Uranium

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…

Residents of McKinley County in northwestern New Mexico have long complained of health problems associated with uranium mining. A new study looks at the…

KUNM Call In Show 6/18 8a: There are well over 100 abandoned uranium mines in New Mexico, and most of them are on Navajo land. Many communities are still…