Uranium summit to begin Thursday

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Representatives from Native communities in 14 countries will unite this week in the Navajo Nation's capital to map strategy and organize resistance to new uranium mining.

The Indigenous World Uranium Summit begins at 8 a.m. Thursday with opening ceremonies at the Navajo Nation Museum and a traditional blessing by Dr. David Begay, Navajo educator and medicine man.

Hazel James of Dineh Bidziil Coalition, principal organizer of the summit, will follow with announcements and the introduction of Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., who will deliver the welcoming address. Past uranium mining has had disastrous consequences on the people, land and the environment, according to Robert Tohe of Sierra Club.

"This gathering will have an international focus with delegates from communities worldwide affected by the nuclear fuel cycle," he said.

Those delegates arriving for the summit will be given a tour of former uranium mine sites near Church Rock, including the United Nuclear Corp. abandoned uranium mill and tailings disposal facility, now a Superfund site. The summit continue through Saturday, winding up with a special concert at 7 p.m.

Tohe said goals of the summit include:

• Organize resistance to current and new uranium mining in Native communities;
  
  
• Support enforcement of the Din Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005;
  
  
• Stop nuclear waste dumping on Native lands;
  
  
• Develop national and international collaborations on the nuclear fuel cycle;
  
  
• Promote sustainable development and renewable energy for Native peoples.

President Shirley said, "Every day, the Navajo Nation loses more of ourelders and medicine people who were uranium workers to cancers, respiratory illnesses and other diseases resulting from radiation and uranium exposure.

"With them, our Nation loses their knowledge, wisdom, songs, stories and ceremonies needed to keep our culture strong.

"Every day, radiation exposure compensation is denied to the survivors of these brave men and women and to the victims and families of above-ground nuclear blasts.

"Every day, our scientists work with community members to investigate the effects of uranium mining on our lands, waters and the health of the Navajo people.

"Still, we have few answers about the causes of the mysterious illnesses that were not seen before uranium mining began in the 1940s," Shirley said.

During the conference, Phil Harrison of the Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims Committee, and Southwest Research and Information Center will be given special recognition for their tireless struggles to bring recognition to the Navajo people and their sufferings related to the uranium legacy.

In a recent meeting at Sky City, SRIC's Chris Shuey told those attending the Southwest Uranium Caucus of the Western Mining Action Network that it is tough to go around Navajo and find anything "sustainable" from the Cold War-era uranium mining.

"What is sustainable are the waste sites, the health problems, the economic dislocation. Half of my work is spent dealing with environmental and health assessments for people affected by the old mining."

Shuey said the former mine operators "have used every method they can think of to extract themselves from their moral, legal and ethical obligations."

"It makes absolutely no sense to start a new boom with the same empty promises that were made in the 1950s, '60s and '70s here now with what we know and we know much more than we knew then," Shuey said.

Sara Keeney, Western Mining Action Network coordinator, said the organization is made up of community activists, indigenous people and other parties interested in mining issues in the United States and Canada.

Keeney said the group was contacted this year by individuals in the region who asked them to bring together people in the Southwest to talk about existing and persisting mining issues, as well as the "so-called new uranium boom."

Bob Shimek, mining project coordinator for the Indigenous Environmental Network, located in Benidji, Minn., works with tribes and indigenous communities from Mexico to Alaska "and just about every point in between."

When communities have questions related to a mining project such as whether it might be a good thing, "we then step into the picture and help them sort out the issues related to whatever the project proposal is, whether its cleaning up abandoned mines of which there are thousands throughout the whole West all the way to new mining proposals."

Tribes and community groups have concerns about where new mining projects are going, Shimek said, but their biggest concern is, "At the end of the day, what are we left with?"

"We know that answer, but many times our voice isn't heard. The industry comes in, does its thing for 15 or 20 years, and then they're out and we're left with the contamination," Shimek said.

"We're left with the death, the destruction, all these different things. We can't let that be forgotten as we look at the challenges of the new uranium boom going on here in the Southwest."

For more information on the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, contact Robert Tohe, (928) 606-9420, or visit http://www.sric.org/uraniumsummit/index.html