Uranium

It’s been 45 years since the largest radioactive release in U.S. history occurred at Church Rock New Mexico. Members of the Navajo Nation will gather on Saturday to commemorate the anniversary of the uranium spill.

New Mexicans who lived near the first atomic blast have never been compensated. All of that could have finally changed last year, as Congress considered an expansion of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act with bipartisan support. But during last-minute negotiations over defense spending, relief for people in New Mexico and potentially tens of thousands of others nationwide was unceremoniously nixed from the legislation.

In the rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. Mining companies built dozens of mills and processing sites to refine uranium ore. But the government didn’t have a plan for the toxic byproducts, many of which are known to cause health problems. Reporters from the nonprofit ProPublica investigated the impact on water sources.

President Biden on Tuesday signed an extension to a law compensating those impacted by uranium extraction and nuclear weapons testing. Without the extension the program would have expired next month

According to the report from the conservation nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust, the White Mesa Mill, the last functioning uranium mill in the U.S., stores over 700 million pounds of radioactive waste. During a press conference Tuesday, Tim Peterson, the cultural landscapes director with the trust, said it threatens the air, water and people of Utah.

Members of the Navajo Nation and others want to extend and expand a law that helps people contaminated by uranium mines and nuclear testing.

As the U.S. prepared to detonate the first atomic bomb in New Mexico in the ’40s, the federal government sought uranium on Navajo land. Decades later,…

Since the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in 1945, people who have lived downwind from the Trinity testing site have complained of negative health…

SHIPROCK, N.M.—Navajo youth are walking hundreds of miles across their reservation for what they call a Journey for Existence. They will be summiting one…

During the Cold War, the Navajo Nation found itself in the middle of a uranium mining boom. Today, more than 500 mines on the reservation are shut down or…