After a century of being taken to the cleaners by the US federal government, mining and energy giants, along with the nuclear power industry, the Navajo Nation has managed to claw back some of what is rightfully theirs.
The historic legal victory address the issue of past mismanagement, but it still leaves the door open for the tribe to pursue more funds to deal with the government’s physical mess left behind regarding water, and uranium/radioactive pollution left on its reservation.
Past uranium mining and ‘leach mining’ operations went mostly unregulated throughout the Navajo Nation.
Residents and property owners have been directly affected by groundwater pollution and radiation releases from uranium mills and piles, forced to deal with the environmental health from impacts of past uranium development. Issues like water contamination from uranium mining have largely gone unresolved, even though they have posed a direct threat to the natural and cultural survival in parts of the Navajo lands.
It’s important for readers to know that beyond the nuclear power industry, the final destination of all this uranium is in military nuclear weapons – missiles and bombs. The nuclear industry is both dirty and destructive at every point in the supply/production chain.
This post was published at 21st Century Wire on SEPTEMBER 27, 2014.
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