Still no toxic cleanup plan for Navajos
The EPA plans to resume long-stalled
testing for uranium mine hazards, but a coordinated federal
strategy is still lacking, lawmakers told.
By Judy Pasternak
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, DECEMBER 7, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection
Agency plans to resume long-stalled testing for toxics
on the Navajo reservation unleashed by abandoned Cold
War uranium mines, but it and four other federal agencies
have yet to come up with overall cleanup and health
plans, their representatives told seven House members
in a closed meeting this week.
The EPA, the Department of Energy, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and the Indian Health Service were summoned
to meet with five Democrats and two Republicans on Wednesday.
The meeting was a follow-up to an October hearing of
the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
on the long-standing failure to protect the tribe from
toxics and radiation.
Most of the 1,000 mine entrances at
520 sites have been sealed off, but groundwater is contaminated,
waste piles still cascade down hillsides and erosion
of dirt cover allows radiation to resurface. The EPA
has concluded that some of the exposures on the reservation
can lead to lung, bone, liver and beast cancer.
Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly
Hills) called the situation "a modern American
tragedy." At the hearing, which was prompted by
a Los Angeles Times series published last year, the
Navajo government asked for $500 million as an initial
allocation to get a thorough remediation underway, as
well as more manpower for tribal and federal efforts.
Waxman told the agencies to report back
again in six months. "We have a duty to make this
right," he said later.
In coming months, the EPA plans to test
70 homes built with uranium ore or waste from processing
mills that have been known about for many years but
never examined. Hundreds more structures have been identified
within a quarter-mile of the old mines, but have not
been checked for toxic construction materials. The EPA
also will revisit 41 water sources where dangerous levels
of uranium were documented in the last three to 10 years.
In addition, the agency has paid $150,000
for a "circuit rider" who will offer testing
and advice in settlements where Navajo families drink
untreated water.
The Navajo reservation, the nation's
largest tribal homeland, encompasses parts of Arizona,
Utah and New Mexico.
The EPA has also listed 18 large abandoned
uranium mines for examination for potential Superfund
status.
Navajo officials characterized the session
as a start. "We have the beginnings of what we
need, which is the agencies talking to each other, but
we're very far from what our stated goals were,"
said Navajo environmental director Stephen Etsitty,
who was at the session.
judy.pasternak@latimes.com
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