Navajo Challenge Uranium Mining Permit on Tribal Lands

The Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, New Mexico will fight the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the permitted company, Hydro Resources, Inc., demanding that they stay off Navajo lands in New Mexico.

Hydro Resources, Inc. is a subsidiary of the publicly-traded corporation Uranium Resources, based in Dallas. The company has established a partnership with Itochu Corporation, one of Japan's largest corporations, to evaluate and develop the Church Rock site.

On behalf of the two communities, the New Mexico Environmental Law Center will present oral arguments on May 12 to a panel of judges of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver asking that the NRC decision to allow the uranium mining be set aside.

"The importance of our hearing on May 12 cannot be overstated," says Eric Jantz, New Mexico Environmental Law Center attorney who will be arguing the case. "We are talking about the land, water, air and health of two whole communities. There are people on this land grazing their cattle and hauling their daily drinking water."

The communities' case is being presented with the assistance of the community group Eastern Navajo Dine against Uranium Mining, or ENDAUM, and the Southwest Research and Information Center.

Navajo Larry King, a member of ENDAUM, is an appellant in this case. Once a uranium miner, King is now a subsistance rancher. He may lose his land if the mining permits stand. (Photo by Ossy Werner courtesy NMELC)

The fight is growing in importance as the price of uranium has increased during the past seven years, rising from $7 per pound to $68 per pound. As a result, there has been steep rise in the number of exploratory permits requested by mining companies during the past year for lands in New Mexico, with a dozen applications currently under review.

Hydro Resources, Inc. has proposed four mines - two in Church Rock, where there has been considerable previous uranium mining, and two in Crownpoint, where little mining has taken place and air and water are still pure.

Despite a Navajo Nation ban on uranium mining on Navajo land imposed April 19, 2005, the NRC approved the license for all four sites in May 2006.

An NRC Atomic Licensing Board panel ruled that radiation levels from operations at the company's Crownpoint Uranium Project in New Mexico would be a small fraction of the regulatory limits and would not be harmful to public health and safety.

Uranium Resources President Paul Willmott said at the time that modern in situ leach uranium recovery technology "represents an acceptable and safe alternative to traditional mining methods historically used to recover uranium in New Mexico."

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit in 2007 against the NRC to overturn the license.

The attorneys for the Navajo argue that the NRC violated the Atomic Energy Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and its own regulations when it issued decisions on numerous issues.

They argue that Hydro Resources has failed to prove that it will protect groundwater from contamination by uranium and other toxic heavy metals.

They say the company has failed to ensure that the health of residents near the mines would be protected from damaging radioactive air emissions.

Finally, the attorneys for the Navajo communities argue that Hydro Resources' proposed financial bond is inadequate to ensure that the sites would be cleaned up in the event that the company is unable to undertake reclamation of the land and/or water impacted by the mining.

In situ leach mining technology does not create tailings as conventional uranium mining does, but it contaminates groundwater.

Jantz says, "The claim that in situ leach, ISL, mining is environmentally benign is ridiculous. The process involves intentionally contaminating an aquifer in order to recover the uranium. There has never been an instance where a commercial ISL operation has restored groundwater to its pre-mining condition."

"In some cases, where the water quality was already bad enough to be undrinkable, this might not be an issue," said Jantz. "However, in New Mexico, where the only proposed ISL mining is to take place in aquifers that are already used as drinking water aquifers, this is a real problem."

The home of Wilamina Yazzie in the Church Rock area is adjacent to one of the proposed mining projects. In the background is a structure left by previous uranium mining. (Photo by Ossy Werner courtesy NMELC)

The Navajo Nation is situated on a geologic formation rich in radioactive ores including uranium. Beginning in the 1940's, widespread mining and milling of uranium ore for national defense and energy purposes on the Navajo Nation led to a legacy of abandoned uranium mines.

Mine operators extracted nearly four million tons of uranium ore from 1944 to 1986 under lease agreements with the Navajo Nation. As a result, uranium mining has left the Navajo Nation with a legacy of over 500 abandoned uranium mines, four inactive uranium milling sites, a former dump site, contaminated groundwater, structures that may contain elevated levels of radiation, and environmental and public health concerns.

"Some Navajo residents may have elevated health risks due to the dispersion of radiation and heavy metal contamination in soil and water," says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, noting, "Ingestion of contaminated water has been identified as the exposure pathway of greatest concern."

The EPA has sampled 226 water sources in the vicinity of radiation sources for uranium and other contaminants, of which 38 water sources were found to pose elevated health risks for radionuclides. This spring, the EPA will sample 70 additional unregulated water sources possibly used for human consumption.

Last November, the EPA evacuated the half dozen Navajo families who live in the Red Water Pond Road area, saying radiation levels were so high that people should not be living there.

The EPA scraped the top eight inches of soil off the land and sent it to a hazardous waste disposal site. These families are living in their homes again, because the EPA has said the area is now safe, but the families are still concerned about their health, says Jantz.

In August 2007, the EPA completed a study identifying 520 abandoned uranium mines. In March, the EPA published a Five Year Action Plan to address the abandoned uranium mines and related issues. Costs of dealing with these problems have been $193 million in the 10 years from 1997 through 2007, according to this action plan and exact costs of the five year plan were not given.

Going forward, the Northeast Church Rock Mine located near Gallup, New Mexico is the highest priority cleanup on EPA's abandoned uranium mine ranking list. The EPA will determine the soil remedy in 2008 and the agency says it plans to require the mining company, United Nuclear Corporation, to perform a comprehensive Superfund removal action for cleanup of soils on the site.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.