By Leona Morgan
In November 2023, from the other side of the planet, then President Biden announced that the United States would commit to tripling nuclear power by 2050, claiming it’s a solution to climate change, thereby igniting a new wave of uranium interests and continued resource colonialism worldwide. Since then, more than 30 countries have followed suit, prompting a new uranium boom, or more likely a new uranium bubble.
Uranium is a necessary component for both nuclear energy and weapons. From cradle to grave, fossil fuels are used for production and transport of nuclear materials. Because the carbon output of front-end and back-end processes are not counted in the carbon footprint of nuclear development, states have been passing new laws proclaiming that nuclear is a “carbon-free” or “clean energy” resource ⸺ fueling this nuclear propaganda fire.
Trump has issued several executive orders pushing for bad energy projects including more nuclear, as well as shrinking National Monuments and fast-tracking mines. This puts all communities near uranium deposits and abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) at risk of new and continued radioactive contamination and exposures. 
New uranium mining started in the Southwest in late 2023, with uranium ore stockpiling near the Grand Canyon, beginning in January 2024, at Energy Fuels’ Pinyon Plain uranium mine. Uranium transport between the Grand Canyon and the Four Corners areas, from the mine to the mill, started in July 2024 and was temporarily paused for six months.
“Haul No!” is a Diné-led campaign focused on stopping transport of uranium through Diné traditional homelands. Due to impacts still endured by Diné residents from the Manhattan Project, the Navajo Nation has a law prohibiting new uranium mining on the reservation. The Navajo Nation also had a law prohibiting uranium transport, which was recently amended from banning transport to regulating transport.
Haul No! used community organizing and social media to boost awareness and inspire resistance to new mining and transport. The campaign was successful in getting the Navajo Nation government involved, which garnered support from Governor Hobbs of Arizona to pause the transport. Unexpectedly, the Navajo Nation ended up going into business with Energy Fuels, allowing transport from both the Pinyon Plain mine and another proposed uranium mine in New Mexico. The Roca Honda mine is at the base of sacred Tsoodził, also known as Mt. Taylor. Under the guise of “cleanup,” the tribe is also allowing additional transport from AUMs to Energy Fuel’s White Mesa Mill in southeast Utah, exacerbating impacts to the Ute Mountain Ute nation.
The Navajo Nation has at least 523 AUMs and several uranium mills scattered throughout and around Diné Bikeyah (traditional homelands), none of which are properly cleaned up, creating health risks for local communities. In a misguided attempt to remediate these AUMs, the Navajo Nation is looking to Disa Technologies, a company proposing “ablation,” which uses water to separate more radioactive wastes [using high-pressure water to separate usable uranium from mine waste] for removal to White Mesa Mill, leaving other non-profitable contamination on Navajo. However, ablation, as a means of uranium production, violates Navajo Nation law. In addition to AUMs, four former uranium mills located on Navajo are ongoing sources of surface and groundwater contamination, also not adequately addressed by the federal government.
Like the proposed copper mine threatening sacred Apache Oakflat in Arizona, hard rock mines established under the 1872 mining law exist by design to steal Indigenous homelands. With this old law and new push for domestic energy independence, Indigenous nations are working around the clock to protect their communities and sacred places from various extractive industry and energy projects: from lithium, hydrogen and rare earth elements production to pumped storage hydropower, renewed coal mining and beyond.
Uranium mining is just one part of a larger fight against resource exploitation, racism, genocide, capitalism, imperialism, and greenwashing, all under the umbrella of nuclear colonialism.
This year, several new mining and milling proposals are on the table in the Intermountain West region, using both conventional and in situ leach methods. The Velvet-Wood uranium and vanadium mine in Utah was green lit by the Trump administration in only fourteen days! With the price of uranium exceeding $100/pound (USD) last year, and the onslaught of Trump’s push for critical minerals and national security, this uranium bubble has just begun. In order to fight nuclear colonialism, the front-end of both nuclear energy and weapons needs to be stopped.
— Leona Morgan (she/her), co-founder of Haul No!, is a Diné activist and community organizer fighting nuclear colonialism, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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