Nancy Kile won’t drink water from the tap. Not many people in Crawford, Nebraska do, she says, because they fear the local groundwater is contaminated with uranium. At the Crow Butte Mine, not far from this small town in the northwest corner of the state, uranium was extracted from beneath the earth until recently, in a process that pollutes some of the region’s aquifers.
Kile belongs to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which has spent more than a decade challenging licenses for the Crow Butte Mine. The tribe argues not only that the mining poses health risks to the community, but also that it threatens cultural heritage sites. In June 2018, the mine’s owner, Cameco, suspended all US uranium production as the price of the radioactive metal hovered at historic lows. But that didn’t end the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s fight, because Cameco kept working to expand the mine, in the hopes that it could become profitable again...