Navajo Nation Grapples With Past, Present Effects of Radiation
Uranium's Aftermath
By Amy Levek
Part Two
Wednesday, January 2, 2008 5:12 PM MST
Uranium’s Aftermath
Navajo Nation Grapples With Past, Present Effects of Radiation
By Amy R. Levek
SHIPROCK N.M. ¬ Navajo miners suffered disproportionately from poor working conditions during previous uranium booms.
While there were employment and income benefits from the uranium boom for the Navajo Nation, according to West Virginia University social scientist and developmental psychologist Professor Carol Markstrom, whose research centers on issues relative to American Indians and the impacts of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, “Workers were not informed of the potential for loss of life and environmental contamination.”
Due to the government’s failure to disclose the dangers of uranium to miners and the Navajo Nation at large, distrust of the federal government is huge. Particularly noteworthy is a U.S. Public Health Service study
initiated in 1950, which looked at the effects of radiation on miners
working in the Colorado Plateau, a region roughly centered on the Four
Corners area. The study, in essence, used Navajo and white miners as guinea pigs by not informing them of the health risks being studied that they were exposed to on a daily basis.
As a result, the Navajo Nation has banned the collection of specimens from human subjects unless the Navajo Nation has approved the protocol, according to scientist and activist Perry Charley, head of the Uranium Education Project at Diné College.
Federal Compensation in Uranium’s Aftermath
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) enacted in 1990 finally
acknowledged the role of the federal government in allowing the conditions that led to the epidemic of lung disease and other illnesses and established a means of compensating uranium miners for their illnesses.
From 1948 to 1971, the U.S. government was the sole purchaser of uranium.
For those miners working in the industry prior to 1971 who could show that their illnesses were related to mining, RECA provided up to $100,000 for their suffering and medical costs.
Navajo Nation activists Perry Charley and Philip Harrison are credited for
the passage of RECA. Both men directly experienced the tragic consequences of uranium mining; their fathers were victims of the radioactive ore and were killed by lung cancer, with Charley’s father ultimately lapsing into a coma for several years before he died.
Working with former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and others, they gathered the data necessary for understanding the ravages of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation and provided testimony that helped pass RECA. The two have organized the Navajo people and educated them about the long-term effects of uranium on their communities.
“Without the Navajo Nation, we wouldn¹t have RECA,” said Charley, who worked with Udall as a translator in the courts.
Even with RECA in place, proving the link between uranium mining and Navajo miners who are sick or have died is difficult, due to cultural practices.
For instance, if a miner died at home, a death certificate might never have been issued. And in families, marriage certificates may not be a part of their rituals or practices, leaving widows with no way to “prove” their
relationships to their ill or deceased husbands.
RECA provides compensation for “downwinders,” those affected by radiation that spreads downwind from nuclear tests. However, no compensation exists for those who live near abandoned mines, millsites, waste piles or other environmental degradation caused by uranium mining.
Uranium’s Cultural Impact
Even deeper, less visible scarring remains from the legacy of uranium
mining, however, and Markstrom identifies post-traumatic stress disorder as the harshest and most insidious result.
“People suffer from post-traumatic stresses from the events and their
losses,” she noted. “The lack of resolution, the struggle for compensation,
are the same as caused by disasters and environmental accidents.” While the intent of the industry and government was not to “cause accidents to the Navajo, the powers that be never considered what the lack of information would do.”
Back at the meeting with the US EPA at Teec Nos Pos on the Rez, people question what will become of the data collected in the current round of studies. The pace of the meeting is slow, as everything is translated into Navajo. Words like “gamma rays,” “Congressman Waxman” and “EPA” pepper the rhythmic cadence of the Navajo language.
Many homes on the Navajo Nation were built using tailings, exposing their
residents unwittingly to radiation. Water supplies were contaminated by
water flowing over waste piles, and those drinking the water developed
cancer and other illnesses. Exposure to radiation or heavy metals from these sites is widespread and continuing. Representatives of the Navajo Nation and others are currently lobbying Congress for changes to RECA to help those sickened by living near uranium wastes.
The differences in responses to mining’s legacy of illness and death between Anglo and Navajo miners and their families is often striking. “All people at the entry level probably did not get the information needed, but for the Navajo, that was probably more true because of language and cultural values,” said Teresa Coons, the senior scientist for the Saccomanno Research Institute in Grand Junction, who also directs the scientific research programs associated with St. Mary’s Hospital and also runs a medical screening program for former uranium industry workers. Colorado and Utah miners, for example, tended to value uranium work because it provided good wages, and they felt a patriotic duty to help their country. The death and suffering were just part of the package.
“Uravan people remember their mining days as a wonderful time in their
lives,” noted Susan E. Dawson, professor of social work at Utah State University who specializes in occupational and environmental health and has published articles on uranium mining’s impact on the Navajo Nation. “In Moab, people think, I’m sick, but the company did such a good thing.”
The difference is cultural. She explained that while Anglos have an
individual approach, and a sense of individual responsibility, the Navajo
have “a strong collective, group view.”
The Navajo have a very strong community connection, Dawson continued. And environmental justice is much more of an issue for them.
Traditionally, ceremonies have been used to help restore balance back to
Navajo life, both collectively and for the individual. However, as in many
native cultures, the knowledge of traditional ways recedes as the elders
pass. While the Navajo language is being taught in schools throughout the Nation, the background knowledge does not always get passed along with it.
Further complicating the problems for individuals are other cultural issues, according to Dawson. “People didn’t understand that some of their illnesses were work issues,” she explained. “They thought they had broken some taboo.”
The results of the individual health and environmental ills, according to
Markham, “because of the belief system and loss of balance are devastating. It goes much deeper than just the environmental impact. The environment has been desecrated in a spiritual sense.”
Sign From the Sky
As I leave the Tees Nos Pos chapter house, the elderly woman sitting next to me, who appeared not to understand English when I asked questions earlier, and who listened intently throughout the meeting, leans over and says, “Thank you very much for being here.”
The Navajo patience with their plight is as complex as their relationship
with leetso, the Navajo word for uranium, and I ponder this as I drive
towards Cortez, when all of a sudden a startling ball of green and pink
light hurtles across the sky, disappearing behind a hill. Was that real? Was it an illusion? Was it more coyote trickster deception?
Later I hear on the radio that a satellite went down nearby.
Perhaps the Navajo would say it is a sign that the world has been disrupted and that we need to pay attention to bring it back into balance. Perhaps they see things more clearly than we understand.
©2007 Amy R. Levek
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of .
Cheryl Dyer, Ph.D. wrote on Jan 3, 2008 9:28 AM: " These are well researched articles on the health impact of exposure to uranium. I would like to draw attention to research done in my laboratory at Northern Arizona University. We have found that uranium in drinking water of mice, at levels called "safe" by the US EPA, causes reproductive tissues to respond as if exposed to estrogen. Our work was just published in the Environmental Health Perspectives, a free online scientific journal. The reference is, EHP 115:1711-1716, 2007. "
Jon L, MPH wrote on Jan 3, 2008 10:31 AM: " Bravo for bringing these issues forward--not only highlighting the environmental/occupational health consequences, but also sharing implications this has on disrupting the social and cultural lifestyle of the Navajo people. I hope there is justice soon. "
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