Uranium Dust

Dr. Helen Caldicott October 2007
Dr. Helen Caldicott October 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
ELLIOT LAKE 2011 -- Day2
ELLIOT LAKE 2011 -- Day2 (Photo credit: Emma-O Productions)
Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada
Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 Elliott Lake Uranium Mining Site

The tortured future of Elliot Lake – by Lloyd Tataryn (Saturday Night, June, 1976)


  • BC Medical Association ~ Health Dangers of Uranium Mining

    The AECB is unfit to regulate uranium mining. ... years behind other countries in
    its collection of cancer death statistics among uranium miners. ... there has been
    such a long delay in publication of the follow-up study of the Elliot Lake miners.
    www.ccnr.org/bcma.html

  • International Workshop Radiation Safety & The Mine Worker

    uranium miners suffered long and painful lung cancer deaths from excessive
    radon exposure in the old Elliot Lake uranium mines of central Canada (now ...
    www.radiationsafety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Radiation-Safety-for-Mine-Workers-Africa-fn-final.pdf
     

IPPNW


Comment on Care 2 file noting this link
The commonplace recycling of toxic wastes, containing heavy metals, dioxins, and radionuclides, into common plant food and farm fertilizers. These wastes bioaccumulate in soil, and contaminate food, water, and air (29). Of major concern is the increasing and systematic recycling of radioactive wastes from nuclear reactors and weapons facilities into building materials and consumer products, such as cutlery, frying pans, bicycles and baby strollers; this recycling has been authorized by the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, under heavy pressure from the nuclear industry.

The strong relationships between exposures to global atmospheric weapons fallout from 1959-1963, and to more recent environmental releases of novel radioisotopes from nuclear power stations and the escalating incidence of breast, thyroid, prostate cancers, and childhood leukemia, and brain cancer (30).

The relationship between childhood cancer and radioactive emissions from 103 aging nuclear power plants; notorious among these is the Indian Point complex, with its worst safety rating, located in a densely populated region within a 50 mile radius encompassing 7% of the U.S. population. High and increasing levels of radioactive Strontium-90 in baby teeth of this population, the “Tooth Fairy Study” (31), support this evidence.



U. S. National Cancer Institute

* Withholding Information on Causes of Cancer
* EPIDEMIOLOGICAL Data is withheld
* Denying Americans’ “Right to Know” on

Environmental Risks
Occupational Risks
Consumer Product Risks
Medical Risks

Examples of the cancer establishment's reckless failure to warn the public, the media, Congress and regulatory agencies, particularly the FDA, OSHA and EPA, of epidemiological evidence on a wide range of avoidable and involuntary risk factors or causes of cancer (12). These include:

Environmental

* The entire U.S. population, to varying degrees, is exposed to a wide range of industrial carcinogens identified epidemiologically and/or experimentally. Of particular importance is a group of 12 chlorinated Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), furans, dioxins, PCBs and pesticides, which have polluted the totality of the environment—air, water, hazardous waste sites, soil, food and the workplace.

* A wide range of POP's have been identified by the EPA (p. 17), since 1970, in extensive body burden studies on human fat, and to a lesser extent in blood and urine; more recent studies in the U.S. and other nations have confirmed and extended these studies. On January 31, 2003, the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the findings of their Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals on 116 carcinogenic, and toxic pesticides and other, environmental contaminants in the blood of over two thousand volunteers chosen as a representative slice of the U.S. population; Environmental Working Group and Commonweal also reported on 210 environmental and consumer product contaminants in the blood and urine of nine Americans.

* The strong relationship between chlorination of drinking water contaminated with organic chemicals, such as decayed leaves in reservoirs, and bladder and rectal cancers; this is due to the formation of potent carcinogens, known as trihalomethanes (THMs), including chloroform and carbon tetrachloride.

* The herbicide atrazine, extensively used in the U.S. on cornfields and lawns, while banned in most European nations, is the most common pollutant in rainwater, snow runoff, ground water and drinking water. A series of epidemiological studies over the last decade have incriminated atrazine as a cause of non-Hodgkin's and Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate and ovarian cancer, while atrazine has also been shown to induce breast cancer in rodents, and endocrine disruptive effects (27). Against this background of NCI's silence is the April, 2002 headline news following publication of evidence that atrazine induces multiple sex organ abnormalities in frogs at levels in water as low as 0.1 parts per billion (28).

* The relationship between fluoridation of drinking water, with industrial fluorosilicate wastes (contaminated with carcinogenic heavy metals), and bone cancer in young men; fluoride is added to the water supply of about 60% of the U.S. population, in contrast to only 2% of the European population, which has much lower rates of dental caries.

* The strong relation between lung cancer and its non-smoking attributable causes, including air pollution with diesel exhaust, and a wide range of carcinogenic occupational exposures.

* The commonplace recycling of toxic wastes, containing heavy metals, dioxins, and radionuclides, into common plant food and farm fertilizers. These wastes bioaccumulate in soil, and contaminate food, water, and air (29). Of major concern is the increasing and systematic recycling of radioactive wastes from nuclear reactors and weapons facilities into building materials and consumer products, such as cutlery, frying pans, bicycles and baby strollers; this recycling has been authorized by the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, under heavy pressure from the nuclear industry.

* The strong relationships between exposures to global atmospheric weapons fallout from 1959-1963, and to more recent environmental releases of novel radioisotopes from nuclear power stations and the escalating incidence of breast, thyroid, prostate cancers, and childhood leukemia, and brain cancer (30).

* The relationship between childhood cancer and radioactive emissions from 103 aging nuclear power plants; notorious among these is the Indian Point complex, with its worst safety rating, located in a densely populated region within a 50 mile radius encompassing 7% of the U.S. population. High and increasing levels of radioactive Strontium-90 in baby teeth of this population, the “Tooth Fairy Study” (31), support this evidence.

* The relationship between electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiation from domestic appliances, cell phones, proximity of residence to power lines, and electrical and other occupations to a wide range of cancers. These include male and female breast cancers, brain cancer, and adult and childhood leukemia (32).

Occupational

Some 11 million men and 4 million women are exposed occupationally to industrial chemicals, and ionizing and EMF radiation; these are well recognized as causes of a wide range of cancers, including lung.

The strong relationship between non-Hodgkin’s and Hodgkin's lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia and exposure to herbicides, particularly 2,4-D, in agricultural workers, and Agent Orange in U.S. military personnel.

Yellowcake Trail Series - A History of Uranium in Canada

Low Dose Radiation Research Program
http://lowdose.energy.gov

To learn about nuclear power, safety, and regulatory protections, we recommend the following sources of useful information:
Additionally, we recommend you visit the "Ionizing Radiation Dose Ranges Charts(PDF)" to gain a feel for the different amounts of exposures that humans may encounter.

 

 

 

We research the health effects of ionising radiation
We demand a re-evaluation of the risks of radioactive pollution 
417,000 cancers forecast for Fukushima 200 km contamination zone by 2061  

 

 Helen Caldicott, MD
http://www.helencaldicott.com

 

Beyond Nuclear

working for a world free from nuclear power and nuclear weapons

 

When the Dust Settles

( This is the apologetic and sanitized presentation - which is horrendous enough )

 

Global Research News Highlights - DU

Depleted Uranium - A Way Out?
- by Felicity Arbuthnot - 2007-06-03
“Depleted” is a misnomer. These weapons are made from waste from the nuclear fuel cycle. They contain the whole lethal nuclear cocktail...

The Horror of Depleted Uranium is not limited to Iraq
- by James Denver - 2005-05-06
For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain.

Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War
- by Leuren Moret - 2004-07-08
Depleted uranium aerosols will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those regions.

Depleted uranium: an overview of its properties and health effects  
Mar 2002
For some years after the Gulf War, many US and European veterans deployed in the region during the war complained of vague incapacitating symptoms that have been termed ‘Gulf War syndrome’ [5,6]. The US Department of Defense treated this illness as ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ and advised military doctors to treat it with muscle relaxants and sleeping pills while ordering a mental illness assessment [1]. Arguments about the issue have continued for years, some authors describing it as a myth invented by the media [7], others documenting the symptoms reported by the veterans. These symptoms were multiple, consisting mainly of chronic fatigue, headache, muscle and joint pain, sleep disturbances, bladder dysfunction, sweating disturbances, skin manifestations, menstrual disorders, as well as neurological, psychological, respiratory, gastrointestinal and cardiac symptoms [5,6,8]. Over time, the focus shifted to more serious health risks and a number of dangerous conditions became linked to depleted uranium exposure. These included cancers of different types, renal diseases, as well as congenital anomalies and perinatal deaths among the neonates of veterans [3,9–14]. These health concerns triggered an explosion of interest in the subject as the affected veterans started to campaign for more information about the relationship between their illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium.

If the Gulf War veterans who were temporarily stationed in the region were indeed victims of depleted uranium, what could have been the impact of this substance on the health of the residents of the region and surrounding countries? Most studies from Iraq have concentrated on the impact of the United Nations’ sanctions against Iraq on nutritional deficiencies and on children’s health. A few studies in the Gulf countries have noted an increased incidence of abortion and perinatal and infant mortality since the Gulf War [15–17], but no adequate in-depth research has been performed on the link between the war and serious health conditions. Many issues concerning the effect of depleted uranium on the health of the residents of the war countries and the surrounding regions remain unexplored.

This review of depleted uranium—its origin, properties, uses and impact on the human environment and health—aims to trigger further research on the subject. Internet and MEDLINE searches were performed to extract information on depleted uranium and its health effects. Information was mainly taken from published research on depleted uranium in general and from the Gulf War in particular......The primary stochastic effect associated with radiation exposure is cancer.
.....Exposure to radiation can also affect the reproductive system, causing infertility or damage to the father’s sperm or mother’s egg. Genetic damage is possible, leading to spontaneous abortion, premature death or congenital anomalies. Some forms of genetic damage are not seen in the first or second generations but only later after several generations have passed.

Another danger of exposure to low-dose radiation is biological damage in the form of monocyte depletion, leading to iron deficiency anaemia and a depressed cellular immune system. Radiation also deforms red blood cells, inhibiting their passage into the tiny capillaries and depriving the muscles and brain of adequate oxygen and nutrients. This can lead to impairment of many organs especially the kidneys, liver, lungs and cardiovascular and haematopoietic systems.

Radiation can cause disorders of protein and carbohydrate metabolism, leading to symptoms ranging from severe headache to brain dysfunction. Mental retardation owing to brain damage of the fetus has also been described as a result of radiation exposure in the womb during the critical period when the child’s brain is being formed.

The chemical toxicity of depleted uranium results from its interaction with the biochemical processes of the human body. Chemically, depleted uranium damages kidney function in humans. The proximal tubules are the main site of potential damage. The types of damage that have been observed are nodular changes to the surface of the kidney, lesions to the tubular epithelium and increased levels of glucose and protein in the urine.
Conclusion

If depleted uranium were indeed used in the Gulf War, it will certainly have constituted an enormous health hazard not only to the US and European veterans deployed in the region during the war but also to the residents of the war countries and surrounding areas. The extent of the region affected has not been determined and the long-term dangers remain unidentified.

The Birth Defects of Fallujah
Jan 8 2012

 

Global Research News Highlights - Nuclear War

America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya
- by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - 2011-03-30
Thinking the Unthinkable. The Pentagon's Plan to Nuke Libya
Nuclear Apocalypse in Japan
- by Keith Harmon Snow - 2011-03-18
Humanity now faces a deadly serious challenge coming out of Japan -- the epicenter of radiation.
VIDEO: Fidel’s Message against Nuclear War: "In a Nuclear War the 'Collateral Damage' would be the Life of All Humanity."
- by Fidel Castro Ruz - 2010-10-21
A forceful message calling for World peace and the survival of humankind.
Missing Nukes: Treason of the Highest Order
- by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - 2007-10-29
Unauthorized removal of nuclear weapons would be virtually impossible to accomplish unless the chain of command were bypassed.

 Uranium bombing in Iraq contaminates Europe

 

International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons

 

22 Apr 2010 - DU Update

 

DEPLETED URANIUM BURNING: AN  E T E R N A L  MEDICAL  DISASTER  

DEPLETED URANIUM ALERT!

 

Depleted Uranium and the Medical Mismanagement of Gulf War Veterans

 Depleted Uranium: Dirty Bombs, Dirty Missiles, Dirty Bullets

 Depleted Uranium: Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke 

 Blowin in the Wind : The Untold True Story of a Great Big Lie!

Blowin' in the Wind - Bullet & a Target version  -YouTube

starDUst : the Dr. Douglas Rokke Foundation

The Human Costs of Nuclear Power  HuffPo

Energy Efficiency : Uncounted Costs

India's generation of children crippled by uranium waste

Observer investigation uncovers link between dramatic rise in birth defects in Punjab and pollution from coal-fired power stations
Health workers in the Punjabi cities of Bathinda and Faridkot knew something was terribly wrong when they saw a sharp increase in the number of birth defects, physical and mental abnormalities, and cancers. They suspected that children were being slowly poisoned.

But it was only when a visiting scientist arranged for tests to be carried out at a German laboratory that the true nature of their plight became clear. The results were unequivocal. The children had massive levels of uranium in their bodies, in one case more than 60 times the maximum safe limit.

The results were both momentous and mysterious. Uranium occurs naturally throughout the world, but is normally only present in low background levels which pose no threat to human health. There was no obvious source in the Punjab that could account for such high levels of contamination.

And if a few hundred children – spread over a large area – were contaminated, how many thousands more might also be affected? Those are questions the Indian authorities appear determined not to answer. Staff at the clinics say they were visited and threatened with closure if they spoke out. The South African scientist whose curiosity exposed the scandal says she has been warned by the authorities that she may not be allowed back into the country.

But an Observer investigation has now uncovered disturbing evidence to suggest a link between the contamination and the region's coal-fired power stations. It is already known that the fine fly ash produced when coal is burned contains concentrated levels of uranium and a new report published by Russia's leading nuclear research institution warns of an increased radiation hazard to people living near coal-fired thermal power stations.

The test results for children born and living in areas around the state's power stations show high levels of uranium in their bodies. Tests on ground water show that levels of uranium around the plants are up to 15 times the World Health Organisation's maximum safe limits. Tests also show that it extends across large parts of the state, which is home to 24 million people.

The findings have implications not only for the rest of India – Punjab produces two-thirds of the wheat in the country's central reserves and 40% of its rice – but for many other countries planning to build new power plants, including China, Russia, India, Germany and the US. In Britain, there are plans for a coal-fired station at the Kingsnorth facility in Kent.

The victims are being treated at the Baba Farid centres for special children in Bathinda – where there are two coal-fired thermal plants – and in nearby Faridkot. It was staff at those clinics who first voiced concerns about the increasing numbers of admissions involving severely handicapped children. They were being born with hydrocephaly, microcephaly, cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome and other complications. Several have already died.

Dr Pritpal Singh, who runs the Faridkot clinic, said the numbers of children affected by the pollution had risen dramatically in the past six or seven years. But he added that the Indian authorities appeared determined to bury the scandal. "They can't just detoxify these kids, they have to detoxify the whole Punjab. That is the reason for their reluctance," he said. "They threatened us and said if we didn't stop commenting on what's happening, they would close our clinic.

Uranium Mining is Poisoning the Bread Basket of the World

 Poisoning of the people in the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations has been going on for decades and has had serious effects on their health. Even today, it is unknown what the full effects are and what the impact is on the rest of the nation because the contaminated air and water are not limited by borders. Most Americans are unaware of the story of uranium mining on tribal lands because it is a difficult story to accept. It is a story that includes the long history of human rights abuses by the US against native Indians and recognition of the full costs of nuclear energy – two stories the government and big energy have suppressed.

 

NukeFree.Org
The Uranium & Weapons Connection
Despite the nuclear energy industry's well-funded efforts to convince the public otherwise, uranium fuel for atomic power plants is in limited supply. Like coal, oil and gas, it will soon run out, leaving scores of giant reactors useless and abandoned.

Also like fossil fuels, the impact of mining and processing fuel for nuclear power plants involves huge impacts on humans and the environment. With mines mostly in Australia, the American west, Canada, and central and southern Africa, atomic power has created huge ecological crises whose solutions are a long way off and are already proving to be exceedingly expensive.

When uranium ore is gouged out the ground, it emits radon gas that fills mine shafts with deadly fumes. Uranium miners throughout the world have historically suffered from abnormally high lung cancer rates. They also die in the same kinds of accidents that kill coal and other ore miners.

When the raw uranium is brought to the surface, it's milled into fine sands called tailings. Billions of tons of these waste granules are dumped near milling plants throughout the world, emitting huge quantities of radioactive radon gas, a well-known cause of lung cancer. Radon emissions from mills in Colorado and New Mexico have been tracked as far away as New York City and Washington DC. They are the number one source of increased background radiation from the atomic fuel cycle.

Alongside the mills are huge ponds of acid solutions used to separate the usable uranium isotopes from the waste. These ponds are extremely lethal to human beings and poisonous to the environment. Periodically the dams holding them back break, wrecking ghastly havoc on the regions downstream.

The percentage of uranium usable for fuel is less than 5% of the total ore dug out of the ground. Those rare isotopes must then be enriched in giant factories that are extremely inefficient. The dominant process actually coverts the solid ore into a gas (uranium hexafluoride), and then back to solids. The plants consume huge quantities of energy, most of it now generated by fossil fuels.

The biggest enrichment plant in the US, at Paducah, Kentucky, is powered by two huge coal plants. Though the nuke reactor industry claims to generate about 18% of the nation's electricity, some 3% of the nation's electricity is used to refine uranium for those power plants.

At every stage of the mining, milling and enrichment process, significant quantities of fossil fuel-generated greenhouse gases are poured into the atmosphere. The idea that the nuclear fuel cycle “creates no greenhouse gas emissions” is a deliberately and dangerously misleading myth.

The spent fuel rods from atomic reactors remain intensely radioactive for centuries, and are among the most lethal industrial objects ever created by human beings. Standing within a few feet of a single rod can result in death in less than five minutes.

In recent years the nuke power industry has tried to revive the myth of reprocessing, by which spent fuel can be re-formed into usable fuel. The technology has been tried in a number of nations, including the US. But it is prohibitively expensive, and makes no economic sense. It also generates substantial new quantities of intensely radioactive waste for which no long-term disposal methods have been discovered.

Reprocessing also creates large quantities of weapons-grade plutonium, the material used to build the Bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. Making more plutonium under any circumstances threatens the world with the production of still more atomic weapons. India, Pakistan, South Africa and Israel, along with numerous other countries, are known to have fashioned nuclear weapons from uranium extracted from ostensibly civilian nuclear power programs. Recently the United States has threatened war with Iran on the presumption that the civilian enrichment process would give them the fissionable materials needed to build their own atomic weapons.

From start to finish, from mining, milling, enrichment, fissioning and waste disposal to the failed re-use of radioactive fuel, the nuclear fuel cycle has proven catastrophic for human and ecological health, for the economy, and for the proliferation of atomic weapons.

But no radioactive windmill wastes will ever be used to destroy a city. Solar panels will not emit cancer-causing radon gas.
Blighted Homeland (Los Angeles Times four-part series)

The New Nukes

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009 Wall Street Journal The next generation of nuclear reactors is on its way, and supporters say they will be safer, cheaper and more efficient than current plants. Here's a look at ... read more

If this is a nuclear resurgence, what would a retreat look like?

by Michael Mariotte More bad news for those who still believe that we're about to enter a nuclear power renaissance, rather than the full-scale nuclear-powered retreat from those halcyon days of ... read more

Nuclear opponents attacking from many angles

Lawsuit may halt reactor construction By Walter C. Jones | Morris News Service | Story updated at 8:50 pm on 9/5/2009 ATLANTA - The question of a controversial law's constitutionality could halt ... read more

Nuclear History Blog

Indigenous Peoples Call for Global Ban on Uranium Mining


Indigenous peoples from around the world, victims of uranium mining, nuclear testing, and nuclear dumping, issued a global ban on uranium mining on native lands.
The declaration, signed during the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, held Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2006 on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Arizona, brought together Australian aboriginals and villagers from India and Africa. Pacific islanders joined with indigenous peoples from the Americas to take action and halt the cancer, birth defects, and death from uranium and nuclear industries on native lands.
Villagers from India testified to the alarming number of babies who die before they are born or are born with serious birth defects, and of the high rates of cancer that are claiming the lives of those who live near the uranium mines.
Nuclear Free Future Award recipients and presenters: Standing, from left to right: Phil Harrison, Gordon Edwards, Paul Robinson, Willem Malten, Manny Pino, Heike Hoedt, Feng Congde, Esther Yazzie-Lewis, Chris Shuey, Ed Grothus, Claus Biegert, Jill Momaday-Gray. Kneeling and sitting in front, from left to right: Wolfgang Scheffler, Robert Del Tredici, Sofia Martinez.
Australia Aboriginal Rebecca Bear-Wingfield, stolen as an infant and now an activist, told of the death threats for those who oppose the expansion of uranium mining in South Australia. Corporations have attempted to buy Aboriginals' approval for new uranium mining projects on native lands.
From northern China came the voice of Sun Xiaodi, a whistleblower who has exposed massive unregulated uranium contamination. Xiaodi is now under house arrest in Gansu Province after he was "disappeared" and imprisoned in 2004-2005.
Xiaodi, along with five other anti-nuclear activists, was awarded the Nuclear-Free Future Award in 2006. The awards highlighted not only the personal and collective achievements of the recipients but also the international collaboration that has grown within the movement. Those honored came from several continents.

Organizing International Resistance to Uranium Mining: From Salzburg to Window Rock

The Navajo Nation provides a fitting backdrop for discussions of the dangers of uranium mining. The history of uranium mining on these native lands goes back decades to when Navajo workers were sent to their deaths in Cold War uranium mines, unknowingly aiding the production of the world's first weapons of mass destruction.
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. remarked, "As a result, radiation exposure has cost the Navajo Nation the accumulated wisdom, knowledge, stories, songs, and ceremonies--to say nothing of the lives--of hundreds of our people. Now, aged Navajo uranium miners and their families continue to fight the Cold War in their doctors' offices as they try to understand how the invisible killer of radiation exposure left them with many forms of cancer and other illnesses decades after leaving the uranium mines."
The tragedy spurred a growing resistance to the mines, and the Navajo Nation today is at the head of an international movement. In one of the movement's greatest achievements, in 2005 the tribe passed the Dineh Natural Resources Protection Act banning uranium mining on Navajo lands. Norman Brown, a Navajo and member of the organization Dineh Bidzill Coalition that co-organized the Summit, said, "The heart of this movement is here--we are at the center of this movement today."

Major challenges

For years uranium mining was shrouded in secrecy as part of the Cold War and its victims were isolated.
Compensation has been hard to win in the courts and although recognized in the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act for Navajo Uranium Miners, only a small percentage of mining families have received their due.
A general lack of political power in indigenous communities makes them easy marks for dangerous uranium mining and dumping projects.
The rising price of uranium has caused renewed pressure on indigenous lands.
Like Navajos, Pueblos were also victims of the Cold War. As the truth emerged, Navajo and Pueblos in nearby New Mexico at first believed they were the lone victims of this death march. Uranium mining was enveloped in secrecy and carried out surreptitiously under the guise of national security, shielding it from public scrutiny and isolating its victims.
But as they became more vocal in their demands, the peoples of the U.S. Southwest soon met indigenous peoples from other parts of the world who shared similar histories as victims of uranium mining, nuclear testing, and nuclear waste dumps. Indignation grew as they realized that American Indian uranium miners in both the United States and Canada had been sent to their deaths to work in the uranium mines long after scientists warned of the health hazards of radon gas and radiation.
The first international meeting to exchange experiences and begin to develop demands took place at the World Uranium Hearing in Salzburg, Austria, in 1992, where activists began their struggle to halt uranium mining on indigenous land. In the words of the organizers, the Navajo meeting was held to follow up on that experience, develop coordinated actions and issue an international and energetic call for a halt to uranium mining on native lands throughout the world.
More than 300 participants from 14 countries participated in the event, with speeches covering all aspects of uranium mining, international activists efforts to halt the mining, and the devastating health effects.
Their message to the world: "Leave the uranium in the ground."

Global Threats to Local Life: Defending Communities

At the Navajo summit, Manuel Pino, Acoma Pueblo from New Mexico and college professor, recalled that in Salzburg, Dene from Canada described the cancer that resulted from working in uranium mines without protective clothing. Mining in Canada and the United States was often carried out by the same corporations.
"As we went to Salzburg, we realized that many of our people were sick and dying," Pino said. He pointed out that Laguna Pueblo's Paguate village is only 2,000 feet from the largest open-pit uranium mine in North America , the Jackpile Mine. Pino said radioactive particles have been found in the animals, water, air, and in the bodies of people of the Pueblos.
Residents of the Laguna Pueblo waged a pitched battle for reclamation of the Jackpile Mine. Originally owned by Anaconda, and now owned by Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) the lease owners simply walked away when mining stopped, leaving radioactive waste strewn and the earth torn apart. Ultimately, reclamation efforts began, but it was too late for the many Pueblos dying or already dead from cancer.
Pino noted that Acoma Pueblo members live downwind and downstream from the Grants, New Mexico, mineral belt--a 60-mile stretch where uranium was produced from 1948 through the 1990s. He claimed that most of the uranium mined on Indian lands by the United States Department of Defense was used in the production of weapons of mass destruction.
According to Pino, recent efforts endorsed by the United States and other nations to stall passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations stem from material interests. He stated that indigenous peoples have vast mineral resources beneath the surface of their lands, along with timber, water and other natural resources, and these nations view the exercise of indigenous rights as a threat to corporate access to and exploitation of this natural wealth.
"Our permanent sovereignty over our resources is a threat to the nation states of the world," Pino told the uranium summit.
He added that here on the Navajo Nation in the past the tribe has entered into leases that favor the corporations, often without being duly informed of the risks. In the Pueblos, he said, the people were never told of the harm that would result from the radioactive dust settling on their traditional drying fruit and drying meat.
Nation states, he said, do not realize that Indigenous Peoples take their responsibility as caretakers of Mother Earth seriously and will not back down. Recalling the words of Sitting Bull, Pino urged the people to "come together to form a fist to protect Mother Earth."
Carletta Tilousi, Havasupai from the Grand Canyon in Arizona, attended both uranium summits, in Salzburg and Window Rock. Tilousi praised Havasupai tribal leaders for passing a ban on uranium mining in Havasupai territory in the Grand Canyon and placing the ban in the Havasupai Tribal Constitution.
Still, with the rising price of uranium and new threats to Indian lands, Tilousi said tribes must be vigilant to support one another in the protection of Mother Earth.

search results "tag:uranium mining"


India's generation of children crippled by uranium waste

Health workers in the Punjabi cities of Bathinda and Faridkot knew something was terribly wrong when they saw a sharp increase in the number of birth defects, physical and mental abnormalities, and cancers. They suspected that children were being slowly poisoned. But it was only when a visiting scientist arranged for tests to be carried out at a German laboratory that the true nature of their plight became clear. The results were unequivocal. The children had massive levels of uranium in their bodies, in one case more than 60 times the maximum safe limit.
no commentscategory: Environment karma: 122

Havasupai Gather to Halt Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon

". . .Havasupai elders gathered on sacred Red Butte and listened to the legacy of uranium mining on Indian lands. They heard directly from the victims of the trail of death and cancer left behind by uranium mining corporations that were never held responsible on Pueblo and Navajo lands in the Southwest United States. They also listened to the promise of solidarity from the hundreds who gathered here to stand with them: Navajos from Big Mountain, Hualapai, Hopi, Kaibab Paiute, Paiute, Aztecs, and other American Indians from throughout the Americas."
2 commentscategory: Environment karma: 122

NYT: 137 Years Later

It’s hard to believe that the 1872 mining law is still with us. Signed by Ulysses S. Grant four years before the invention of the telephone, the law sets the rules for mining hardrock minerals like gold and copper. Useful in the days of westward expansion, it is a disaster now. It demands no royalties from the mining companies and provides minimal environmental protections. Its legacy, if it can be called that, is a battered landscape of abandoned mines and poisoned streams. Republican and Democratic presidents alike have urged Congress to reform the law. Yet it survives, thanks largely to Congressional inertia and friends in high places. At the moment, that friend is Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader who resists reform because mining is big business in his home state of Nevada.

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