Uranium Mining and the Navajo Water Crisis

Not long ago, in the high desert of the Colorado Plateau, the children of the Navajo Nation played in and around uranium mines that dotted the landscape and swam in pools of radioactive water. Families cooked and cleaned with the harmless-looking water and built their houses out of radioactive mine tailings. Today, the ongoing exploitation of the Navajo people coupled with gross negligence on the part of the United States government and mining companies during the uranium mining boom have culminated in the Navajo Water Crisis, a threat to the very existence of the Navajo Nation. 

The craze for uranium ore was fueled by the arms race beginning in World War II and lasting through the Cold War. Due to its essential role in building nuclear weapons, the government declared the recovery of uranium ore to be a national security priority, creating policies which established the extraction of ore to be of greater importance than the multitude of risks uranium mining posed to its own citizens. In fact, the government single-handedly supported the industry as the sole consumer of uranium ore for decades and was responsible for the industry’s exponential growth. By 1948, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had announced a guarantee to purchase all uranium ore mined in the United States, a huge financial incentive for mining companies to increase their extraction of uranium. Consequently, uranium mining soared on the Navajo reservation, as this region was the primary source of the radioactive material. Under the guise of national safety, the United States government ruthlessly subjected the Navajo people to what they undoubtedly understood to be a deadly poison. 

In the face of conclusive evidence enumerating the dangers of uranium mines, the United States government imperiled miners by refusing to enact legislation to protect them and even hiding the risks. Researchers had proved that there was not just a corollary, but a causal relationship between radiation and lung disease nearly two decades before WWII and the explosion of uranium mining. What’s more, scientists had been reporting in detail on the link between uranium mining and lung disease since 1879. In spite of these findings, many mines refused to implement the most basic forms of protection, emboldened by a government that ensured mining companies remained essentially unregulated. The government’s AEC actively resisted requiring ventilation in mines, disregarding the advice of scientists and even silencing some U.S. officials. It was not until 1969 that a federal standard was finally set for radon levels in mines. Yet, for the next decade, uranium mines regularly failed to meet this standard without consequence. Furthermore, the government agreed to mining companies' request to prevent findings from a Public Health Service (PHS) study on uranium mines from being disclosed to Navajo miners for fear workers would be scared away if they were made aware of the dangers. This act contradicted well-established research practices that required consent and disclosure of any risks being studied to the subjects of the study. 

The government’s deliberate withholding of the known risks of uranium heightened its devastating impact on the Navajo, allowing the hazardous material to ravage the Navajo Nation far beyond the mines. Mining companies dumped radioactive waste into Navajo rivers. They pumped radioactive water out of mines, forming pools where Navajo children swam and played. They piled mine tailings high throughout the region. The community discovered that this radioactive dirt made good cement, and in an area where resources were scarce, it was widely used to build houses, many of which the Navajo still live in today. At the time, the Navajo did not even have a word for radiation. The government’s coverup meant that the Navajo did not know to avoid the waste. As a result, the Navajo were subjected to many manners of radiation exposure, exponentially worsening the crisis by increasing the magnitude and longevity of the effects. The poison was already irreversibly caked into the foundation of the reservation, but the largest contamination was yet to come. 

In 1979, the Church Rock spill discharged ninety-four million gallons of radioactive material and over 1,100 tons of mine tailings into the Puerco River. The New Mexico Health and Environmental Improvement Division released an assessment of the spill, noting that the water contained levels of radionuclides and toxic metals that far exceeded federal safety standards. The study determined that the water was not safe for any use, including irrigation. After these disturbing findings, what was the government’s recommendation? In most cases, “no further action required”.  The government used a loophole to avoid funding the cleanup, an effort normally required under these circumstances by the Superfund law, a law designed to provide federal support to clean up hazardous waste sites as well as accidents and spills when responsible parties cannot be found or when they refuse to act. The loophole was that no baseline testing of the river had been conducted, so the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed it was not possible to separate the radiation from the spill from the naturally occurring radiation in the river and, therefore, nothing could be done. The insinuation that a river in the middle of the undeveloped Southwest could contain massive amounts of radioactive material pre-contamination is unfounded and absurd. Furthermore, the EPA was responsible for taking baseline measurements in the first place; the lack of a baseline only serves to exemplify the United States’ historic disregard for the Navajo Nation. In this appalling act, the U.S. government used past injustices as a means to perpetuate further injustices against the Navajo people.

At a time when the public was particularly concerned about radioactive contamination, the arrant lack of a cleanup effort is shocking. Only three months earlier, the Three Mile Island accident occurred when a nuclear power plant reactor experienced a partial meltdown, leading to a radiation leak. Three Mile Island, located in the predominantly white Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, received over a billion dollars in cleanup funds and worldwide recognition. In comparison, the Church Rock spill is the largest nuclear spill in United States history to date, yet most people have never heard of this disaster. The government took advantage of the Navajo’s status as a minority, which limited their ability to self-advocate. This was further compounded by the fact that many Navajo did not speak English at the time. Although researchers determined no long-term effects resulted from the Three Mile Island incident, the Navajo continue to suffer from severe uranium contamination caused by the Church Rock spill. Having already gotten away with centuries of suppression of the atrocities committed against Native American people, the United States government was clearly emboldened to ignore this crisis altogether.

The heinous, decades-long lack of action on the part of the United States government culminated in the Navajo Water Crisis. Forty percent of the Navajo Nation does not have access to running water; considering that the United States has developed an intricate system of over a million miles of water mains that deliver running water to ninety-nine percent of people living in the U.S., this statistic beggars belief. Navajo who do not have access to running water must walk miles to a water source, most of which are unregulated and pose a significant health risk to users. The government does not test most of these water sources for contamination and pathogens; contaminated water looks and smells clean, meaning that most of the time it is unknown which water is safe to drink. Furthermore, to this day, the ground and surface water on the Navajo Reservation remain unsuitable for drinking due to radioactivity from the Church Rock Spill in addition to other contamination by mining companies, leaving many Navajo with no way to obtain clean water. In many cases, people knowingly drink the radioactive water because there is simply no alternative. We live in a nation where people are not only forced to drink poisonous water, they have to endure the hardship of walking miles just to access it.  

Unsurprisingly, the Navajo Water Crisis has been disastrous for the health of the Navajo people. The Navajo Birth Cohort study, an ongoing project, found that nearly a third of study participants have exceptionally high levels of uranium in their urine. Furthermore, the study concluded that Navajo women have a 33% increased risk of having a child with major birth defects compared to the rest of the population. The predicted reproductive and developmental outcomes from uranium exposure include low birth weight, reproductive difficulties, congenital malformation, difficulties with motor skills, problem solving and social skills, and increased instances of infections, morbidity, mortality, and immune system disorders. Other studies have linked bone cancer and impaired kidney function to exposure to radionuclides in drinking water. This grim evidence suggests that even if radioactive contamination was miraculously cleared off the Navajo Reservation at this moment, this crisis would continue to plague the Navajo Nation for generations to come; it has invaded their DNA.

Today, many Navajo feel betrayed by the government, as they try to comprehend why they were not told of the dangers of uranium mining. Some feel that the government intentionally targeted the Navajo people, a sentiment expressed by Floyd Frank: “Perhaps we were just experimental subjects to them, I wonder.” One Navajo woman explains, “they thought of us Navajo people as nothing. That’s how I think about it and it really hurts my heart and my mind.” The injustices inflicted on the Navajo people have had impacts that reach far beyond their physical health; the Navajo have been forced to ask why they were not important enough to protect. 

As a direct result of the Navajo Water Crisis, many Navajo are left in poor communities with little chance for economic opportunity. Without clean water, it is impossible for the Navajo to develop businesses, build a stable economy, or rebuild their community. Uranium mining on the Navajo Reservation is representative of the larger theme in American environmental history of the repeated rearrangement of Native American relationships to the land, which hinders their chances for prosperity. Desperate to escape the crisis caused by mining industries and the United States government, Navajo people flee the reservation, contributing to the progressive erosion of their communities. The Navajo culture is now at risk of extinction.