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....Alton.... Good Plume

NASD110

..5/19/2010..

Southwest Region: Uranium Mining on ....Navajo.. ..Land....

Essay

 

 

            Mining for minerals on Navajo land began at the end of World War I.  Vanadium was the first mineral to be mined in the ..Carrizo.. ..Mountain.. area thirty miles west of ....Shiprock.., ..New Mexico.... in 1918.  At first, the soft yellow metal ore that was found by vanadium held no value whatsoever.  But its demand would increase over the next thirty years. Uranium mining began in the early 1920’s on the Navajo Nation because the ....United States.... wanted to exploit it.  But the mining facilities operation would come to a halt in 1923, due to the discovery of cheap uranium in the ..Belgian Congo...

            After World War II, the ....United States.... began mining uranium for the purpose to develop nuclear weapons.  Since the 1940’s, over 15,000 people have worked in the uranium mines of the processing mills in the southwest region of ....America.....  About 13 million tons of uranium was mined during its operation.  The two major companies that were in charge of the mines were The Vanadium Corporation of ....America.... and Kerr-McGee.  These two companies are also responsible for the destruction of the Navajo lands and destruction of the Navajo people. 

            Timothy Benally Sr. whom is a Navajo had a hard time finding a job after returning from the Armed Services.  He remembers in the 1940’s and 1950’s on the reservation, the only job was basically mining uranium.  After three months, he complained about the safety of the mines to his boss and got fired.  Then the Kerr-McGee company came in and took over the job site and hired Mr. Benally Sr. back on.  He then complained about the wage, which was $1.25 an hour by federal law, but he was only getting 80 to 90 cents an hour.  He was again fired.  Not only did the Navajo people receive low wages for working in the mines, but also were not informed about the dangerous affects that uranium would have on their lives.

            In the 1950’s Navajo workers and families started noticing that they had a high rate of cancer compared to the rest of the ....United States.... population.  Navajo workers were kept from receiving compensation for lung cancer and respiratory diseases that was caused by the uranium.  The requirements for receiving compensation was, a worker must provide legal documentation that he/she worked in the mines and was suffering from one of the diseases on the compensation list.  This law was known as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990.  If approved by the law, the law was required to pay $100,000 as a “compassion payment” to uranium miners who were diagnosed with cancer of respiratory ailments. 

            Navajo workers medical records met time-consuming barriers to be certified.  Traditional marriages were not recognized by the justice department because they didn’t possess a paper filed with the local county or tribal government.  Navajo workers also had a hard time establishing work history and keeping records due to the wages being so low.  The wages earned couldn’t even pay taxes.  The application process was also slowed down by reviewing the reading of the radiation and radon levels in the mines.

            In a creation story told by the Navajo people is that of uranium.  Uranium also known as “cledge” is from the underworld and should be left in the ground.  The Navajo people had a choice between yellow corn pollen and uranium.  The Navajos believed that yellow corn pollen was of positive elements and uranium was of negative elements.  Navajo people would pray with yellow corn pollen and carry it around in medicine bags.  When the uranium was released from the ground the Navajo’s believed that it would become a serpent and cause death and destruction. 

            The Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. wrote a article called, “Remembrance to Avoid an Unwanted Fate”.  He wrote about how the ....United States.... used uranium to create advanced weapons of mass destruction and how they overlooked the destruction of a Nation.  Genocide is the only word that can describe this matter because of the hazards of cancer and respiratory disease that were known to doctors and federal officials.  The Navajo people have lost wisdom, knowledge, stories, songs, and ceremonies due to the ....United States.... rise to be a “Super Power”.  In 2005 Navajo Nation passed the Natural Resource Protection Act.  This law prohibits uranium mining and processing in all its forms on Navajo land.  Although there is going to be some kind of company or persons wanting to mine uranium for their own selfish benefits, The Navajo people do not want another generation going through what their grandparents had to go through because of big corporate companies failing to inform people of the hazards of working in a uranium mine. 

            As one can see from text provided, that a nation, a people, and more importantly a culture has been coerced to move from a land that they are familiar with to a land that they are not familiar with.  The cause of this was because of the discovery of uranium that has left a fatal impact not only on the Navajo people but on the land as well.  A movie had been recently released called “Avatar”, which has the same concept of what happened in the 1920’s to the 1950’s.  The only difference is that the Avatar people won the battle for their land.  The Navajo people were much unfortunate.