Mining of the Navajo Nation

From 1951 to 1955, the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) began studying the effects of radiation on Navajo miners but failed to get their informed consent. Workers and their families were not informed of the potential health risks from radioactive exposure and continued working without protection well into the 1970s. Many miners even took uranium rocks home, unknowingly bringing radiation exposure to their families. For decades, industry and the government failed to regulate or improve conditions or inform workers of the dangers. In 1962, USPHS published a report linking uranium mining to cancer, but it wasn’t until 1969 that the government set safety limits in the mines. However, this came at a cost.

The Church Rock Mill was operated and owned by United Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock and was in production from 1977 to 1982. It was located about 17 miles northeast of Gallup, New Mexico, and bordered the north and southwest of the Navajo Nation. On July 16, 1979, the disposal pond at the mill breached its dam. Which resulted in around 1.3 tons of uranium and 46 curies of radioactive particles traveling 80 miles downstream on the Puerco River, reaching parts of Arizona and New Mexico, specifically Navajo Nation lands.

However, residents were not aware of the dangers of radiation for days. The spill contaminated groundwater and rendered the Puerco River unusable to mostly Navajo Peoples, who used the river's water for drinking, irrigation, and livestock. To make matters worse, the Navajo Nation asked the governor of New Mexico, Bruce King, to request disaster assistance from the U.S. government and have the site declared a disaster area, but he refused.

United Nuclear continued operation of the uranium mill until 1982, when it closed because of the declining uranium market. Effects of the 1979 toxic spill into the Puerco River were detected as recently as 2015, nearly 50 miles downstream, when residents in a town called Sanders, AZ, learned about the contamination that persisted more than three decades later.

The bill's final version states that Congress "apologizes on behalf of the nation" to individuals who were "involuntarily subjected to increased risk of injury and disease to serve the national security interests of the United States."[1] The bill offered compensation to people who had lived in certain areas for at least a year and had developed leukemia, thyroid cancer, bone cancer, or other radiation-related cancers. It aimed to support those exposed to radiation from nuclear testing and uranium mining, including miners (or their families) who worked in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona from 1947 to 1961. However, people living near the first nuclear test site, Trinity, in New Mexico, who were unaware of the risks, were not included in the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act like those near the Nevada test site.

As of July 15, 2024, 41,900 claims have been approved, with total compensation paid at $2,693,750,307. Successful claims include 26,863 downwinders, 5,665 onsite participants, 6,996 uranium miners, 1,956 uranium millers, and 420 ore transporters. ^[2]

The Diné Natural Resources Protection Act was enacted to prevent further damage to the Navajo Nation's culture, society, and economy from uranium mining and processing. Navajo workers and residents have felt betrayed as the results of the studies became known, as well as the long delays by companies and the US government to try to prevent the damage and to pay compensation.^[4] Lung cancer became so prevalent among the Navajo people that working in uranium mines was banned on Navajo lands in 2005. ^[5] An estimated 500-600 of the thousands of uranium miners who worked between 1950 and 1990 died of lung cancer.

A 1995 report published by the American Public Health Association found: "excess mortality rates for lung cancer, pneumoconioses and other respiratory diseases, and tuberculosis for Navajo uranium miners. Increasing duration of exposure to underground uranium mining was associated with increased mortality risk for all three diseases… The most important long-term mortality risks for the Navajo uranium miners continue to be lung cancer and pneumoconioses and other nonmalignant respiratory diseases." ^[7] The descendants of mining families continue to have extremely high rates of ovarian and testicular cancer.

There are over 520 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation land, and most of them haven’t been cleaned up or made safe. Duane Yazzie, a Navajo Tribe member, spoke about the spiritual and cultural importance that agriculture plays in the Navajo culture and how both the oil and uranium contamination infringed upon their ability to practice their culture. ^[6] About half of these mines still give off dangerous levels of gamma radiation — more than 10 times what is normal. Almost all of these mines are within a mile of a natural water source, and 17 are less than 200 feet from someone’s home.