2006 CPEO Military List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>
Date: 20 Nov 2006 08:33:47 -0000
Reply: cpeo-military
Subject: [CPEO-MEF] The environmental legacy of Navajo uranium mines
 


BLIGHTED HOMELAND
A peril that dwelt among the Navajos
During the Cold War, uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Indians. Homes built with the material silently pulsed with radiation. People developed cancer. And the U.S. did little


By Judy Pasternak
Los Angeles Times
November 19, 2006

MARY AND BILLY BOY HOLIDAY bought their one-room house from a medicine man in 1967. They gave him $50, a sheep and a canvas tent.

For the most part, they were happy with the purchase. Their Navajo hogan was situated well, between a desert mesa and the trading-post road. The eight-sided dwelling proved stout and snug, with walls of stone and wood, and a green-shingle roof.

The single drawback was the bare dirt underfoot. So three years after moving in, the Holidays jumped at the chance to get a real floor. A federally funded program would pay for installation if they bought the materials. The Holidays couldn't afford to, but the contractor, a friend of theirs, had an idea.

He would use sand and crushed rock that had washed down from an old uranium mine in the mesa, one of hundreds throughout the Navajo reservation that once supplied the nation's nuclear weapons program. The waste material wouldn't cost a cent. "He said it made good concrete," Mary Holiday recalled.

For the entire article, as well as links to other published installments, go to
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-navajo19nov19,1,1753262.story?ctrack=1&cset=true




This is just the first of a major, four-part series.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were dug and blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for America's atomic arsenal. Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using rock from the mines and mills. Many of the dangers persist to this day. This four-part series examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo reservation.

SUNDAY: Unaware of the danger

MONDAY: Toxic water

TUESDAY: Botched cleanup

WEDNESDAY: New technology

--


Lenny Siegel Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041 Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545 Fax: 650/961-8918 <lsiegel@cpeo.org> http://www.cpeo.org


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