistance agreement program, the term 'non-profit' EXCLUDES: federally-recognized Indian tribal governments" (www.epa.gov).  Without federal and financial assistance to help, it seems that the Navajo must rely on getting this issue on the public agenda... only this was conspicuously absent from major media.