Aging uranium soldiers await aid
Families struggle with aftermath
Tom Purdom
Staff Writer
HAYSTACK — Local miners who crawled into black holes to bring
out uranium for America's atomic arsenal were the behind-the-scene
soldiers during the Cold War. Now many of them, their bodies ravaged
with disease because of that work, are waiting for help.
For some, such as Louis Lueras, who died from cancer
in 1989, it is too late.
But others, such as Harold and Elsie Platero of Haystack, west of
Grants, are still alive. For how long is anyone's guess. Each has
diseased lungs or other problems caused by years of being in and around
uranium mining.
Paddy Martinez, a Navajo, discovered the area's uranium in the 1950s.
Now his grandson, Melton Martinez of Haystack, works to bring justice
to the sick miners, particularly those of Navajo descent, including
his father. Martinez is director of the Navajo RECA Reform Coalition.
RECA stands for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, passed by
Congress in 1990.
Paul Hicks, who has fibrosis of the lungs because of the years he
spent in the mines, can be found in Grants, a few miles east of where
Martinez lives. In a recent speech to President Clinton about a bill
to reform RECA, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., called Hicks a hero
of the RECA reform cause.
The reform bill, known as Senate Bill 1515, makes the process of compensating
miners and other victims of radiation exposure fairer and more efficient.
If the reform bill becomes law, above-ground miners, millers and workers
involved in transporting uranium will be eligible for compensation.
Only underground miners were covered under the original RECA.
The reform bill also extends coverage to victims of radioactive fallout
from aboveground nuclear weapons tests in Western states, and more
specifically, Navajo lands that were previously excluded. These individuals
are known as "downwinders."
The Platero family lives within a few miles of the mines where uranium
was extracted until the late 1980s. Some nights, 56-year-old Harold
Platero bolts out of bed, stands upright and sucks air into his diseased
lungs. His mind screams that he can't breathe, that he's going to
die.
"I'd rather have my arm cut off than live like this," Platero
said. "It's scary."
His 54-year-old wife Elsie is a downwinder. She's tied 24 hours a
day to an oxygen machine.
Harold Platero maintained uranium ore trucks from 1962 until 1985,
when he became too sick to work. His wife lived next to an open uranium
mining pit while growing up.
Harold Platero had planned to work until he was old enough to collect
Social Security and perhaps a company pension, but oxygen starvation
and kidney problems put a stop to that. Kidney problems are one of
the illnesses linked to working with uranium.
Today Harold Platero and his family can't make ends
meet on a meager Social Security check.
"I used to make $13.50 an hour, and now we have nothing left
for anything extra after the check comes in," Harold Platero
said. His wife, oxygen tubes stuck in her nose, nods in agreement.
To help, the couple's children give money and food. "Without
their help, I don't know what we would have done," Harold Platero
said.
During the 23 years he worked on the mining trucks, no one told him
the yellow dust from the uranium ore could kill him, he said.
Martinez has documents that show the uranium companies knew exposure
to the mines and dust could cause life-threatening diseases, yet they
gave no word to the miners or others working with the yellow rocks,
he said.
Hicks said he, too, wasn't informed about the dangers as he mined
uranium from 1959 until 1971. Finally, he said, his diseased body
couldn't handle the workload.
"I guess the government was just too busy getting the rock out
of the ground to worry about us," he said.
Hicks's life changed because of his disease. "I couldn't earn
a living, I couldn't hunt deer and elk the way I used to hunt them,
and I couldn't sleep very well."
Things would have been different, he said, if the government had told
him about the dangers. "I wouldn't have gone down in those holes,"
he said.
"The government said the men were sent down in the holes as human
experiments, but the government sure as hell didn't tell us we were
an experiment," he said. "They didn't say a damn thing about
it."
Hicks knows his life will end early because of mining.
Pauline Lueras, a grandmother now, lives in Grants. Hope is all Pauline
Lueras and her children could have for Louis Lueras when he was first
diagnosed with cancer.
The disease eventually shut down his pain-racked body. When he was
in pain, he would thrash in his bed, and that motion could break his
bones.
Lueras worked directly in the yellow cake that comes from uranium
ore. He retired from the uranium mill in 1988 and became ill at the
end of that year. He died a few months later, in April 1989.
"We had so much planned for retirement, but he died," Pauline
Lueras said.
When her husband telephoned her from the doctor's office in Albuquerque
to tell her he had cancer, the two of them vowed to fight it. "Then
the doctors came to me one time and told me that he had two months
to live, and it changed my whole world," Pauline Lueras said.
"Cancer is a bad word. He wouldn't have worked there if he knew
how dangerous it was, and he'd probably still be alive today,"
she said.
Near the end, Pauline Lueras prayed for her husband's death. "He
was in so much pain," she said, "he suffered so much, and
the kids, they miss their daddy so much."
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'Running Rev' rakes in money for Zuni
Bill Donovan
Staff Writer
ZUNI — The "Running Rev" gets up at 5:30 a.m., puts
on his running shoes and heads out to the beautiful vistas around
the Zuni Pueblo where he runs his usual six miles thinking of the
sermon he plans to give at Mass later that day.
The Rev. Dale Jamison, pastor of St. Anthony Mission in Zuni, doesn't
think of the money more than $100,000 a year that his running brings
to his poor parish. But he hopes that his running will be an inspiration
to young Zunis in their fight against diabetes.
"I do it to try and motivate the kids that go to St. Anthony's,"
he said, pointing out that diabetes continues to be the major health
problem of many adult members of the pueblo some 40 percent have the
disease and exercise, along with a proper diet, will hopefully reduce
the problem in future generations.
It's also a personal crusade.
"There's diabetes in my family," he said.
At age 52, running has over the years become a major portion of Jamison's
life and he has used it to bring attention to the needs of his parish.
"I run in a couple of marathons a year and a number of my friends
and relatives contribute based on how many miles I do," he said.
These marathons have also become a major event in the Zuni parish
with students at the mission school holding pep rallies before he
leaves and begging their teachers to let them know as soon as possible
how well he does.
At his last marathon earlier this year at St. George,
Utah, he finished the 26 miles in three hours and 30 minutes. That
qualifies him for the Boston Marathon and puts him in the top 25 percent
of runners his age.
What may be even more amazing is that his time in his last race was
15 minutes better than the time he clocked in his first marathon in
1986.
He was the pastor at St. Joseph parish in San Fidel at the time and
wondered what he could do to bring in money for the cash-poor school.
"We only had $3.14 in the bank to run the school and the parish,"
he said.
But he was going to run in a marathon and he convinced friends and
relatives to contribute for every mile he ran during the race. That
race brought in $10,000, the next one brought in $20,000 and his last
one brought in $75,000.
This comes in handy in the running of the Zuni school, which costs
about $600,000 a year to operate and charges no tuition to the 200
students who attend.
Profits from the parish bring in about $20,000 a year, he said.
"We're not out to make big bucks with our bingo. We look at it
as a way to bring people together in the community," he said.
The parish does get a lot of contributions from people who find things
they have lost.
St. Anthony of Padua, whom the mission is named after, is the saint
of lost objects.
"When people lose something valuable, they'll pray
to St. Anthony and when they find it, they will send a contribution
to a mission named after the saint," he said.
Many of these contributions from $5 to $100 or more come to the Zuni
mission.
The mission also sends out 10 mailings a year, with about 7,000 names
on each mailing, to people who have contributed to the school in the
past.
"People who contribute know that their money will go to help
the kids here," Jamison said, pointing out that 95 cents of every
dollar goes directly to services.
But the thing that seems to get the attention of most
people is the way Jamison has been able to use his love of running
to help his parish.
It's helped, he said, to be stationed in Zuni, which allows him to
run "over some of the most beautiful areas in the nation."
But it's not without its dangers.
In the 12 years he has been stationed in Zuni and running around the
village, he has come in contact with 85 rattlers.
"Yes, I kept count. It's something you never forget," he
said.
He has never been bitten but he keeps a watchful eye out during his
summer runs.
It's too early to tell if the students at St. Anthony's have taken
to heart the message of exercise and proper diet that the Running
Rev and teachers in the parish school have been teaching in recent
years.
"We'll know that when they get in their 30s and 40s," he
said.
But Jamison knows that his running, which he estimates has brought
in $750,000 in contributions over the years, has made a big difference
for his school.
"We've been able to get a lot of things for the school buses,
new roofs and building renovations. Our contributors have been very
generous," he said.
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Ganado, Chinle men indicted
Staff report
PHOENIX — A federal grand jury has returned indictments against
the following individuals:
Rocky Eddie Jones, 25, of Chinle has been charged with six counts
of abusive sexual contact and three counts of aggravated sexual abuse
for engaging in sexual contact with a child under age 12. The maximum
penalty is life imprisonment. Jones was indicted on Nov. 16 and is
in custody.
Melvin Shirley, 28 of Ganado is charged with one count of involuntary
manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of six years' imprisonment.
Shirley is accused of driving while intoxicated on June 2, 1998, which
led to the death of his passenger,
Jameson Begay. He was indicted on Nov. 10.
The prosecution is being handled by the U.S. Attorney's
Office, District of Arizona, Phoenix.
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The illusions behind which truth hides
Duane A. Beyal
Staff Writer
"My, the Indians are so orderly out here, aren't they,"
the woman said.
She was talking about the ammunition bunkers that lay in geometrical
grids across the rolling hills and plains of the old Fort Wingate
Army Depot...
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Kayenta family keeps motel tradition
going
Jim Maniaci
Din Bureau
KAYENTA, Ariz. — One family has been involved in all the motels
in Kayenta's history, except its first one.
When Monument Valley's newest motel was dedicated, the tradition continued
with Nina Heflin and Richard Mike honoring her mother, Mildred Heflin...
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