I know this because I am Diné (Navajo) and live in Church Rock, New Mexico – only yards away from a proposed new uranium mine. As a resident and former miner, I have experienced the effects of uranium exploitation first-hand. Many of my relatives and neighbors, including myself, have suffered health problems due to working at or living near the mines.  In fact, one study has found that cancer rates among Navajo living near mine tailings are several times higher than the national average.

Knowing the inherent risks of this industry, I am concerned about the long-term effects and threats to the safety and health of our people, our water, and local plants and animals.  An elementary school sits near the proposed uranium processing plant and I am concerned about the safety of my community.

In 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave Hydro Resources, Inc. an “aquifer exemption.” This permit allows Hydro Resources to destroy part of the aquifer beneath our community in order to extract uranium through in situ leach processing (ISL). The EPA did this before our community even knew about the proposal.

Recently, something unprecedented happened: the EPA agreed to revisit that 1989 decision. With new evidence of how ISL mining contaminates groundwater and recent health studies, we hope the EPA reconsiders all the facts and revokes Hydro Resources’ aquifer exemption. In a region where many Diné families still live without running water, water if life!

Revoking this permit could be our last chance to protect our community from this mine.

Our communities have already experienced excessive mental anguish and health impacts because of past mining. How can the EPA allow this poisonous uranium processing in our aquifer when our people rely on this water for our future?

The EPA has a rare opportunity to right a terrible wrong before new damage occurs.  Please help us to protect our community water resources by urging the EPA to revoke this aquifer exemption IMMEDIATELY before the company has a chance to begin contaminating our groundwater with uranium.

Thank you,

Larry J. King

Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM)

Church Rock, NM

via Human Rights Petition: EPA: Don’t Sacrifice Navajo Water for Uranium Mining | Change.org.

ALBUQUERQUE Environmental groups are hopeful that a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider a permit for a uranium mining operation in western New Mexico could lead to the end to the project.

Members of Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center had voiced concerns to the EPA about deficiencies in the decades-old permit application.

Larry King, a member of the Navajo group that has been fighting plans by Hydro Resources Inc. to start mining near Church Rock, said it’s crucial the EPA revoke an exemption that would allow for mining that could impact groundwater sources.

“The EPA has a rare opportunity to right a terrible wrong before new damage occurs,” King said.

He has started an online petition drive that calls on the EPA to protect Church Rock’s drinking water. He said the community has repeatedly expressed its opposition to in-situ leach mining in the area through resolutions, lawsuits and a 2005 Navajo law that banned uranium mining on the sprawling reservation over concerns about disease and death.

via Groups urge EPA to revoke uranium permit – Farmington Daily Times | NM Native News | Scoop.it.

Posted: May 9, 2012

Written by

MANUEL QUINONES, Greenwire

Environmental advocates are pressing U.S. EPA to revoke a key permit for a planned uranium mining facility in northwestern New Mexico adjacent to the Navajo Nation.

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center and Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining say EPA is reconsidering a 23-year-old aquifer exception for Uranium Resources Inc.’s project in the community of Church Rock, N.M. It is an area already polluted by past mining activities.

“There is a long legacy and many unhealed sores from uranium mining on Navajo land by companies that look to make a quick profit,” said ENDAUM board member Larry King, calling EPA’s action “unprecedented.” “I’m sick of watching my community suffer from the poisons of uranium mining.”

An aquifer exception is essential for the “in-situ recovery” or “in-situ leach” uranium mining method. The process generally involves pumping water, oxygen and sodium bicarbonate to free uranium underground and then suck it to the surface.

Industry leaders say it is a safer and cleaner way of mining uranium. They say EPA does not give projects aquifer exceptions unless groundwater is already polluted. Companies are not allowed to pollute drinking water (Greenwire, Dec. 23, 2011).

But environmentalists and wary residents say ISL uranium recovery puts people at risk, especially in areas like northwestern New Mexico, where residents rely on wells for drinking water.

Eric Jantz, an attorney for NMELC, which has been helping ENDAUM fight new mining for years, said it “would contaminate potable water with radiation and heavy metals, making it unfit for consumption forever. The EPA has both the legal authority and moral obligation to revoke the aquifer exemption.”

The groups have collected more than 9,000 signatures on the activism website change.org. But neither EPA nor the company are saying much about the potential of blocking the Church Rock project.

A regional spokesman for the agency said in a recent statement, “I can confirm EPA Regions 6 and 9, as well as the Navajo Nation are discussing the issue.” Uranium Resources spokesman Mat Lueras said, “URI has not received any notification by the EPA on any action at this time.”

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear ENDAUM’s case against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s license for the projects. Hoping to attract international support, last year the group filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Greenwire, May 16, 2011).

NRC regulates in-situ uranium facilities in cooperation with EPA and state agencies. Oversight can vary depending on state agreements with the federal government.

EPA is reviewing standards for uranium mining waste to see whether changes are necessary. The agency is focusing on in-situ recovery because of its increased popularity. A spokeswoman said the rules were last revised in the mid-1990s.

EPA is also working on new standards dealing with radon gas emissions from mining and milling waste under the Clean Air Act. But last October the agency approved waste piles and an evaporation pond for a conventional mill in Colorado (E&ENews PM, Oct. 27, 2011). Environmentalists had wanted the rules overhauled before the project proceeded.

Even with uranium prices hovering at about $50 per pound, lower than a high of $73 before the Japanese nuclear meltdown, companies are moving forward with increased mining in the United States to power the world’s nuclear reactors.

Colorado-based Ur-Energy Inc., for example, is close to finishing the permitting process for its Lost Creek in-situ project in Sweetwater County, Wyo., a top uranium-producing state.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality issued a key permit for the project last year, just weeks after it got its NRC license. And the Bureau of Land Management released an environmental impact statement late last month.

via Activists mount campaign for EPA to scrap N.M. uranium mine permit || Red Lodge Clearinghouse.

via Uranium Resources, Inc. Provides First Quarter 2012 Update – New York Times.

Nearly one out of three people in the Navajo Nation struggle with this issue.

Listen to the incredible stories of people who are trying to help.

Produced by Deborah Begel. Co-Directed by Deborah Begel and David Lindblom.

The film is in Navajo with English subtitles.