For cities like Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson, drinking contaminated water is one of the last thoughts in residents’ minds. We trust that our water is pure and drinkable. However, contaminated water resonates with many families in other cities.
Clean drinking water was not a right among some Native American communities from the 1940s to the 1960s that lived in Arizona and New Mexico. The outcome of water contamination is still seen today in these communities.
But the Navajos and Hopi residents were exposed to uranium contamination and radiation while living near uranium mines in Tuba City and Cameron, Ariz. The federal government backed the uranium mines.
In 1955, Rare Metals Corporation and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission signed a contract to build a uranium mine on the Navajo reservation near Tuba City.
The plant produced more than 750,000 tons of uranium ore and produced 5 million pounds of fuel for the Cold War.
The corporation aligned with El Paso Natural Gas Co. and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1962 dumping mining residue on reservation land. This became known as the Tuba City Open Dump Site. Uranium residue seeped underground into the water supply of nearby residents.
Anna Rondon is an activist with a concern for uranium mining and sees that there is still a problem today. “We have still yet to clean up the masses of unclaimed uranium mining on Navajo land … ” Rondon said on Native American Radio two weeks ago.
Many children died from uranium exposure when mining was at its heaviest. Rondon says that the deaths were due to Navajo neurohepatopathy, an illness caused by a gene mutation.
From 1964 to 1981, more than 13,000 Navajos were evaluated by the Indian Health Service Hospital in Shiprock, N.M. It was reported that of 266 births of Native American babies, more than 320 types of defective congenital conditions.
Workers in the mines also suffered from radiation-related illness and death and were many times unaware of the dangers they were facing. It was not until 2007 that a Congressional hearing had federal agencies commit to assessing the environmental and health conditions from uranium mining on reservations.
A five-year investigation was then developed to analyze current radiation levels of 500 structures on 27,000 square miles of land, according to The New York Times.
Many people have been living in their homes with high radiation levels unaware of the deadly effects. Families have been forced to leave their homes, and offered new ones to be built free from radiation exposure.
I had the opportunity to interview five residents living in Tuba City and each one knew of someone whose health had been impacted by the radiation. One Tuba City café employee has had tumors removed several times and is not sure if the uranium is to blame. As a child she grew up near the Rare Metals plant.
Residents say that the clean up is not fast enough. It has taken more than 40 years for action to be taken against these companies. If uranium were in the water supply in Phoenix, Flagstaff or Tucson would it take 40 years for radiation levels to be assessed?
Reach Justine at jrgarci8@asu.edu
