The Empire 57

Zaterdag 5 augustus van dit jaar schreef ik in mijn dagboek: 'Vanmiddag Naar Oljato geweest. De Trading Post was gesloten en leeg, op wat bakelieten schalen na, zo zag ik door de vuile ramen. In deze buurt is weer een oude uraniummijn in bedrijf genomen.

De dag erna schreef ik: 'Vanmiddag naar Mexican Hat gereden, door een verlaten landschap. Vlak voor Mexican Hat zagen we een meer schitteren, omringd door roodkleurige aarde. Toen we er ernaar toe reden, zagen we dat het een grote oppervlakte was bedekt met grijskleurige stenen. Het bleek een voormalige nucleaire malerij te zijn, die met miljoenen stenen was overdekt om de verspreiding van de radioactiviteit tegen te gaan. (zie foto) Het is zo groot dat men het via Google Earth goed kan zien. Het ligt drie kilometer van de grens waar het Navajo reservaat eindigt. Niet ver hier vandaan, bij Tuba City in Coconino County, ook op Navajo gebied zagen we eerder - naast iets dat leek op waterzuiveringsbassins - een andere uranium malerij. Een jongeman die in Mexican Hat in een hotelwinkel werkt zei desgevraagd: "Nabij Monument Valley Tribal Park achter Goulding’s wordt uraniumerts gedolven. Dat werd vroeger bij Mexican Hat gemalen in die fabriek." Bij toeval liep ik een Nederlander tegen het lijf die met een camper door het gebied trekt, ook hij wist dat er meerdere uraniummijnen in deze streek zijn die de afgelopen zes maanden weer in gebruik zijn genomen. Dat is niet verwonderlijke aangezien de Amerikanen met een nieuwe generatie nucleaire wapens bezig zijn. De oorlogsindustrie moet draaiende blijven. Wonderlijk om vanuit het restaurant van Goulding's over de schitterende verlaten uitgestrektheid van Monument Valley te kijken en te weten dat hier de grondstof wordt gedolven voor massavernietigingswapens. Nota bene in het gebied dat de tekenaar George Herriman vereeuwigde in zijn Krazy Kat.'

Eergisteren meldde de Los Angeles Times:

'A peril that dwelt among the Navajos.

During the Cold War, uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Indians. Homes built with the material silently pulsed with radiation. People developed cancer. And the U.S. did little

Oljato, Utah -- Mary and Billy Boy Holiday bought their one-room house from a medicine man in 1967. They gave him $50, a sheep and a canvas tent.For the most part, they were happy with the purchase. Their Navajo hogan was situated well, between a desert mesa and the trading-post road. The eight-sided dwelling proved stout and snug, with walls of stone and wood, and a green-shingle roof.The single drawback was the bare dirt underfoot. So three years after moving in, the Holidays jumped at the chance to get a real floor. A federally funded program would pay for installation if they bought the materials. The Holidays couldn't afford to, but the contractor, a friend of theirs, had an idea.He would use sand and crushed rock that had washed down from an old uranium mine in the mesa, one of hundreds throughout the Navajo reservation that once supplied the nation's nuclear weapons program. The waste material wouldn't cost a cent. "He said it made good concrete," Mary Holiday recalled.As promised, the 6-inch slab was so smooth that the Holidays could lay their mattresses directly on it and enjoy a good night's sleep.They didn't know their fine new floor was radioactive.Fifty years ago, cancer rates on the reservation were so low that a medical journal published an article titled "Cancer immunity in the Navajo."Back then, the contamination of the tribal homeland was just beginning. Mining companies were digging into one of the world's richest uranium deposits, in a reservation spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains. The mines provided uranium for the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb, and for the weapons stockpile built up during the arms race with the Soviet Union.Private companies operated the mines, but the U.S. government was the sole customer. The boom lasted through the early '60s. As the Cold War threat gradually diminished over the next two decades, more than 1,000 mines and four processing mills on tribal land shut down.The companies often left behind radioactive waste piles and open tunnels and pits. Few bothered to fence the properties or post warning signs. Federal inspectors seldom intervened.Over the decades, Navajos inhaled radioactive dust from the waste piles, borne aloft by fierce desert winds.They drank contaminated water from abandoned pit mines that filled with rain. They watered their herds there, then butchered the animals and ate the meat.Their children dug caves in piles of mill tailings and played in the spent mines.And like the Holidays, many lived in homes silently pulsing with radiation.Today, there is no talk of cancer immunity in the Navajos.The cancer death rate on the reservation — historically much lower than that of the general U.S. population — doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, according to Indian Health Service data. The overall U.S. cancer death rate declined slightly over the same period.Though no definitive link has been established, researchers say exposure to mining byproducts in the soil, air and water almost certainly contributed to the increase in Navajo cancer mortality.The government has never conducted a comprehensive study of the health effects of uranium mining on the reservation. But individual scientists working on their own have documented sharply elevated cancer rates near old mines and mills. High concentrations of uranium, arsenic and other heavy metals have been found in one out of five drinking-water sources sampled.Particularly toxic were the "hot" houses built with radioactive debris.In every corner of the reservation, sandy mill tailings and chunks of ore, squared off nicely by blasting, were left unattended at old mines and mills, free for the taking. They were fashioned into bread ovens, cisterns, foundations, fireplaces, floors and walls.Navajo families occupied radioactive dwellings for decades, unaware of the risks.Over the years, federal and tribal officials stumbled across at least 70 such homes, records show. The total number is unknown because authorities made no serious effort to learn the full extent of the problem or to warn all those potentially affected.After years of delay, they fixed or replaced about 20 radioactive houses and then walked away from the problem. Navajos continued to use mine waste as construction material, and the homes were passed down from one generation to the next.Not until 2000 did the Holidays learn that their hogan was dangerous. By then, the couple had raised three children and sheltered a host of other kin while the uranium decayed. The resulting alpha, beta and gamma rays were invisible; the radon gas was odorless. But the combination greatly increased the chance of developing fatal lung cancer, according to a radiation expert who sampled air in the hogan.'

Lees verder:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/

la-na-navajo19nov19,0,4003854,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines