By Kelly Lundeen
On Tuesday, July 30, Navajo Nation police attempted to stop a truck shipment of radioactive uranium ore on the reservation. Energy Fuels Resources, Inc. successfully crossed the Nation going from the Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona to the White Mesa Mill in southeastern Utah more than 300 miles away. The truck crossing was in violation of the Nation’s “Radioactive and Related Substances Equipment, Vehicles, Persons, and Materials Transportation Act” passed by the tribal government in 2012, which prohibits such transports.
Navajo Nation president Buu Nygren told Four Corners Public Radio KSUT, “Once they enter the boundaries of the Navajo Nation, they’re on Navajo land. They need to follow Navajo law. They snuck through the Navajo Nation, and they made it to the Utah side, outside of the reservation. So to me, they operated covertly to travel the Navajo Nation illegally.”
The illegal two-truck shipment not only broke Navajo Nation law, it was an infringement on an agreement that Energy Fuels had made to notify the Tribe and other entities two weeks prior to any transport. While Energy Fuels asserts that it briefed stakeholders of the ore transport with adequate notice, neither of the appropriate tribal authorities, the Navajo Nation EPA and the Havasupai Tribal Council, were ever contacted, deepening a lack of trust. Energy Fuels is a Canadian company that owns the Pinyon Plain mine and the White Mesa Mill.
While ignoring months of pressure and over 17,000 petitions from tribal members and environmental advocates, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs responded to the Navajo Nation President and arranged to uphold the uranium transport ban temporarily while Navajo Nation and Energy Fuels negotiate terms for its safest possible transport. On August 29, Navajo Nation reaffirmed its opposition to radioactive transports by amending the 2012 ban. The new legislation extends the required notification time prior to transport from four to seven days, and authorizes the Navajo Nation EPA to create “reasonable license fees, bonding requirements, route restrictions, curfews and other terms.” It no longer acknowledges the Nation’s right to exclude non-Tribal members from entry onto Navajo Nation lands.
The transport pause remains in effect, so while a small battle has been won for now, the struggle against nuclear colonialism will continue. The land where the Pinyon Plain mine is located was stolen from the Havasupai people who oppose the mine. Under the 1872 mining law still in effect in many areas, lands such as Pinyon Plain, were taken from the original Indigenous owners and given to anyone who could prove there were minerals. The ore is transported through ancestral lands of the Diné People, Ute Mountain Utes, and other tribal communities, to the mill — without free, prior, or informed consent of any.
Over 500 abandoned uranium mines remain on Navajo Nation without remediation. The Navajo Birth Cohort Study has shown that at birth, babies are already carrying uranium in their bodies in areas uranium mining previously occurred. Thousands of Navajo have been killed or sickened with cancers, birth defects, and other terminal illnesses as a result of uranium mining and milling. Extraction at Pinyon Plain continues, and uranium ore is expected to be delivered to the mill as interstate commerce laws of the U.S. federal government protect industries in spite of other nations’ laws. Meanwhile, the Indigenous-led organization Haul No! continues to spread awareness while monitoring the mine and transportation route.
On both the national and global scale, the economic outlook for uranium is on the rise as it is necessary to fuel both the renewed arms race and push for new commercial reactors. The price of uranium reached a 17-year high in January after many had assumed the days of uranium mining in the United States were over. U.S. production hit a low at 21,000 pounds in 2021 with only three operating mines. However, during the first six months of 2024 (the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported) uranium ore production via in-situ leaching reached 180,242 pounds, putting it on track to be the highest since 2019. This does not include the astounding 9-million-pound stockpile stranded at the Pinyon Plain mine. Navajo Nation and Energy Fuels must negotiate an agreement on monitoring, fees, and regulations, prior to restarting transport. In addition to the five mines currently operating in Wyoming, Arizona, and Texas, new mines in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming are projected to open or reopen in the coming years.
— Sources: Grand Canyon Trust, Fall/Winter 2024; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Sept. 19 & May 23, 2024; 25th Navajo Nation Council, Aug. 26, 2024; and Navajo Birth Cohort Study Preliminary Results, Oct. 7, 2019
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