For four decades after World War II, Navajos built homes with uranium ore and mill tailings from the uranium mining activities on the reservation, not realizing the risk from contamination. Now EPA is undertaking a $3 million per year effort to remediate or tear down and rebuild contaminated structures, according to a story in today's Arizona Republic. [right, former miner Joe Ray Harvey at an abandoned uranium mine near Cove, Arizona. Photo credit Doug Brugge/Memories Come To Us In the Rain and the Wind]
a student i gave a ride to said there's an open uranium mine in the hills above rough rock--just up the road from here. and the kids say that in the chuska's east of here, there are springs (coming out of old mines) that look crystal pure, but livestock that drink from them get sick and die by nightfall. kerr mcgee (and others)can be proud of the profits they keep by not remediating these problems. and phoenix epa says they don't require filters on our well water because they'd be a "hot" and expensive problem to dispose of--better to just chlorinate the sediment for organism control, and pass on the radioactive sediment to us, little by little...like an updated old-timey smallpox blanket?
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