WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd September, 2022) The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the United States, will file a lawsuit against the US government if new permits are issued for uranium mining on the reservation, President Jonathan Nez told Sputnik.
"The Federal government extracted uranium from our homelands and never held those companies accountable for cleaning it up," Nez said. "So now it's their responsibility."
When asked if they plan to take legal action over the uranium mining, Nez said, "not yet, unless they get new permitting."
Nez explained that there are more than 500 open uranium mines on the Navajo Nation land, but only a handful are being cleaned up.
The Biden administration has made it a priority to help clean up these uranium mines, Nez said, adding that the US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm recently visited the reservation to meet with Navajo officials.
Nez said the uranium mines have caused cancer-related health issues in some of the members of the Navajo tribe and contaminated water resources on the reservation.
In June, President Joe Biden approved a two-year extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), allowing the Navajo Nation to lobby US lawmakers to include more cancer-related health issues caused by the federal uranium mines to be compensated and to increase that compensation from $150,000 to $250,000 for Navajo people suffering with health conditions resulting from the federal government's uranium activities, Nez said.
"It's going to take time to continue with education of our lawmakers and the administration on the uranium legacy here on the Navajo Nation," Nez said. "The end result for us is to clean up all 500 uranium mines, to put some cancer treatment facilities within our nation. If you want to measure it in that way, then there's so much to do."
The Navajo tribe said in a recent press release that it would like to extend RECA until 2040.
In 2005, the Navajo Nation placed a ban on uranium mining on its land, which encompasses parts of the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
