June
2000
Navajo
Citizens Oppose Uranium Mining on Environmental Justice Grounds
By Lila Bird
|
|
|
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC)
is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to protecting New
Mexico’s natural environment and communities. It has been involved
in many different projects including: representing the Southwest Organizing
Project (a social justice organization) in its fight against Intel,
a major micro chip manufacturer in Albuquerque that is seeking to avoid
requirements of the Clean Air Act; working in partnership with the Western
Environmental Law Center in seeking a complete cleanup of the Molycorp
Mine in order to protect the Red River, large stretches of which have
been severely damaged; and representing the United Steelworkers of America
Local 890 whose testimony exposed the Phelps Dodge Company’s operation
of defective pipelines which leaked an estimated 3.5 million gallons
of mining pollutants into the Whitewater Creek, resulting in permit
conditions requiring Phelps Dodge to significantly reduce the leakage
within two years.
One of NMELC’s current projects represents Navajo citizens in their
fight to stop a major corporation from operating a toxic uranium mine
in their community. In 1988, Hydro Resources, Inc. (HRI), a subsidiary
of the Texas-based Uranium Resources, Inc., applied to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) for a license to conduct in situ leach (ISL) uranium
mining operations in the Navajo communities of Church Rock and Crownpoint,
New Mexico. HRI proposed to leach uranium directly from the pristine
West Water Canyon groundwater aquifer, which serves as the sole source
of drinking water for over 15,000 Navajo people. Navajo citizens were
concerned that the proposed uranium mining operations would contaminate
their land, air and water. After all, in 1979, United Nuclear Corporation,
a uranium mining company, accidentally spilled 94 million gallons of
acidic wastewater and 1,100 gallons of radioactive tailings into Church
Rock’s Puerco River, causing severe harm to local residents and
livestock. This is the largest release of radioactive wastes, by volume,
ever in the U.S. of radioactive tailings and is now an EPA-designated
Superfund site.
Concerned Navajo residents formed Eastern Navajo Diné Against
Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) and in 1994, petitioned the NRC for a hearing
on the license application. In 1997, the NRC Staff issued a Final Environmental
Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Crownpoint Uranium Project. A year later,
ENDAUM, Southwest Research and Information Center, and two Navajo citizens
were admitted as Intervenors in the licensing proceeding and their requests
for a hearing on the license application were granted. At the same time,
however, HRI was granted a source materials license (to mine uranium)
by the NRC staff. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP)
Administrative Law Judge limited the first phase of the hearing to the
Church Rock site only, despite the fact that HRI’s license covered
both Church Rock and Crownpoint mining and milling operations.
In 1998 and 1999, ENDAUM and SRIC, represented by attorneys from the
New Mexico Environmental Law Center and by Diane Curran of Washington,
DC, submitted written presentations on 10 areas of concern, including
environmental justice. Among other experts, ENDAUM obtained the testimony
of environmental justice expert Robert Bullard and Navajo environmental
health scientist Christine Benally.
ENDAUM and SRIC argued that the FEIS ignored or distorted data showing
that poverty, geographic isolation, poor health conditions and ongoing
radiological contamination from past mining made the Church Rock community
extremely vulnerable to the impacts of the proposed in situ leach uranium
mining project. In fact, said ENDAUM and SRIC, the FEIS suppressed the
NRC’s own data showing that existing radiation levels in the Church
Rock area already exceeded federal standards. Dr. Bullard testified
that the manner in which HRI’s license was issued, including postponing
the evaluation of some important environmental issues until after issuance
of the FEIS and the license, exemplified the very type of procedural
inequity characteristic of environmental discrimination. Overall, the
groups asserted, the FEIS failed to follow NEPA procedures and various
federal guidances, including President Clinton’s Executive Order
on Environmental Justice.
Navajo public health expert Christine Benally testified that the FEIS
did not fully consider the economic, social, or medical vulnerability
of the population that would be affected by HRI’s operations. The
FEIS simply ignored data regarding mining-related health conditions
among the general local population and among Navajo uranium workers
who live in the project area. Dr. Benally pointed out that 13 uranium
mines or processing sites are located within four to six miles of HRI’s
proposed Church Rock ISL mine, including the largest site—the United
Nuclear Corporation Church Rock uranium mill from which 94 million gallons
of radioactive tailings were spilled.
In the face of compelling evidence of environmental injustice and other
problems associated with the proposed mining project, the ASLBP Judge
affirmed HRI’s license. ENDAUM and SRIC have appealed the decision
to the Commissioners of the NRC. Despite the ASLBP’s ruling in
the ENDAUM case, the Executive Order on Environmental Justice has generally
forced federal agencies to carefully address environmental concerns
in permitting processes. There is no guarantee that agency findings
based on an environmental justice analysis will eventually favor a citizen
group fighting a potentially environmentally harmful project. Like other
necessary creative and resourceful tactics, environmental justice analyses
and findings constitute one more important tool in the overall fight
for a clean and safe environment.
Lila Bird is an attorney and National Association for Public
Interest Law Equal Justice Fellow at the New Mexico Environmental Law
Center, focusing on legal actions to protect Native American lands and
environment. To learn more contact NMELC at 505-989-9022 or ENDAUM at
505-786-5209.
What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental Justice (EJ) is the fair treatment
and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color,
national origin or income with respect to environmental policies. Accordingly,
no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative
environmental consequences of industrial, municipal or government activities.
Defined in a broader sense, EJ is a movement that fights for the right
to safe, healthy, productive and sustainable environments, including
ecological, physical, social, political, aesthetic and economic conditions.
EJ supports and is supported by decent jobs, education, housing and
healthcare, democratic decision-making and personal empowerment, which
are also the goals of the Civil Rights and social justice movements.
EJ principles extend beyond humans and affirm the ecological unity and
the interdependence of all species and the right to be free from ecological
destruction. They call for responsible uses of land and renewable resources
in the interest of a sustainable planet for all living things.
The Government’s Response
The federal government has taken many actions to address the issues
raised by individuals and groups demanding environmental justice. In
1990, in response to mounting community pressure, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) formed the Environmental Equity Workgroup made
up of staff from all EPA offices and regions. The Workgroup assessed
and confirmed evidence of environmental discrimination against minorities
and low-income communities and recommended that the EPA make environmental
equity a priority. To accomplish this task, the EPA created the Office
of Environmental Justice to oversee the integration of EJ into EPA’s
policies and outreach programs. It also established the National Environmental
Justice Advisory Council in 1993 which supplies independent advice to
the EPA and is made up of members from stakeholder groups, including
non-governmental and community-based organizations, tribal and environmental
groups, business and industry, academic and educational institutions,
and state and local government agencies. Versions of an Environmental
Justice Act were introduced in Congress in 1992 and 1993 but, to date,
none have been passed into law.
In 1994, President Clinton issued an Executive Order, "Federal
Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and
Low-Income Populations" which mandated that all federal agencies
should make EJ a priority and incorporate it into their policies and
actions as well as provide minority and low-income communities with
access to public information and the opportunity for participation in
matters relating to health and the environment. However, this order
did not establish legislation or create the right to bring an agency
under judicial review for noncompliance.
For information on Environmental Justice, Robert D. Bullard’s book,
Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color
(Sierra Club Books, 1994) gives accounts of pivotal EJ struggles
around the country. Also, the Environmental Protection Agency’s
Office of Environmental Justice web site (http://es.epa.gov/oeca/main/ej/index.html)
outlines the government’s efforts to understand and address environmental
injustice. For local EJ campaigns, contact the New York Environmental
Law and Justice Project at (212) 766-9910.—S.K.
