Uranium mining has exacted a serious toll across the Colorado Plateau, especially on tribal lands. Estimates suggest there have been over 1,000 uranium mines and four uranium mills on the Navajo Nation alone.
With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, uranium's legacy of contamination will always be with us. Decades of uranium mining have left behind polluted soil, air, and water that continue to poison communities and landscapes on the Colorado Plateau today.
Over 500 abandoned uranium mines litter the Navajo Nation and have yet to be cleaned up.
The largest radioactive spill in U.S. history occurred in Church Rock, on the Navajo Nation, in 1979.
Waste and tailings piles have leached into the ground, contaminating waters and soil.
Exposure to uranium can be linked to lung and bone cancer and other health problems, including autoimmune disfunction, kidney disease, reproductive disfunction, and high blood pressure. For Navajo communities exposed to uranium, there are also serious psychological and emotional impacts, including forced displacement from ancestral land and cultural identity.
The nuclear race of the 1950s launched a government-sponsored uranium boom. Thousands of prospectors rushed to the Southwest in search of yellow dirt, digging thousands of uranium mines across the Colorado Plateau. But by the end of the decade, with uranium reserves brimming, the government began to curtail its purchases. The boom become a bust. Mining companies that could no longer turn a profit commonly walked away, abandoning mines without cleaning them up as would be required today.
Another surge in the mid-2000s prompted mining claims alarmingly close to the Grand Canyon’s north and south rims. Uranium's boom and bust cycle has left thousands of abandoned mines in need of clean-up, while many others hang in limbo waiting for uranium prices to spike again.
America may have won the Cold War, but a decade after the collapse of the Sovet Union, Utah is left with a toxic legacy that has killed and sickened untold thousands of uranium miners and mill workers, contaminated water supplies for generations to come, and infected an otherwise stunning redrock landscape with millions of tons of radioactive mill tailings..."
– Jerry D. Spangler (author) and Donna Kemp Spangler (author and communications director, Utah Department of Environmental Quality)
Uranium deposits sit deep within the inner folds of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone layers that characterize the Southwest. Breccia pipes, one of the most common types of uranium deposits on the Colorado Plateau, typically range from 100 – 400 feet in diameter and can be up to 3,000 feet deep.
Open pit mining: strips away topsoil and rock above the uranium ore
Underground mining: extracts rock through a tunnel or other opening
Chemical dissolution: uranium ore deposits are dissolved into a solution and extracted
After uranium is mined, it must be milled to remove the uranium from the ore. At the mill, ore is crushed, ground, and treated with chemicals to dissolve the uranium into a solution. The final product, commonly referred to as “yellow cake,” is packed and shipped in casks.
The U.S. has only one operating conventional uranium mill, the White Mesa Uranium Mill in southeastern Utah.
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