FILE - In this May 12, 1965 file photo, Secretary of the interior Stewart Udall makes a little speech and gives Liz Carpenter, press secretary for Ladybird Johnson, with "Chief Otter" award at Peaks of Otter, Va., on Blue Ridge parkway. Stewart Udall, who sowed the seeds of the modern environmental movement as secretary of the interior during the 1960s and later became a crusader for victims of radiation exposure from the government's Cold War nuclear programs
Comment: Leaders of Virginia look at the statement made by Secretary of Interior, Stewart Udall said and think about the problems of uranium mining and milling will bring, it is not green: "We cannot afford an America where expedience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye only on the present.”
Sunday, March 21, 2010
by Will Kirkland @ 5:09 pm
One of the great public servants at the federal level, former Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, has died.
Udall helped write several of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation, including the Wilderness Act of 1964, which protects millions of acres from logging, mining and other development.
More than 60 additions were made to the National Park system during the Udall years, including Canyonlands National Park in Utah, North Cascades National Park in Washington, Redwood National Park in California and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail stretching from Georgia to Maine.
In a 1963 book, Udall warned of a “quiet conservation crisis” from pollution, overuse of natural resources and dwindling open spaces. He appealed for a new “land conscience” to preserve the environment.
“If in our haste to ‘progress,’ the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and policy makers alike, the result will be an ugly America,” Udall wrote.
“We cannot afford an America where expedience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye only on the present.”
NY Times
The scope of his environmental accomplishments could easily rank as Udall’s crowning achievement.
But Udall was most proud of his decades-long work on behalf of Native Americans – especially Navajos from his native Arizona – who developed cancer and fell ill from working in uranium mines, Mark Udall said.
He began battling for sickened Navajo miners in the 1970s, after leaving Washington. He sued the federal government on behalf of Navajo miners who developed lung cancer from uranium exposure. That case failed at the U.S. Supreme Court, which left Udall “deeply disappointed, even angered,” Mark Udall said.
Udall redirected his dismay toward Washington, where he lobbied for congressional investigations that ultimately led to the 1990 Radiation Exposure Safety Act, which Udall helped write and compensated thousands of Americans.
“He fought hard to bring justice to not just uranium miners, but for any victims exposed to uranium tailings and mining and radiation,” said Esther Yazzie-Lewis , a Navajo who co-authored the book “The Navajo People and Uranium Mining,” for which Udall penned the foreward, citing “humanitarian failures of the national government.”
Read more:
http://www.ruthgroup.org/2010/03/21/stewart-udall-gone/
