where
We are focusing on three areas on and around the Navajo Nation:
Oaksprings, Red Valley and Cove area.
Tina’s family lives in Oaksprings, West of Shiprock. Many Abandoned mines still dot the hills, and water quality is questionable. Tina’s family is strong, funny and definitely close knit. They lost 11 members of their extended family to uranium related illnesses. By learning about the culture and humor of her family, we begin to understand how these tenacious folks have survived so long herding sheep and living off the land. We visit a high school made with monies donated by a miner when he received compensation for his mining related illnesses. The teens give us presentations on the dangers of Uranium. Phil Harrison, a Navajo Tribal Delegate and uranium activist, has spent 30 years of his life fighting for miner’s compensation and water quality. He shares his insight on the situation around miner’s health and the steps we need to take to improve things.
Church Rock | Crownpoint
In the early morning hours of July 16, 1979—just fourteen weeks after the accident at Three Mile Island — The dam at Church Rock, NM burst, sending eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid pouring downstream. Except for the bomb tests, Church Rock was probably the biggest single release of radioactive poisons on American soil. Teddy Nez lives there, his home of seven generations nestled between two tailings piles, making it a ‘ground zero’ of sorts, as he lives very close to the spill site. Teddy has had lambs born deformed and suffers from cancer himself. A few years ago, the EPA removed the top 18inches of the dirt around Nez’ home due to it’s high radioactivity. Larry King, a vocal activist against uranium mining is a former miner. He has been fighting new mining in his area for decades. Hydro Resources, Inc, represented by Marc Pillaza, is doing tests in the Church Rock area today in hopes to help the community deal with the legacy of Uranium mining in the area. Their In Situ Leach Mining operations are being slowed in the court system due to litigation that protects the land from mining under ‘Indian Land’ status.
Milan | Bluewater
The community around Ambrosia lake (between Grants and Gallup, NM, bordering Navajo. Laguna and Acoma tribal land) is facing possible new mining, while the community there deals with contaminated ground water and a series of massive mine waste , called “tailings piles” left behind from the golden days of uranium mining in the area. Towering tailings piles from mill waste dot the landscape. Some tailings piles are hundreds of acres wide and a hundred feet high, rising like huge dams in the middle of the desert. Linda Evers, a former uranium miller has degenerative bone disease, and her children have been born with birth defects. She spearheads a group called the ‘Post ’71 Uranium Miners Workers Committee, a group that is fighting for compensation for workers that worked after 1971.