Cleaning Up after the Cold War: Experts Call for Action on Abandoned Uranium Mines on the Navajo Nation

Abstract

An estimated 4,225 abandoned uranium mines formerly operated by the federal government and its contractors in support of Cold War weapons development remain on tribal lands across the U.S. West.1 In light of the significant threats to human health posed by these former mines, particularly via ongoing contamination of surface and groundwater sources,2^,3^,4 a group of experts in Tribal environmental health has proposed a more comprehensive path forward. In a recent commentary in Environmental Health Perspectives, the five authors—four of whom represent different Indigenous North American communities—propose a series of specific policy recommendations for improving upon current approaches toward the enormous and challenging issue of uranium-contaminated water sources.5

Abandoned uranium mine in Cameron, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation. Photographer Jacqueline Keeler writes that the mine is just 100 yards from Navajo homes. The groundwater in this area is contaminated with uranium. Although safe treated water is available at public watering points, residents must drive about an hour each way to fill up.9 Image: © Jacqueline Keeler.

“Flint was the red flag for toxic metals in urban drinking water, but if you look in Indian Country, there are Flints everywhere,” says coauthor Ann Marie Chischilly (Navajo Nation), director of the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals at Northern Arizona University and a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council. “But no one knows about all those situations because no one is monitoring, and no one sees the level of toxic metals that our Indigenous peoples are consuming.”

As is often the case with environmental remediation, inadequate funding represents a key hurdle, the authors note. Their first recommendation is to increase federal funding for drinking water monitoring and infrastructure on Tribal lands. This call is anchored not only to U.S. Government programs and provisions that protect water quality nationwide, such as the Clean Water Act, but also to a broader United Nations resolution6 recognizing the human right to clean drinking water.

The authors’ reminder of a governmental obligation to the general public, however, is followed by another that is specific to the American Indian population: treaty rights dating to the establishment of the reservations themselves that generally ensure safe access to drinking water, among other protections to land, water, and people.

Tribes can seek federal grants to help build critical infrastructure for producing and distributing clean water. However, as of 2019, American Indian communities had the highest poverty rate of all census groups.7 Thus, the authors explain, Tribal governments often do not have the resources to apply for grants and provide required financial matches. This financial requirement is not only inequitable, they argue, but also a direct violation of treaty rights.

“Treaties are the original bilateral agreements between Indigenous communities and government, which came with a number of points on them,” says lead author Nicole Redvers (Deninu K’ue First Nation), an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota and chair of the Canada-based Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation. “Communities definitely still go back to those original treaty agreements as being incredibly important for federal government responsibilities to be upheld, which hasn’t been the case, unfortunately.”

In addition to improving funding for monitoring and infrastructure and no longer requiring matching funds for water-related grants, the authors also recommend lowering guideline values for uranium on tribal lands and increasing research on the health effects of uranium ingestion in Indigenous populations.

A 2017 study of mining and environmental health disparities in Indigenous communities estimated that approximately 300,000 American Indian people live within 10 km of a uranium mine.8 Abandoned uranium mines can also be a source of arsenic, copper, nickel, and selenium says Johnnye Lewis, lead author of that paper and director of the University of New Mexico METALS Superfund Research Program Center.

“These mine wastes are so complex. They’re not even primarily uranium; uranium doesn’t live alone in rock,” says Lewis, who was not involved in the new commentary. “The patterns are a little bit different everywhere you go. Wind and rain can move these metals through air and water and affect resources relied on locally, but [the metals] can also travel to distant communities both on and off Indigenous lands.”

The impacts of the abandoned mines are felt most profoundly by those who have lived for decades in their shadow, says Chischilly, who has a homestead on the Navajo Nation. “My hope for this paper,” she says, “is to shed some light on this area that’s not seen, and really advocate and say, ‘Indian Tribes have treaties. Honor them, respect them, and be responsible.’”

Biography

Nate Seltenrich covers science and the environment from the San Francisco Bay Area. His work on subjects including energy, ecology, and environmental health has appeared in a wide variety of other regional, national, and international publications.