June 27, 2026 • 30 mins
Uranium mining on Navajo Nation land began in 1944 to supply the U.S. government with the radioactive ore used in nuclear bombs. About 30 million tons of uranium were extracted by the time operations on the reservation ceased in 1986. The environmental contamination from this effort left much of the Navajo Reservation uninhabitable and has had severe health consequences on residents to this day. The reservation is the largest by area in the United States, spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and about 170,000 of the approximately 400,000 enrolled members of the Navajo Nation reside within its borders. Many of the rest live in nearby communities whose drinking water has been poisoned by uranium contamination. Now several companies including Dick Cheney’s former mining operation are amongst those trying to revive uranium extraction in the area…Joining us today to discuss this issue is Anna Rondon. Anna is a Tribal member of the Navajo Nation and the Executive Director of the Gallup based New Mexico Social Justice Equity Institute.
In the first half of the show, we discuss how the mines have affected workers, their children and their animals. We also discuss which companies are looking to revive the mining efforts on these lands.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
Ramsay's job. Big shoutout to q Ward, who is out
making the world a better place. That is my partner
in crime, that is my brother, and he will be
back soon, I promise. But today it is business as
(00:20):
usual and he has left us in good hands, So
let's get to it. Uranium mining on Navajo Nation Land
began in nineteen forty four to supply the US government
with the radioactive or used in nuclear bombs. About thirty
million tons of uranium were extracted by the time operations
on the reservation ceased in nineteen eighty six. The environmental
(00:41):
contamination from this effort left much of the Navajo Reservation
uninhabitable and has had severe health consequences on residents to
this day. The reservation is the largest by area in
the United States, spanning Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, and
about one hundred and seventy thousand of the approximately four
hundred thousand enrolled members of the Navajo Nation reside within
(01:05):
its borders. Many of the rest live in nearby communities
whose drinking water has been poisoned by uranium contamination. Now,
several companies, including Dick Cheney's former mining operation, are amongst
those trying to revive uranium extraction in the area. Joining
us today to discuss this issue is Anna Rondon. Anna
(01:26):
is a tribal member of the Navajo Nation and executive
director of the Gallop based New Mexico Social Justice Equity Institute.
All Right, Anna, welcome to the show, and thank you
for engaging us to discuss this important issue that you know,
I'm sure many people are just being made aware of.
I certainly was one of them. So first off, how
(01:47):
are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm doing wonderful. This is so exciting to be able
to get our stories out to the world, to the universe.
Thank you Ramsays for this opportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Of course, of course, the pleasure's mine.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yes, I'm Keiaani Taurin House Clan and I live in
a place called Chechill Talk on Navajo Nation, Yes, and
been working on uranium nuclear fuel chain issues since nineteen
seventy seven when I first got involved.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, okay, so you're you're not new to this you're
true to this, all right. I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
I met because of Winona La Duke.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I met her in seventy seven at the Ame House
in Oakland, California, where.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
We were schooled there.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Even with Angela Davis, Yeah, we were schooled with a
lot of the prominent leaders in the movements, you know.
And believe me, we really did a lot in the
seventies and helped protect eleven bills that were in Congress
(03:03):
that were going to terminate us. So the Aim for
Freedom Survival School was a pivotal point in my life
and many others that still today we continue to advocate
for our treaty rights, human rights, water rights, and basic rights.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, all right, I love that. You know. One of
the things that so I guess, the thrust, the main idea,
the premise of this show was born in twenty twenty.
What we noticed Q and myself, my co host and myself,
we noticed that there were a lot of different people
(03:42):
out advocating for black lives. It wasn't just black people.
Everybody came out right, and you know, we were in
a position to create this program, and so we did.
We thought it was necessary that people had access to
information to to become better allies. Right. But another thing
(04:03):
that we realized is that black people when it comes
to advocating for social justice, Black people are well established
in this country in making inroads toward that end, and
other communities have been supportive, but left to their own devices,
they may not have as strong of a voice, or
(04:25):
may not have the same political connections, perhaps because of
population size, perhaps because of other elements. But we never
forgot that they were supporting us in twenty twenty. And
so what we did was we created a program where
everyone was welcome and we all could advocate for each other.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
This is kind of a page out of a Rainbow
Coalition book. And one of the things, one of the
first things that we had to come to terms with
is that indeed we broadcast from the unseated ancestral lands
of the akimel Odam people's right and so honoring the
(05:10):
land that we broadcast from and that we live on
it was very important. And over the years we've done
our best to try to amplify the voices from you know,
native populations because their struggles now need to become our struggles.
Because they were supportive of us in this generation. I
know that historically speaking, the relationship goes far back, but
(05:32):
where we share with you know, other marginalized groups, it
feels like often that we are in a position to
do a great deal of amplification for the issues affecting
you know, reservations and tribal lands and things like that,
and as often as we can, we do. In fact,
(05:55):
recently we had an episode talking about missing and murdered
Indigenous women where woman was she was a survivor of that.
And so when I say welcome to the show and
the and the pleasure is ours, I do mean that
these issues are are American issues. These issues are issues
that affect Americans, not higher Native Americans, actual Americans. So
(06:18):
this is the most patriotic of a program that we
can put on. Now for folks just coming to this
conversation that don't know much about the background, talk a
little bit more about, uh, these minds kind of becoming disused.
I guess what was the effect of the I guess
the what was the health effects on the population of
(06:40):
the people that worked the minds. I would imagine a
lot of Native folks worked in those minds since they
were on you know, reservations.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Right, yes, there were Navajo and Laguna Laguna Pueblo. In fact,
Laguna Pueblo has one of the largest uranium mines in
the world, and there's now efforts with the community to
do some health impact studies, so that's going on. But
(07:10):
for Navajo, also up around four corners area like Shipwreck
where all the forest states meet. In that area was
a massive amount of uranium extraction, and even some of
the men would take their wives and families to the
(07:33):
mining camps, and so some of the mothers they would
use the water contaminated water, not knowing it was contaminated
with uranium for the baby formula, or they cook with it,
wash with it.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
The other.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Scenarios when the men would come home from work with
uranium dust on their clothes and shoes, and so their
wife would washed them and they got sick, the children
got sick. So it's a extrapulated poisoning of generations. And
(08:17):
in our stories we were told not to use uranium
because we already knew it was dangerous. Uranium was the
most oldest element created for us as the net as Navajo,
when the earth was created, she made that element and
(08:38):
it's for her protection. We demonized uranium and we're not
supposed to demonize it because it's it's our earth mother's protection.
You see how powerful it is. And so we were
post we were told not to dig it out because
it will bring death. And it's a mom and it's
(09:01):
still killing and.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
And this is just one story for Navajo. One of
the most heartbreaking uranium mind wayte stories is in India
where the children are playing in the uranium mind ways deformed.
So what we've been doing as well is bringing all
(09:29):
these different indigenous folks and different people that work on
the anti nuclear movement is we share our stories. And
if we hold the International Uranium Film Festival every year
and so that brings worldwide family together to talk about
(09:51):
these stories. But now the Birth co Hurt Study, the
Navajo Birth Go Hurt Study, which was mandated by Congress
had Indian Health Service ATSDR, Agency for Toxic Registry, Disease
(10:15):
Registry CDC, Novo Nation and then the Novel Nation Department
of Health under their Community Health Worker program housed a
Navajo Birth Coal Hurt Study and at that time I
worked there for four years. We had a really great
(10:36):
team that went out and recruited Novaho pregnant women and
that started in two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
It's still going on now to study.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
But when I was there, there was about maybe seven
hundred babies that were born. About thirty percent were born
with high levels of uranium traces in their system.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
That's a good question. Some of them are.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So these babies are the grandchildren of the uranium miners,
so it looks like there's it's skipping a generation. So
that is still going on, and as the children grow,
the uranium increases, so we don't know. We're still learning.
You know, the study is still going on, but they're
(11:35):
also looking at and understanding are there any learning disabilities
and will this affect their kidneys, their organs, their lungs,
their bones. You know, we don't know, so we're still
finding that out.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
If you're just joined US, Anna Rondon is on with
US today discussing uranium mining on the Navajo Nation and
the desire to I guess, resume mining operations. So I
already know people are going to want to know what
they can do about it, so you know, make sure
(12:21):
that we have that ready for him. But first before
we get there, I want to talk about why these
minds exist in the first place. I'm not as familiar
as I should be, but I'm i'll say, vaguely familiar
with the enormous amount of treaty violations that take place
(12:44):
with the United States government and the sovereign indigenous lands
around the country and encroachment and and and and and right, so,
I wonder what legal mechanism exists, if any, to bring
these minds onto the Navajo Nation's lands, and if those
(13:14):
legal frameworks are still in place to allow these companies
to continue, or is this something that can be contested
in court?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well? What? So? This company called Desa Technologies has been
working with our own Navajo EPA director, Steven at City
and another person with the Navajo Eastern Noval Agency Land Commission,
Leonard Soci. Those two have been working with the company
(13:49):
to enable them to operate to mine uranium mind ways
so they can track the flakes of the uranium from
the mine ways. It's insane, and that means that they're
(14:12):
going it's still going to leave eighty percent of the
uranium mine ways there.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
It's not cleanup.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
They're making it look like it's cleanup, but it's extractive.
They're mining uranium, and we have a law called the
Danae Natural Resources Protection Act of two thousand and five
that prohibits uranium mining milling, and there's also another law
that doesn't allow transportation of uranium on Navajo.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
However, when we have these.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Sellouts within our own navel nation, this is what we're
fighting right now. And there's an election happening, and so
June twenty fifth, at the Presidential Forum, we're going to
bring this up to them publicly because this is this
(15:12):
project's not going to happen. And so we have apples, right,
So those are our two apples.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
If you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Okay, red outside White Insight, you know they're selling us out, sure.
And so we have those types of our people looking
at this and they're saying that it's clean up, but
it's not. It's extractive. So it's called high pressure slurry ablation.
(15:46):
And this process was created up in Wyoming and so
Deser Technologies got a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
to do this high pressure slawri ablation in fourteenth States.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year approved this license in
(16:09):
three weeks, not one year, not two years, but in
three weeks. One of the board members of Desa Technologies
is a former nuclear regulatory commissioner. Dysa Technologies also received
(16:29):
money from the investments, and Antonio Grassius, the owner, is
a business partner with Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
So thirty three.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Million dollars from the Lore Investments was given to Desa Technologies.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
To mine uranium waste.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So it's not only this company, but it's a it's
a whole takeover again with this nuclear cartel on Navaho.
We cannot allow this. It's not going to happen. It's
(17:16):
there's a lot more to this, and that we want
other tribes too, of those fourteen states not to fall
for this gimmick because they're looking at the money. It's
not and it's just in a test phase.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's not working.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Sure, this high pressures lurry ablation. Okay, so that's what
we're fighting.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. So is it the
case that the well, well, I want to circle back
to the I guess the second part, or I guess
the first part. I said, what is it that people
can do to support I want to say this a
few times about the show. How can people get involved?
You know, how can folks make a difference.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Well, we do have a Facebook page. It's called DODA
d O O d A, which means no in Navajo.
D I s A is the company, and we got
two videos on their webinar, recorded videos right now what
(18:25):
we're pushing for. And we have our Lloyd, some of
the some of our volunteer lawyers drafting letters to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission that we could use publicly to demand
a full environmental impact statement. They provided a generic impact
statement to the company.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So yeah, I just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh no, no, we're just trying to make sure people
know how they can get involved.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So yeah, so there's that if they can go on
their but if they keep monitoring our Facebook page, they'll
have the information. But there's a lot on that Facebook page,
DoD deessa.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Okay y, yes, So another thing it popped into my mind.
You mentioned how this has affected you know, children, Native children, right,
and I wonder if this is something that can be
(19:34):
passed on genetically, but I know that this is something
that can be passed on via environmental factors, right, children
playing you know on you know, you mentioned wives washing
clothes and getting sick, So children playing in houses on
the carpets. I would imagine that those environmental factors could
(19:55):
get children sick as well. And then I got to thinking,
what about animals, because I know that you know, you know,
where I live, there's reservations, little pockets all over the place,
and so a lot of times people will kind of
keep their own animals. There has there been any anything
about animals and like the foods that you know, people eat,
(20:16):
that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
But you yes, great question, you're smart.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, there's there's a study by the Northern Arizona University
by Professor Jamie Ingram and doctor Tommy Rock. He's our
very own Navajo environmental scientists from a contaminated area Monument
Valley area. But they've done studies in the western part
(20:44):
of the reservation near flag Staff area, but on our
on the communities like Cameron, they're heavily impacted by uranium
mining and cayanta out in that community as well. But
they've been doing studies on the forage out there and
(21:08):
to see if the uptake of the grass and other
forage was uptake into the sheep or the livestock, cows
or horses.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
So the study is out and there.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Is some contamination that the sheep are getting, so that
study is still going on. The One of the most
horrific impacts of livestock contamination, which really hurt a lot
of families and our economy, was the urine nineteen seventy
(21:47):
nine uranium damn spill. It's not a spill, it's a catastrophe.
But July sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine, that in Church Rock,
which is about ten miles east of Gallop, New Mexico,
United Nuclear had a dam holding all this nuclear waste
(22:09):
toxic soup, and there was a crack, and they already
knew about the crack, but for some reason they didn't
try to fix it. So one morning, early in the morning,
that's when the dam broke, and there's you know, people
get up early, and they start hurting sheep, and so
(22:29):
some of them were in the arroyo when it was
going down and their feet got burnt. The sheep got
contaminated as well and got burnt. So the state says, oh,
it's okay, it's not that contaminated. But the sheep were
starting to be born with deformities, some with some with
(22:50):
no no wool, some with too many legs, no eyes,
and so I remember we tried to get some sheep
out there. It's like maybe fifteen years after, but the
sheep we got had contaminated livers, so we couldn't even
eat it. So, you know, that was in the eighties
(23:13):
with my mom and so that was like what six
years after, So after the uranium catastrophe, Now remember seventy nine,
I believe it was March. That's when Three Mile Island happened,
that catastrophe. So they got all the attention and they
(23:34):
got trust funds, they got all kinds of help, but
for our people, nothing, nothing, even still today. So that uranium,
ninety eight million gallons of toxic soup went down the
(23:55):
Purkle River all the way to Holebrooke and then down
to the Little Colorado River all the way to Los Angeles.
That's how far they traced it. So you're right, this
issue is everyone's issue. Yeah, because it doesn't it doesn't
stay on the reservation.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Of course not, of course, not if you're just tuning
in with us. Anna Rondon is with us discussing uranium
mining and the desire to resume uranium mining and how
dangerous that is on the Navajo Reservation and other reservations
around the country. Now you're talking about, you know, these
sheeps being born with these deformities and whatnot. I would
(24:38):
imagine that much of our physiology is very similar. I
guess for folks that don't know how dangerous is depleted uranium, like,
does that do those birth effects make their way into
people too?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You pleted uranium? Yeah, that started here in New Mexico too.
At Sikoro they were testing depleted uranium little missiles because
depleted uranium is harder than lead, it's dense, and so
(25:17):
in Sikoro they were testing depleted uranium for weapons. And
so nineteen ninety March fifth, nineteen ninety that's when the
Bush administration launched the first depleted uranium bombs in Iraq,
the Persian Gulf Desert Storm, And so that's another to me,
(25:42):
it's nuclear weapons because there's a film we did on
that depleted uranium, on how it's impacting people in Iraq.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I recently watched a film. It's funny. I watched a film.
It's called Chernobyl. It's on HBO uh and it was
like a docu series, And what it was was it
really showed the collapse of the Soviet union and what
(26:15):
led to that collapse. Of course, you know, we now
know that the Chernobyl plant exploded and there was a
rush to like cover it up or contain information and
that sort of thing. But the people weren't warned about
the risk of contamination, and they had no idea the
(26:38):
effects it would have on them. And so it follows
a bunch of different folks, and it's you know, it's
based on real events and real people. Indeed, mostly it's
still you know, film.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
But.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
You know, they have stories just like the ones that
you're saying. And one of the things that it is heartbreaking,
having worked in this capacity now for several years, is
just how precious some groups feel to this government and
(27:15):
just how disposable other groups feel to this government. And
I would imagine that that feeling being disposable might be
something that is prevalent in tribal communities, especially after situations
(27:37):
like the one you described and many others that we're
not even talking about today, where the data is there,
the evidence is there, there is a systemic element at play,
and there is a stunning silence from the people responsible
for it, be it the government or otherwise. And I
would imagine that in this case and in other cases,
(27:58):
you know, and I know, historically speaking, you know, tribes
have done their best to litigate and you know, advocate
for their own rights and their own sovereignty and whatnot.
And you know, it's it's a people going up against
a monster of a machine. And so you know, my
heart breaks hearing stories of babies being born, you know,
(28:20):
without bones. I would imagine that's probably where the jellyfish
you know terminology comes from. And when I look at
you know, the Chernobyl explosion and how there's this well
produced documentary, the one thing that I notice is that
those are white Christian people. Yeah, the Russian they speak
(28:43):
a different language. But you know, I think that it
might be a little easier for certain folks to see
the humanity in that crisis. And again the fact that
when it comes to conversations like the one you and
I are having, having happened repeatedly throughout history in this country,
this country short history. You know, the native people have
(29:04):
been here for twenty thousand years. I say this all
the time, and this country is two hundred and fifty
years old. Years makes no difference. And the fact that
the native populations are so often dismissed is very heartbreaking
and so again I appreciate you giving folks some way
(29:29):
of tapping in and engaging. So one more time, the
Facebook page was d O.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
D O.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
D O d A d A. That's it.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
D I s A doda dissa.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
D o O d A d sa. Okay, yeah, disa perfect,
all right, Stay tuned. Will be back with more with
Anna London in just a sec
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
Ramsay's job. Big shoutout to q Ward, who is out
making the world a better place. That is my partner
in crime, that is my brother, and he will be
back soon, I promise. But today it is business as
(00:20):
usual and he has left us in good hands, So
let's get to it. Uranium mining on Navajo Nation Land
began in nineteen forty four to supply the US government
with the radioactive or used in nuclear bombs. About thirty
million tons of uranium were extracted by the time operations
on the reservation ceased in nineteen eighty six. The environmental
(00:41):
contamination from this effort left much of the Navajo Reservation
uninhabitable and has had severe health consequences on residents to
this day. The reservation is the largest by area in
the United States, spanning Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, and
about one hundred and seventy thousand of the approximately four
hundred thousand enrolled members of the Navajo Nation reside within
(01:05):
its borders. Many of the rest live in nearby communities
whose drinking water has been poisoned by uranium contamination. Now,
several companies, including Dick Cheney's former mining operation, are amongst
those trying to revive uranium extraction in the area. Joining
us today to discuss this issue is Anna Rondon. Anna
(01:26):
is a tribal member of the Navajo Nation and executive
director of the Gallop based New Mexico Social Justice Equity Institute.
All Right, Anna, welcome to the show, and thank you
for engaging us to discuss this important issue that you know,
I'm sure many people are just being made aware of.
I certainly was one of them. So first off, how
(01:47):
are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm doing wonderful. This is so exciting to be able
to get our stories out to the world, to the universe.
Thank you Ramsays for this opportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Of course, of course, the pleasure's mine.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yes, I'm Keiaani Taurin House Clan and I live in
a place called Chechill Talk on Navajo Nation, Yes, and
been working on uranium nuclear fuel chain issues since nineteen
seventy seven when I first got involved.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, okay, so you're you're not new to this you're
true to this, all right. I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
I met because of Winona La Duke.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I met her in seventy seven at the Ame House
in Oakland, California, where.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
We were schooled there.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Even with Angela Davis, Yeah, we were schooled with a
lot of the prominent leaders in the movements, you know.
And believe me, we really did a lot in the
seventies and helped protect eleven bills that were in Congress
(03:03):
that were going to terminate us. So the Aim for
Freedom Survival School was a pivotal point in my life
and many others that still today we continue to advocate
for our treaty rights, human rights, water rights, and basic rights.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, all right, I love that. You know. One of
the things that so I guess, the thrust, the main idea,
the premise of this show was born in twenty twenty.
What we noticed Q and myself, my co host and myself,
we noticed that there were a lot of different people
(03:42):
out advocating for black lives. It wasn't just black people.
Everybody came out right, and you know, we were in
a position to create this program, and so we did.
We thought it was necessary that people had access to
information to to become better allies. Right. But another thing
(04:03):
that we realized is that black people when it comes
to advocating for social justice, Black people are well established
in this country in making inroads toward that end, and
other communities have been supportive, but left to their own devices,
they may not have as strong of a voice, or
(04:25):
may not have the same political connections, perhaps because of
population size, perhaps because of other elements. But we never
forgot that they were supporting us in twenty twenty. And
so what we did was we created a program where
everyone was welcome and we all could advocate for each other.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
This is kind of a page out of a Rainbow
Coalition book. And one of the things, one of the
first things that we had to come to terms with
is that indeed we broadcast from the unseated ancestral lands
of the akimel Odam people's right and so honoring the
(05:10):
land that we broadcast from and that we live on
it was very important. And over the years we've done
our best to try to amplify the voices from you know,
native populations because their struggles now need to become our struggles.
Because they were supportive of us in this generation. I
know that historically speaking, the relationship goes far back, but
(05:32):
where we share with you know, other marginalized groups, it
feels like often that we are in a position to
do a great deal of amplification for the issues affecting
you know, reservations and tribal lands and things like that,
and as often as we can, we do. In fact,
(05:55):
recently we had an episode talking about missing and murdered
Indigenous women where woman was she was a survivor of that.
And so when I say welcome to the show and
the and the pleasure is ours, I do mean that
these issues are are American issues. These issues are issues
that affect Americans, not higher Native Americans, actual Americans. So
(06:18):
this is the most patriotic of a program that we
can put on. Now for folks just coming to this
conversation that don't know much about the background, talk a
little bit more about, uh, these minds kind of becoming disused.
I guess what was the effect of the I guess
the what was the health effects on the population of
(06:40):
the people that worked the minds. I would imagine a
lot of Native folks worked in those minds since they
were on you know, reservations.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Right, yes, there were Navajo and Laguna Laguna Pueblo. In fact,
Laguna Pueblo has one of the largest uranium mines in
the world, and there's now efforts with the community to
do some health impact studies, so that's going on. But
(07:10):
for Navajo, also up around four corners area like Shipwreck
where all the forest states meet. In that area was
a massive amount of uranium extraction, and even some of
the men would take their wives and families to the
(07:33):
mining camps, and so some of the mothers they would
use the water contaminated water, not knowing it was contaminated
with uranium for the baby formula, or they cook with it,
wash with it.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
The other.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Scenarios when the men would come home from work with
uranium dust on their clothes and shoes, and so their
wife would washed them and they got sick, the children
got sick. So it's a extrapulated poisoning of generations. And
(08:17):
in our stories we were told not to use uranium
because we already knew it was dangerous. Uranium was the
most oldest element created for us as the net as Navajo,
when the earth was created, she made that element and
(08:38):
it's for her protection. We demonized uranium and we're not
supposed to demonize it because it's it's our earth mother's protection.
You see how powerful it is. And so we were
post we were told not to dig it out because
it will bring death. And it's a mom and it's
(09:01):
still killing and.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
And this is just one story for Navajo. One of
the most heartbreaking uranium mind wayte stories is in India
where the children are playing in the uranium mind ways deformed.
So what we've been doing as well is bringing all
(09:29):
these different indigenous folks and different people that work on
the anti nuclear movement is we share our stories. And
if we hold the International Uranium Film Festival every year
and so that brings worldwide family together to talk about
(09:51):
these stories. But now the Birth co Hurt Study, the
Navajo Birth Go Hurt Study, which was mandated by Congress
had Indian Health Service ATSDR, Agency for Toxic Registry, Disease
(10:15):
Registry CDC, Novo Nation and then the Novel Nation Department
of Health under their Community Health Worker program housed a
Navajo Birth Coal Hurt Study and at that time I
worked there for four years. We had a really great
(10:36):
team that went out and recruited Novaho pregnant women and
that started in two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
It's still going on now to study.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
But when I was there, there was about maybe seven
hundred babies that were born. About thirty percent were born
with high levels of uranium traces in their system.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
That's a good question. Some of them are.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So these babies are the grandchildren of the uranium miners,
so it looks like there's it's skipping a generation. So
that is still going on, and as the children grow,
the uranium increases, so we don't know. We're still learning.
You know, the study is still going on, but they're
(11:35):
also looking at and understanding are there any learning disabilities
and will this affect their kidneys, their organs, their lungs,
their bones. You know, we don't know, so we're still
finding that out.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
If you're just joined US, Anna Rondon is on with
US today discussing uranium mining on the Navajo Nation and
the desire to I guess, resume mining operations. So I
already know people are going to want to know what
they can do about it, so you know, make sure
(12:21):
that we have that ready for him. But first before
we get there, I want to talk about why these
minds exist in the first place. I'm not as familiar
as I should be, but I'm i'll say, vaguely familiar
with the enormous amount of treaty violations that take place
(12:44):
with the United States government and the sovereign indigenous lands
around the country and encroachment and and and and and right, so,
I wonder what legal mechanism exists, if any, to bring
these minds onto the Navajo Nation's lands, and if those
(13:14):
legal frameworks are still in place to allow these companies
to continue, or is this something that can be contested
in court?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well? What? So? This company called Desa Technologies has been
working with our own Navajo EPA director, Steven at City
and another person with the Navajo Eastern Noval Agency Land Commission,
Leonard Soci. Those two have been working with the company
(13:49):
to enable them to operate to mine uranium mind ways
so they can track the flakes of the uranium from
the mine ways. It's insane, and that means that they're
(14:12):
going it's still going to leave eighty percent of the
uranium mine ways there.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
It's not cleanup.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
They're making it look like it's cleanup, but it's extractive.
They're mining uranium, and we have a law called the
Danae Natural Resources Protection Act of two thousand and five
that prohibits uranium mining milling, and there's also another law
that doesn't allow transportation of uranium on Navajo.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
However, when we have these.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Sellouts within our own navel nation, this is what we're
fighting right now. And there's an election happening, and so
June twenty fifth, at the Presidential Forum, we're going to
bring this up to them publicly because this is this
(15:12):
project's not going to happen. And so we have apples, right,
So those are our two apples.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
If you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Okay, red outside White Insight, you know they're selling us out, sure.
And so we have those types of our people looking
at this and they're saying that it's clean up, but
it's not. It's extractive. So it's called high pressure slurry ablation.
(15:46):
And this process was created up in Wyoming and so
Deser Technologies got a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
to do this high pressure slawri ablation in fourteenth States.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year approved this license in
(16:09):
three weeks, not one year, not two years, but in
three weeks. One of the board members of Desa Technologies
is a former nuclear regulatory commissioner. Dysa Technologies also received
(16:29):
money from the investments, and Antonio Grassius, the owner, is
a business partner with Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
So thirty three.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Million dollars from the Lore Investments was given to Desa Technologies.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
To mine uranium waste.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So it's not only this company, but it's a it's
a whole takeover again with this nuclear cartel on Navaho.
We cannot allow this. It's not going to happen. It's
(17:16):
there's a lot more to this, and that we want
other tribes too, of those fourteen states not to fall
for this gimmick because they're looking at the money. It's
not and it's just in a test phase.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's not working.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Sure, this high pressures lurry ablation. Okay, so that's what
we're fighting.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. So is it the
case that the well, well, I want to circle back
to the I guess the second part, or I guess
the first part. I said, what is it that people
can do to support I want to say this a
few times about the show. How can people get involved?
You know, how can folks make a difference.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Well, we do have a Facebook page. It's called DODA
d O O d A, which means no in Navajo.
D I s A is the company, and we got
two videos on their webinar, recorded videos right now what
(18:25):
we're pushing for. And we have our Lloyd, some of
the some of our volunteer lawyers drafting letters to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission that we could use publicly to demand
a full environmental impact statement. They provided a generic impact
statement to the company.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So yeah, I just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh no, no, we're just trying to make sure people
know how they can get involved.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So yeah, so there's that if they can go on
their but if they keep monitoring our Facebook page, they'll
have the information. But there's a lot on that Facebook page,
DoD deessa.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Okay y, yes, So another thing it popped into my mind.
You mentioned how this has affected you know, children, Native children, right,
and I wonder if this is something that can be
(19:34):
passed on genetically, but I know that this is something
that can be passed on via environmental factors, right, children
playing you know on you know, you mentioned wives washing
clothes and getting sick, So children playing in houses on
the carpets. I would imagine that those environmental factors could
(19:55):
get children sick as well. And then I got to thinking,
what about animals, because I know that you know, you know,
where I live, there's reservations, little pockets all over the place,
and so a lot of times people will kind of
keep their own animals. There has there been any anything
about animals and like the foods that you know, people eat,
(20:16):
that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
But you yes, great question, you're smart.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, there's there's a study by the Northern Arizona University
by Professor Jamie Ingram and doctor Tommy Rock. He's our
very own Navajo environmental scientists from a contaminated area Monument
Valley area. But they've done studies in the western part
(20:44):
of the reservation near flag Staff area, but on our
on the communities like Cameron, they're heavily impacted by uranium
mining and cayanta out in that community as well. But
they've been doing studies on the forage out there and
(21:08):
to see if the uptake of the grass and other
forage was uptake into the sheep or the livestock, cows
or horses.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
So the study is out and there.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Is some contamination that the sheep are getting, so that
study is still going on. The One of the most
horrific impacts of livestock contamination, which really hurt a lot
of families and our economy, was the urine nineteen seventy
(21:47):
nine uranium damn spill. It's not a spill, it's a catastrophe.
But July sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine, that in Church Rock,
which is about ten miles east of Gallop, New Mexico,
United Nuclear had a dam holding all this nuclear waste
(22:09):
toxic soup, and there was a crack, and they already
knew about the crack, but for some reason they didn't
try to fix it. So one morning, early in the morning,
that's when the dam broke, and there's you know, people
get up early, and they start hurting sheep, and so
(22:29):
some of them were in the arroyo when it was
going down and their feet got burnt. The sheep got
contaminated as well and got burnt. So the state says, oh,
it's okay, it's not that contaminated. But the sheep were
starting to be born with deformities, some with some with
(22:50):
no no wool, some with too many legs, no eyes,
and so I remember we tried to get some sheep
out there. It's like maybe fifteen years after, but the
sheep we got had contaminated livers, so we couldn't even
eat it. So, you know, that was in the eighties
(23:13):
with my mom and so that was like what six
years after, So after the uranium catastrophe, Now remember seventy nine,
I believe it was March. That's when Three Mile Island happened,
that catastrophe. So they got all the attention and they
(23:34):
got trust funds, they got all kinds of help, but
for our people, nothing, nothing, even still today. So that uranium,
ninety eight million gallons of toxic soup went down the
(23:55):
Purkle River all the way to Holebrooke and then down
to the Little Colorado River all the way to Los Angeles.
That's how far they traced it. So you're right, this
issue is everyone's issue. Yeah, because it doesn't it doesn't
stay on the reservation.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Of course not, of course, not if you're just tuning
in with us. Anna Rondon is with us discussing uranium
mining and the desire to resume uranium mining and how
dangerous that is on the Navajo Reservation and other reservations
around the country. Now you're talking about, you know, these
sheeps being born with these deformities and whatnot. I would
(24:38):
imagine that much of our physiology is very similar. I
guess for folks that don't know how dangerous is depleted uranium, like,
does that do those birth effects make their way into
people too?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You pleted uranium? Yeah, that started here in New Mexico too.
At Sikoro they were testing depleted uranium little missiles because
depleted uranium is harder than lead, it's dense, and so
(25:17):
in Sikoro they were testing depleted uranium for weapons. And
so nineteen ninety March fifth, nineteen ninety that's when the
Bush administration launched the first depleted uranium bombs in Iraq,
the Persian Gulf Desert Storm, And so that's another to me,
(25:42):
it's nuclear weapons because there's a film we did on
that depleted uranium, on how it's impacting people in Iraq.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I recently watched a film. It's funny. I watched a film.
It's called Chernobyl. It's on HBO uh and it was
like a docu series, And what it was was it
really showed the collapse of the Soviet union and what
(26:15):
led to that collapse. Of course, you know, we now
know that the Chernobyl plant exploded and there was a
rush to like cover it up or contain information and
that sort of thing. But the people weren't warned about
the risk of contamination, and they had no idea the
(26:38):
effects it would have on them. And so it follows
a bunch of different folks, and it's you know, it's
based on real events and real people. Indeed, mostly it's
still you know, film.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
But.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
You know, they have stories just like the ones that
you're saying. And one of the things that it is heartbreaking,
having worked in this capacity now for several years, is
just how precious some groups feel to this government and
(27:15):
just how disposable other groups feel to this government. And
I would imagine that that feeling being disposable might be
something that is prevalent in tribal communities, especially after situations
(27:37):
like the one you described and many others that we're
not even talking about today, where the data is there,
the evidence is there, there is a systemic element at play,
and there is a stunning silence from the people responsible
for it, be it the government or otherwise. And I
would imagine that in this case and in other cases,
(27:58):
you know, and I know, historically speaking, you know, tribes
have done their best to litigate and you know, advocate
for their own rights and their own sovereignty and whatnot.
And you know, it's it's a people going up against
a monster of a machine. And so you know, my
heart breaks hearing stories of babies being born, you know,
(28:20):
without bones. I would imagine that's probably where the jellyfish
you know terminology comes from. And when I look at
you know, the Chernobyl explosion and how there's this well
produced documentary, the one thing that I notice is that
those are white Christian people. Yeah, the Russian they speak
(28:43):
a different language. But you know, I think that it
might be a little easier for certain folks to see
the humanity in that crisis. And again the fact that
when it comes to conversations like the one you and
I are having, having happened repeatedly throughout history in this country,
this country short history. You know, the native people have
(29:04):
been here for twenty thousand years. I say this all
the time, and this country is two hundred and fifty
years old. Years makes no difference. And the fact that
the native populations are so often dismissed is very heartbreaking
and so again I appreciate you giving folks some way
(29:29):
of tapping in and engaging. So one more time, the
Facebook page was d O.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
D O.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
D O d A d A. That's it.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
D I s A doda dissa.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
D o O d A d sa. Okay, yeah, disa perfect,
all right, Stay tuned. Will be back with more with
Anna London in just a sec
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