Navajo Nation Uranium Waste

• The largest radioactive spill in U.S. history occurred at a uranium mill in Church Rock, on the Navajo Nation, in 1979.

• Over 1,100 uranium mines were abandoned on the Navajo Nation, where they contaminate soil and water to this day.

• One study found that about a quarter of Navajo women tested, as well as some infants, had high levels of uranium in their bodies.

Above:  Testimony of the Navajo Nation  before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Native American Affairs Regarding Abandoned Uranium Mines on the Navajo Nation, November 4, 1993.

 The Navajo Nation  covers over  27,000 square miles , with portions in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Uranium mining and milling have contaminated substantial amounts of land throughout the Navajo Nation and have created four major hotspots — clusters of abandoned uranium mines  prioritized  for cleanup — near Shiprock and Church Rock, New Mexico, Monument Valley, Utah, and Cameron, Arizona.  

By enacting the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Congress turned the United States government into the sole buyer of uranium, using pricing incentives to set off a huge  mining boom . But by the late 1950s, with uranium reserves  brimming , the government began to curtail its purchases. The boom became a  bust .

Mining companies that could no longer turn a profit commonly walked away,  abandoning  mines without cleaning them up as would be required today. 

Many of the uranium companies responsible for the abandoned mines  no longer exist ; as a result, the federal government has taken on assessing and cleaning up the mines. According to research compiled for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “…approximately  14%  of the uranium used for the United States World War II and Cold War nuclear weapons and energy programs were mined from the Navajo Nation.” 

According to the Bureau of Land Management, there are about  4,000 uranium mines  documented to have actually produced uranium in the United States. But data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicates there are  15,000 mines  located in places where uranium is found across 14 western states. Most of these mines are located in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming, and about  75 percent  of them are on federal and tribal lands.  

Above:  Testimony of the Navajo Nation  before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Native American Affairs Regarding Abandoned Uranium Mines on the Navajo Nation, November 4, 1993.

The uranium mining industry on the Navajo Nation  operated  from 1944 to 1986, with mines in New Mexico operating the  longest .

The  Abandoned Uranium Mines Working Group , a group of federal agencies that includes the U.S. departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Interior, and the EPA, and that works to address the nation's 4,225 defense-related uranium mines, told Congress that as of 2020, “ nearly 11%  of AUM [abandoned uranium mines] sites are on tribal lands, and the majority of these are on Navajo Nation land."

An estimated  10,000 people  worked in the uranium mining industry following World War II into the 1980s. Because large deposits of uranium occur on tribal lands, a  large portion  of uranium miners were tribal members. As of December 2020, “ [m]ore than 600  AUM [abandoned uranium mine] sites or related areas [had] been mapped throughout and within one mile of the Navajo Nation.”

What the uranium industry left in its wake across the Navajo Nation was not the remains of a tidy business. On July 16, 1979, before six in the morning, the  largest radioactive spill  in U.S. history occurred when radioactive sludge breached an earthen dam at the United Nuclear Corporation’s (a company owned by General Electric) uranium mill on the Navajo Nation in Church Rock, New Mexico.

The spill released  over 94 million gallons  of acidic wastewater and 1,100 tons (2.2 million pounds) of radioactive uranium mill waste into the Rio Puerco River.  The Rio Puerco  flows west  past the New Mexico and Arizona border  and is a tributary to the Little Colorado River which flows into the main stem of the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, providing water to millions of people downstream, including the cities of Phoenix and Los Angeles. 

From 1967 to 1982, about  3.5 million tons  (7 billion pounds) of uranium ore was mined out of the Northeast Church Rock uranium mine alone, making it “the second highest producing mine on the Navajo Nation.”

Once mined, the unearthed uranium ore was  trucked  across the highway (a short distance from Navajo Nation boundaries) to the privately owned United Nuclear Corporation mill.

Because of the impacts on nearby communities and the large size of the Church Rock mine, it is the  highest priority mine  for cleanup on the Navajo Nation.

For decades, the Navajo people have confronted uranium companies and the U.S. government, demanding accountability and transparency. Before the slow process of  regulation began in 1962 , few standards and safeguards existed to protect uranium miners from exposure to radiation.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton created the  Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments  “to investigate reports of possibly unethical experiments funded by the government.” The committee’s charge included  investigating  the government’s observational research of uranium miners who were  exposed  to radiation while mining uranium for the federal government. 

Many uranium workers were exposed to radon in underground mines that was known at the time to be hazardous to their health. The committee  reported  that “at least several hundred miners died of lung cancer and surviving miners remain at elevated risk.” The mines were not ventilated, nor were the miners informed about the high levels of radioactive contaminants to which they were being exposed, in effect serving as unwitting research subjects for the government.

 Larry King, Diné (Navajo) Church Rock community member recalls: 

Exposure to uranium can be linked to  lung and bone cancer  and other health problems, including autoimmune disfunction, kidney disease, reproductive disfunction, and high blood pressure. For Navajo communities exposed to uranium, there are also  serious psychological and emotional impacts  including forced displacement from ancestral land and cultural identity.

A  federally funded study  on uranium exposure found that "[a]bout a quarter of Navajo women and some infants [tested] …had high levels of the radioactive metal in their systems, decades after mining for Cold War weaponry ended on their reservation." Long-term cumulative studies are still needed to further assess the adverse health, environmental, social, and economic impacts of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation. 

In 2005, the Navajo Nation Council  banned  uranium mining on the Navajo Nation to prevent further damage to the culture, society, and economy of the Navajo Nation. The tribal council also passed the  Radioactive Materials Transportation Act of 2012 , allowing the Navajo Nation to regulate uranium transportation.  

The first coordinated effort by the federal government to address uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation began in 2008 with a  5-year plan , which outlined a strategy for gaining a better understanding of the scope of the problem and addressing the greatest risks first. Additionally, the U.S. EPA “has entered into  enforcement agreements and settlements  valued at over $1.7 billion to reduce the highest risks of radiation exposure to the Navajo people.”

The U.S. EPA will assess and begin the cleanup process at  230 (about 40 percent) of the 523 abandoned uranium mines  on the Navajo Nation. Determining which abandoned uranium mines are  priorities  for cleanup is based on “radiation levels, proximity to homes and potential water contamination.” Forty-six  "priority mines”  were identified by the U.S EPA and the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency for detailed investigation, and 44 had moved to the assessment phase as of late 2021.

With so many abandoned uranium mines to deal with, the Navajo Nation asked the U.S. EPA to take the lead on the  Northeast Church Rock Mine cleanup . In 2006, an estimated  30 families  still lived within 1.5 miles of the mine.

The U.S. EPA developed a cleanup plan to permanently remove   1 million cubic yards  of contaminated mine waste, transporting it across the highway to be disposed of at the nearby United Nuclear Corporation mill site, despite deep lingering concerns from communities still living with the legacy of the devastating Church Rock spill of 1979. 

 The Red Water Pond Road Community Association , a local nonprofit whose members include many Navajo families living near the Northeast Church Rock Mine, has expressed  opposition  to the plan to send the waste to the United Nuclear Corporation mill site and  asked  that the plan be withdrawn. The community continues to organize to prevent displacement from their traditional homelands and demand proper cleanup of the Northeast Church Rock Mine site. 

A licensed facility located off of Navajo tribal trust land has yet to be identified for the remaining  highly contaminated  Northeast Church Rock Mine waste material. However,  Energy Fuels Resources, the company that owns the White Mesa uranium mill in southeast Utah, a few miles from the Ute Mountain Ute tribal community of White Mesa, is making a strong push for its mill to be selected to process the waste from Navajo Nation abandoned uranium mines. 

In March 2020, Energy Fuels  announced  that it would participate in a small, pilot-scale cleanup project on the Navajo Nation to test the prospect of processing and discarding abandoned mine wastes at the White Mesa Mill. If Navajo Nation abandoned uranium mine waste material were to be sent to the White Mesa Mill, all remnant waste would be permanently disposed of in the mill’s waste pits, a mile from Bears Ears National Monument.

The monument is a  significant cultural landscape  to at least two dozen tribes, including the Navajo Nation. And the White Mesa Mill  sits  above the deep Navajo Aquifer. If the aquifer were to be compromised by the mill, there would be significant, long-lasting impacts on the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Navajo Nation, as well as on neighboring non-tribal communities.

Many Navajo leaders and advocates oppose sending the abandoned mine waste to the White Mesa Mill, including uranium researcher Dr. Tommy Rock, a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University and a member of the Navajo Nation's Diné Uranium Remediation Advisory Commission.

Uranium contamination interferes with traditional Navajo lifeways and has had a profound impact on Navajo people. 

If the Navajo Nation’s abandoned uranium mine waste is sent to the White Mesa Mill, the burden of this radioactive legacy will shift to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe's White Mesa community.

Tribes are sovereign nations; they exercise their sovereign power on their lands. If those lands become contaminated with uranium and tribal members can no longer live there safely, tribes cannot simply move their sovereign power elsewhere.