METALS AZ
Processing facility was one of the four mills that victimized the NAVAJO during the COLD WAR, creating an AMERICAN TRAGEDY; says Henry Waxman D-CA who points to a history of neglect that would not be tolerated elsewhere. Among the horrors: shifting mountains of uranium tailing; open mines leaching contaminated rain into drinking water tables; wind-blown radioactive dust; home construction from uranium mine slabs; and even the grim spectacle of children playing in radioactive swimming holes.
( WHITE DUST PART TWO )
When Uranium prices started to rise in 2006 folks on the Arizona Strip and in Fredonia, Utah started to smell jobs. Rural desolation and the depression has starved the economic opportunities here, “Does Fredonia even have a motel anymore” Carol Tinney asks herself, continuing, “When Salazar stopped Uranium Mining he stopped those jobs, and broke those folks hearts.” As far as Kanab Creek (being radioactive) “There is so little water in that stream, there’s hardly enough to worry about”, she adds about the drainage that worries Steve Martin because he’s concerned about the ecosystems down stream and believes everything will suffer from toxic heavy metal and radiation.
“I worry about uranium escaping into the local water, and about its effect on fish in the Colorado River at the bottom of the gorge, and on the bald eagles, California condors and bighorn sheep that depend on the Canyon’s seeps and springs. More than a third of the Canyon’s species would be affected if water quality suffered” — Steve Martin, former Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent
Read more, great pictures but they do not share the pictures:
http://pkweis.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/uranium-mining-in-the-south-west-navajos-trapped-by-tailing-and-decades-of-inaction/
