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SHIPROCK — Uranium mining companies are showing signs of renewed interest in the Navajo Nation.
The Farmington Daily Times reports that several companies during the past year have addressed the tribe, requesting permission to once again mine the uranium-rich land that the tribe sits upon.
The history of uranium in the area, however, is proving an obstacle.
“As you can guess, there is opposition. There is a legacy issue. There’s no doubt about that,” said Albuquerque’s Mat Leuras, vice president of corporate development for Uranium Resources Inc.
In addition, several environmental studies have suggested that elevated levels of uranium in and around the mines caused health problems for the people working in and living around them.
The Navajo Nation sits on more than 70 million tons of naturally occurring uranium, a radioactive ore.
Uranium mining companies maintain that history will not repeat itself, especially since they are using advanced technologies and take more precautions.
The tribe still is reeling from the nearly 30 years that the federal government allowed uranium mining on and around the Navajo Nation. Between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s, about four million tons of uranium were extracted from the Navajo Nation.
At the time, uranium was mined to produce nuclear weapons for the Cold War.
While the companies will not be able to extract the uranium within tribal boundaries, they might be able to get at the uranium deposits near them.
The tribe banned uranium mining on its land in 2005, though the federal government has jurisdiction on Navajo Trust Land and in the “checkerboard” of Indian and non-Indian land. The trust land is land generally saved for the tribe, and the checkerboard is intermixed federal, state and tribal ownership.
Many of the companies already have secured mineral rights in the checkerboard area.
— This article appeared on page 11 of the Albuquerque Journal
