Uranium Mining on the Navajo Reservation

Jankovsky, Hannah Kathleen

Publication

Uranium Mining on the Navajo Reservation

Jankovsky, Hannah Kathleen

Description

As the world seeks a power source that is cleaner, safer, and cheaper is it fair for the United States to ask the Navajo, long burned and sickened by uranium to resume mining operations on their reservation? Upon examination, the troubled history of uranium mining reveals a pattern in which the government failed to adequately protect those who lived around and worked with uranium on the Navajo Reservation. The United States Government did not adequately protect uranium miners on the Navajo Nation from lung diseases related to radiation exposure, allowing profit to take priority above health through the atomic age. Of additional concern are the scars that uranium mining has left upon the land, spreading the impact of uranium mining beyond the miners themselves to their families and non-participant individuals residing on the reservation.