The act states, “No person shall engage in uranium mining and processing on any sites within Navajo Indian Country.”

The widespread opposition to new uranium mining was reflected in thousands of Navajos signing petitions against it, and the 63-19 vote for the ban by the Navajo Tribal Council. Fifty people gathered to celebrate at the signing ceremony.

Many individuals and organizations on the Navajo Nation are actively fighting against attempts to restart uranium mining. On June 14, the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining and the Southwest Research and Information Center filed a 300-page brief with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking that the uranium license for Hydro Resources Inc. (HRI) be revoked.

More than 1,200 uranium mines operated on the Navajo Nation from the 1940s through the 1980s, mining more than 13 million tons of uranium ore. Hundreds of miners have died of lung cancer from breathing the radioactive dust. Many others who lived near the mines, and the families of miners, also have a high cancer rate. The U.S. government has known about the dangers of radiation exposure since the 1920s but told the miners that it was safe.

For many years uranium miners and their families have been fighting for adequate compensation for the medical costs for lung cancers from mining uranium. In 1990 the U.S. Congress passed the Radiation Compensation Act, which was amended in 2000 under the Clinton administration. However, no miners or their families have yet received any funds under these acts.

The price of uranium has more than doubled over the past two years, from less than $10 per pound to more than $23 per pound. HCI, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Uranium Resources Inc., has tried to gain federal permits for the last decade to begin uranium mining southwest and east of Crownpoint, New Mexico, and uranium processing north of a defunct uranium mill.

Earlier this year the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for HCI to begin the first of its four proposed mine sites around Church Rock and Crownpoint, both of which are part of the Navajo Nation.

There are 15,000 people who live in the Church Rock-Crownpoint region. The Navajo Nation, an area the size of the state of West Virginia, encompasses a big part of Arizona and parts of New Mexico and Utah. Some 275,000 people live in this area.
 
 
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