SLOW PROGRESS: An open abandoned uranium mine near Cameron, Ariz.
Image: Jarrett Wheeler, courtesy of Forgotten People
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There's an old uranium mine on rancher Larry Gordy's grazing land near Cameron, Ariz. Like hundreds of other abandoned mines in the Navajo Nation, the United States' largest Indian reservation, it looks as if it might still be in use—tailings, or waste products of uranium processing, are still piled everywhere, and the land isn't fenced off. "It looks like Mars," said Marsha Monestersky, program director of Forgotten People, an advocacy organization for the western region of the vast Navajo Nation, which covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently embroiled in a massive effort to assess 520 open abandoned uranium mines all over the vast reservation. (Forgotten People says there are even more mines on Navajo land: about 1,300.) Earlier this month, the cleanup got a boost from a bankruptcy settlement with Oklahoma City-based chemical company Tronox Inc., which will give federal and Navajo Nation officials $14.5 million to address the reservation's uranium contamination.
During the Cold War, private companies such as Tronox's former parent company, Kerr-McGee Corp., operated uranium mines under U.S. government contracts, removing four million tons of ore that went into making nuclear weapons and fuel. When demand dried up with the end of the era, companies simply abandoned their mines as they were.
Remediation work started 10 years ago, when the EPA mapped the mines by investigating company records and surveying the land with helicopters equipped with radiation detectors. The agency is now halfway through visiting mines to determine their radiation levels. "It's an overwhelming problem," said Clancy Tenley, EPA assistant director for the region.
The mines expose Navajo Nation residents to uranium through airborne dust and contaminated drinking water. Many residents' homes were built using mud and rocks near mines, and some of that building material is radioactive. There are few published studies on the effects of uranium mines on nearby residents, but researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of New Mexico are working on health assessments, according to EPA officials. Researchers have known for decades that uranium exposure increases the risk of lung and bone cancers and kidney damage.
In July, the leaders of Forgotten People pushed the EPA to begin cleanup in Cameron because they were worried about the effects of the mines there on ranchers like Gordy, whose cattle drink and graze on uranium-contaminated land. Their tussle with the agency highlights the difficulties the EPA faces in all stages of its cleanup, which will likely take decades. The uranium mine Gordy found wasn't even included in the EPA's original atlas. "We're grateful to [Monestersky] for pointing that out to us," said Tenley, the agency spokesman. He initially said the EPA would visit the site within six months but publicity over conditions there apparently prompted a change of heart.
Instead, EPA contractors assessed the site November 9. A scientist who participated wouldn't discuss what he found without EPA officials present, and agency officials couldn't be reached for comment. However, Lee Greer, a biologist from La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif., was part of a conference call about the assessment's results. Greer has been working with Forgotten People to record radiation levels at sites that interest the advocacy group. He said the EPA contractors found radiation levels at the mine that were higher than the EPA's Geiger counters could measure.
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29 Comments
Add CommentIt sounds like the Indians have a gold(read uranium) mine in their yards...should be worth alot of money...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, I'd think that mining it would pay better than ranching. Also, who wants to eat radioactive cows?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Govt should figure square miles of waste land and partition it off for safety and for future leasing. Then give the losing parties an equal area in better environs as compensation, and let the original owners keep the leasable properties with no liabllity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe treatied undesirable property to the Indians from the beginning, only to retake as minerals rights became valuable...and then left a mess behind. Shameful.
How about the two giant Coal Power plants on Navajo land and the giant Coal mines that supply them with Coal? And a new 1500 MW Mine Mouth Coal Plant the Navajo Nation wants to build. One of them, the Four Corners Power plant is 2040MW and the largest emitter of NOx emissions in the USA. It supplies Los Angelos with their California "Clean Energy".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissee:
http://www.sanjuancitizens.org/air/desertrock.shtml
"...Existing CO2 emissions in the Four Corners region include 15.6 millions tons per year (tpy) from the Four Corners Power Plant and 13.4 million tpy from the San Juan Power Plant for a total of 29 million tpy of CO2..."
"...Desert Rock is projected (Sithe’s own numbers) to emit over 12.7 million tpy of CO2 to the atmosphere. The proposed Desert Rock facility would effectively wipe out all positive actions that New Mexico is taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions..."
"...Projections are that Desert Rock would contribute more mercury (117-161 pounds per year, at a minimum..."
"...This emitted mercury is showing up as mercury deposition in virtually all of the major water bodies in the Four Corners region. These regional waters include the San Juan, Animas, La Plata rivers; Navajo and Vallecito lakes; Narraguinnep and McPhee reservoirs, and numerous water bodies found on the Navajo Nation where fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination have been issued..."
This site compares the environmental footprints of an open pit (worst case) Uranium mine with a Coal Mine. The Uranium Mine produces 9X the energy of the Coal Mine, burnt in an exceedingly low efficiency GenII LWR, from an area 1/3rd the size.
http://enochthered.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-environmental-footprints-of-coal-and-uranium-mining/
Coal Power death and destruction:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/02/coal-power-and-waste-details.html
Most Uranium in the USA & 26% of the World's is mined by in-situ leaching:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf27.html
It would make sense to work on chelating treatments and dietary changes for the Indians. These are relatively inexpensive. It will be a very long time before all those uranium mines are taken care of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose mining companies should be fined $4 or $5 hundred billion dollars and forced to clean up their own mess or spend a life sentence in prison for everything you can throw at them. It seems like the mining companies think the Navajo are a non-human species that can be treated like animals and the U.S. government ignores their human abuse records and even encourage it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's probably sounds crazy but when I hear about this I just want to put on some protective clothing and go exploring. I wonder if any of these areas are legally accessible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurrent World Nuclear production is 6% of World Energy consumption, from 441 operating reactors. So 100/6 * 441 = 7,350 reactors NOT 200,000, as you claim.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this58% of Current World Uranium Production comes from just 10 mines in six countries. 68,000 tonnes current World consumption/yr - 68X100/6 = 1,133,000 tonnes/yr. With an avg mine producing 2000 tonnes/yr that would be ~600 mines, not 2000 as you claim. And as I linked a worst case scenario open pit Uranium mine is 27X less area than an equivalent area of a Coal mine, with Coal already producing 25% of World Energy. And much more Uranium can be obtained from U/G, in-situ and phosphate co-production, than from open pit mines, unlike Coal.
In any case, any huge expansion in World Nuclear production would inevitably involve high burn reactors like LIFTR, IFR or ADS types. A LIFTR can run 12 yrs on the thorium in Coal Ash produced by an equivalent Coal Power plant in a single year.
Total LIFETIME ENERGY consumption per capita, in the USA would be met with 0.26 kg of natural uranium or thorium with ~0.26 kg or < one cubic inch of waste products, burnt in a GenIV reactor, like a LIFTR, IFR or Accelerator Driven. Just the current US store of Depleted Uranium waste from enriching Uranium for the current Light Water Reactors, burnt in GenIV Reactors, would fuel the entire current US electricity demand for 1150 yrs.
And here comes to DWB to play the distraction game. I do wish that he would learn that whatever the transgressions of the coal mining industry none of it is an excuse the appalling mess that the uranium mess left by its own activities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@DWB,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In any case, any huge expansion in World Nuclear production would inevitably involve high burn reactors like LIFTR, IFR or ADS types. A LIFTR can run 12 yrs on the thorium in Coal Ash produced by an equivalent Coal Power plant in a single year."
Oh, here we are with promises of future technology. In the mean time over the past 60 years the industry is still utterly dependent on government subsidies and security and waste disposal.
This is just one tragic example of why lead scientists of our Manhattan Project knew the solid Uranium235/238 fuel cycle was inappropriate for future, civilian power generation. From 1954-1974, Oak Ridge researchers designed & ran the Wigner-Teller-Weinberg Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR), which is not only safe, but when supplied with Thorium salt, breeds its own fuel (U233) internally. No Uranium mining is required. No enrichment needed. No weapons dangers exist. And, because U233 fissions more efficiently, 1/1000 the long-term waste is created -- pounds rather than tons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, 40 years ago we'd solved our power & fresh-water needs. But, AEC & DoD wanted bombs. Chalk up yet another fumble to politics & bureaucracy.
The current Uranium-based industry/bureaucracy will be very resistant to a 'new' fuel cycle that nearly eliminates fuel & environmental costs. But fortunately, DoE & researchers around the world are returning to the MSR design, particularly based on the safety & cost of Thorium input -- Thorium is a waste product in rare-earth mining, and we have a stockpile of it that can supply all US energy needs for a decade.
For those interested, please look here...
http://tinyurl.com/25mgqkd
http://tinyurl.com/yb2qgex
Or just contact me. Our kids, grandkids & folks around the world depend on us not screwing up again.
Happy New Year!
Dr. Alexander Cannara
650-400-3071
cannara@sbcglobal.net
Who eats radioactive cows? YOU do if the rancher is selling them to commercial slaughter houses. Have a nice day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Vendicar,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"So why do you feel it necessary to LIE about such things John Boy?"
Because it severs the cause and we all know that nothing should ever be a hurtle to the cause and that includes the information that contradicts the nuclear power industry stances.
Nope, I calculated on the basis of World Energy (6% Nuclear) not World Electricity consumption, so your 5X term is invalid. The rest, yes if all those factors you included were to happen, which I doubt, then you would need 74,000 reactors of current avg size worldwide. If World population and economic growth is as high as you suggest, then the expansion in Nuclear would be a MINOR portion of the expansion in total resource utilization that would accompany such a World Economic expansion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrance is already 41% of primary energy - Nuclear - they did it easily over 20 yrs, most of it in 12 yrs. They just need to repeat that and electrify transport and job done. Not a problem.
Nonsense, IFR was already built & tested as was the MSR, no real problem, just need funding. Since Uranium fuel is dirt cheap, there isn't a lot of incentive to develop those GenIV reactors, so they get trivial amounts of funding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSubsidies for non-carbon emitting electricity, 1950-2006, renewable subsidies have increased exponentially since 2006:
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/09/federal-support-for-non-carbon-dioxide.html
Solar & Wind subsidies: $45B for 0.7% of USA Electricity production
Geothermal: $7B for 0.3%
Hydro: $81B for 7%
Nuclear: $65B for 19%
Thus Hydro received 3.5X the Nuclear Subsidies per TWh of Electricity produced.
Geothermal 6.9X the subsidies of Nuclear.
Wind & Solar 19X.
And Nuclear Power has already paid for waste disposal, the Federal Gov't has stolen the money and not used it, for political (aka Harry Reid) reasons.
Security? They pay for that too. All of the above, included in the 2 cents per kwh current O&M cost of Nuclear.
I certainly agree, there is no excuse for shoddy mining practices that were done under the Military banner way back then. But if you have any knowledge of mining, you would know that a legacy of such messes exists all over the World & the USA, and Gold is one of the worst, Copper is bad and Iron, Tantalum, Cobalt all have left the same. And Nickel deforested large areas of the Sudbury basin due to SOx pollution. It just so happens that back then if anyone in a company stated maybe we should be more careful with our discharge to the enviroment, they probably would have been sent to the looney bin or been reported to the FBI as a communist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real tragedy and real scandal is that in this day and age when gov't should know better, Coal & NG both have a blank check license to dump billions of tons of toxic emissions into the environment. Cheney even gave NG an exemption from the Clean Water act.
I did paleontological inspections on something close to 100 mines in central Utah northeast of Arches National Park a few years ago before they closed the entrances off. The sickly sweat smell they give off is something you never forget. Many were grated so they could continue to serve as bat habitats and many were bricked up with the entrances preserved as historic sites.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFound several dinosaurs and lots of petrified logs in the entrances. There must be a thousand old uranium mines in Utah and now Canadian companies are buying up the old leases and some are even being mined again. The Canadians have even opened the Uranium mill at Teacaboo.
So.... Things are coming full circle again. Maybe we'll be cleaner about how we mine this stuff this time? Nah; I doubt it.
Yes, facts are distracting and annoying, aren't they, and require analysis rather than emotion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey should be banned.
More annoying facts:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.radiationandreason.com/
The demonisation of radiation compared to other environmental factors is likely to be the single most important element in the global warming crisis.
The following is quoted from Dr. Judith Curry's blog, posted as a New Year's Resolution:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Strategies for making effective posts:
* Respond to the argument, not to the person. What another participant stated on another blog in another context should not be used to discredit or otherwise challenge the participant. Changing your mind in response to new evidence and arguments is valued here.
* Only respond to comments that you feel are deserving of your attention, and ignore the rest. By being ignored, commenters who are not deemed interesting by others will give up and go elsewhere.
* Don’t take criticisms personally, don’t rise to “bait” or attempts at “gotchas.” Make the points YOU want to make.
* If you make a mistake, acknowledge it.
* Be patient with people having less technical expertise or background than yourself."
Wouldn't it be nice if we could follow the same rules here? I know I am going to try and I hope others will too.
Happy New Year!
Forgotten People agrees with Trent1492. The legacy of coal mining and uranium mining on the Navajo Nation has contaminated the land and water resources. What the Native people consider a sacred resource, the US government and multi-national corporations consider mineral resources to exploit. Forgotten People, Navajo Nation appreciates our partnership with academic institutions and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address a legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation. In November, 2010, following a presentation at the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Denver, CO, Forgotten People met with a US EPA Superfund Contractor that maxed out his Geiger Counter at over a million counts a minute at an abandoned un-remediated mill and mine in the wetlands of the Little CO River in SE Cameron. Background readings in the area are between 50-100 counts a minute.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAcross the wash in Black Falls and Box Springs, the US EPA found all the drinking water supplies exceed safe drinking water standards for uranium and arsenic. In January, 2010, the Navajo Nation issued a historic declaration of state of public health emergency in the region but a US EPA funded water hauling truck that was supposed to start delivering safe drinking water last March still has not arrived. Many of the people are still drinking contaminated water because they have no choice and are suffering from and dying of cancer.
In 2007, a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report found that the EPA had done little to address the issue and identified the problem as a failure to provide environmental justice as required under law. In Congressional hearings, Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., decried the lack of work on restoring the land on the Navajo reservation. He said, “If a fraction of the deadly contamination the Navajos live with every day had been in Beverly Hills or any wealthy community, it would have been cleaned up immediately. But there's a different standard applied to the Navajo land... while time passes, people get sick, people die, people develop kidney disease, children, babies are born with birth defects, bone cancer develops and gets worse, lung cancer, leukemia, while we wait”
Forgotten People believes we cannot resolve uranium contamination and remediation issues without addressing the impacts of a 43-year US government imposed Bennett Freeze that denied people infrastructure and piped water. The communities Forgotten People serves are spread over almost 2 million acres of remote desert terrain in the western portion of the Navajo Nation. Only 3 percent of the families in these communities have electricity and only 10 percent have running water (HR5168, 2004).
Forgotten People believes we cannot resolve uranium contamination and remediation issues without addressing the impacts of 43-year US government imposed Bennett Freeze in the western portion of the Navajo Nation which denied the people infrastructure and access to safe drinking water.
Now is the time for action and remediation to ensure the US EPA cleans up these sites. For more information, please check out our website and blog at: www.forgottennavajopeople.org
It's the American way,as practiced by President Bush with lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeace be with you
I believe that we can not immediately escape from the undesirable things that are happening around us.We should always know the different things that will probably help solve the problem.And that I think is the best way to start a new.Anyway,even though we are in the midst of crisis,what were your top tech gifts in the past 2010?<a title="Five of the top tech gifts for this holiday" href="http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2010/12/22/top-tech-gifts-2010-holidays/"> Tech gifts</a> have always been well-liked, for good reason. Tech presents are a great giving opportunity. This is because many people put off the purchase of tech, or simply won't buy it for themselves. There are plenty of choices in the list of top tech presents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho benefits and Who Pays the Price? The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund reports 1,300 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation and the leeching of uranium from the slag piles into drinking water supplies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom 1944 to 1986, 100 million tons of mill tailings has accumulated in the Four Corners area of the southwest. These mill tailings contain radium and thorium with a half-life of 5.3 billion years.
When the mines were later abandoned, slag piles were left on the surface, where wind and rain break apart the rocks and the uranium then leeches into the water supplies. (McSwain, 2007). Up to 25 percent of the unregulated sources in the western Navajo reservation exceed drinking water standard for kidney toxicants including uranium (deLemos, 2007).
Navajo people who were believed to have a “special immunity” to cancer saw death rates double from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. During this same time, the overall cancer rate in the general population of the United States declined.
Gastric cancer rates up 50% during the 1990s among Navajo people in two New Mexico counties with uranium sites. Uranium has been linked to reproductive cancers. In 1981 the tribe’s health department reported sharp increases in breast, ovarian and related cancers among teenage girls. (Indian Health Services data) Cancer rates among Navajo teenagers living near mine tailings are 17 times the national average (Smith, 2008). Reproductive-organ cancers in teenage girls average seventeen times higher than the average of girls in the United States (ISBN 0-500-27939-X. Raloff, Janet (2004).
Forgotten People believes the legacy of past practices mirrors what future experimental projects have in store. The Navajo Nation banned uranium mining and milling due to a legacy US DOE and US EPA cannot even deal with. You must clean up the contamination before you contemplate new projects on Non-Indigenous lands.
Use of the word 'You' refers to the responsible parties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the Navajo are USA citizens, even if many wish they were a sovereign nation, They have the right to sue anyone and everyone involved in these mines. Unless the Navajo were paid for the mineral rights of the reservation lands, they have the right to demand restitution for the theft of resources from the federal govt. and the companies that operated the mines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Navajo start trucking that radio active beef to high population areas I imagine that there will be a faster response. How about bottling the contaminated water and selling it in DC as "Navajo Glow" mineral water. As federal congress members start dying of cancer I imagine there would be a more reasonable response. Even better - buy radiation suits and shovel some into a few trucks and drive it to major cities on the coasts. Dump it on playgrounds and I guarantee that there will be a faster response. The worst thing you can do is wait for the USA to do the right thing. We never have before so why would we now?
Actually, we wouldn't treat animals that way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA moral shame that these companies can get away with this. But, then there is West Virginia.
You still have not dealt with the FACT of Navajo support, endorsement of, and participation in some of the worst, most destructive Coal Mining & Coal Power plants in the entire USA. It is unquestionable that Coal releases far more toxic materials to the environment than Uranium Mining does. It is unbelievable that the Navajo Nation has banned Uranium mining, which would remove radiation from the ground and done in-situ, unlike Coal Mining and combustion which releases megatons of toxic emissions into the atmosphere, soil and water. Aboriginals in Canada have had fish eating bans due to mercury contamination from smokestacks from Coal Power plants on Navajo land.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo doubt a lot of bad mining practices were done under the Military umbrella, back in the 50's, but the most exposed individuals were mine workers who were >85% non-aboriginal. The incredible thing is that the Navajo have sold-their-soul to jump-into-bed with big Coal producers & big Coal power, which releases 100X more radiation into the environment than Nuclear Power does (per kwh generated). This is not mistakes of reckless past mining practices - this is current mining & coal burning done right now on Navajo land.
These documents indicate that Navajo Cancer rates are similar or lower than other areas:
http://www.breast-cancer-medicine.com/are-new-mexico-environmentalists-lying-about-cancer-statistics-to-prevent-uranium-mining/
http://www.cannycredit.com/other/science-versus-fiction-have-ne-10055.html
"...National Program of Cancer Registries, the range of ovarian deaths among women living in New Mexico is between 9.9 and 14.3 per 100,000, with an 11.9 average rate. The American Indian rate is 13.4, but the non-Hispanic white rate is 14.1. Nationally, the average for all races is 13.1. ... Dr. Wiggins's research showed a rate of 13.4 among American Indian women for the period 1998 through 2002. The rate is neither alarming nor disproportionately high..."
"...When you do the math, the Navajo cancer rate is 30% less than the general U.S. rate. Among the Navajo, 87.5 deaths of every 100,000 are cancer related. The U.S. is 125.6 deaths of every 100,000 are cancer related..."
"...Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in cooperation with the Church Rock community, found ...Six Navajo individuals most likely exposed to spill contaminants were selected by the CDC and tested at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where they were found to have amounts of radioactive material normally found in the human body." Recommendation: No further action required..."
Isn't the mine a source of rare earth elements? One Japanese company is going to extract REEs from uranium tailings. Why not here as well?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd since Russia now will control half America's uranium production, shouldn't this mine be opened for uranium mining?
Or is America to stop producing anything ever again?