The United States has beautiful principles of liberty, equality and justice within our political-social framework. Whether or not we actually uphold those logical, moral principles is another story. It is a fact that our country has been built largely upon the misery and exploitation of certain groups. For example: the mass amounts of African slaves that became the economic bonanza of the colonial period; the large scale ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples which opened up a land grab for the influx of property-driven Anglo Saxons; the exploitation of Chinese immigrants who railroaded our Manifest Destiny; or the current abuse of Latin American migrant workers to bring cheap food to our tables. The continuance of exploitation in certain groups of color and class carries over into our new age of environmental injustice.

Originally the Navajo were not limited to the Four Corners reserve of dry, desert lands. In one of numerous acts of the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, the U.S. forced the Navajo people into a smaller, less hospitable stretch of land. We thought the area was a desolate wasteland and a territory that we could afford to concede to the Navajo. In the 1950’s our new science revealed otherwise. Uranium became the new 'gold rush' and a Navajo territory was at the heart of the mining boom.  On the Navajo Nation lands, in the Four Corners of the Southwestern U.S., the uranium rush from the 1950s to 1970s left massive environmental consequences, yet is still largely unpublicized.

Exploit them once, shame on us—exploit them twice, shame on us. Impoverished and uneducated Navajo people, who were desperate for jobs, became the radioactive grunts of the nuclear age. Our nuclear reactors and our still-growing Cold War arsenal of nukes were fueled by the uranium ore mined from the Four Corners of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada. The Navajo backyards became not just the uranium mines, but the dumping grounds of radioactive waste in the form of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive mine tailings. For the rest of the United States, including those policy makers, analysts and scientists who sat thousands of miles away, this was a resource bonanza and the environmental concerns could be largely limited to the Navajo lands. It was and still is believed by many, that the arid lands of the Four Corners area is best suited to contain radioactive waste during its half-life for the next 10,000 years.

Poverty stricken Navajo workers gained toxic employment as their lands became a toxic asset. In his article titled "Big Bad Boom: Radioactive Deja-Vu in the American West", investigative journalist Chip Ward states, “From 1946 into the late 1970s, more than 40 million tons of uranium ore was mined near Navajo communities…More than a thousand mines were abandoned on the reservation. For every 4 pounds of uranium extracted, 996 pounds of radioactive refuse was left behind in waste pits and piles swept by the wind and leached into local drinking water.” Uranium mining is indeed an ecological disaster and environmental health concern that is no longer contained to the Four Corners. Radioactive dust now floats on winds across the Americas and traces of uranium flows through large waterways such as the Colorado River which eventually delivers water to 30 million people across the Southwestern U.S., including many in California. Mother Nature has unleashed the Four Corners toxic monster on us all.

Exploit them three times? New uranium prospectors are poised to set off round two and the Department of Energy has been itching to complete the giant Yucca Mountain radioactive waste facility in Nevada since the late 1980's.  Ward's 2008 report reveals that, “In Colorado last year [2007], 10,730 uranium mining claims were filed, up from 120 claims five years ago. More than 6,000 new claims have been staked in southeast Utah. Throughout the West, claims are up tenfold.” Environmental injustice has already wreaked havoc once upon the disadvantaged Navajo people and we now know the consequences are having a much broader effect than previously anticipated. It is disturbing to think that our country is ready to do it all over again and exacerbate the problem exponentially.

Opposing both carbon and fission power, Chip Ward takes a needed perspective on nuclear power replacing coal power in his article featured at Truthout.org, “Big Nuke is Big Carbon's mad-scientist cousin. Both externalize their costs: to the land, to the atmosphere, to miners, to consumers, to communities near the mines and refining facilities, and especially to future generations.”  It is not socially justifiable, nor environmentally justifiable by any means to foster policies that cater to uranium miners and nuclear power in the name of clean energy. It is foolish to think there are any lasting benefits in creating nuclear power plants that will somehow outweigh the burdens or that any burdens and benefits will be somehow evenly distributed. No matter what theory you adopt to analyze and attempt to support the expansion of uranium mines and nuclear energy to combat global warming, you will ultimately fail.

Lastly Ward reveals that in 2008, “Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner have proposed more than $500 billion in subsidies to double nuclear capacity in the decades ahead.” A relative article at Commondreams.org reports, “Among the subsidies nuclear power already gets is $20 billion approved by Congress and President Bush [2007]…And a law Congress passed, called the Price-Anderson Act, that limits liability to $10 billion for a catastrophic accident -- although, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, this is a small fraction of what a nuclear plant disaster could cause in property damage, not to mention birth defects, cancers and deaths.”

If utilitarian analysts and policymakers think nuclear energy is so wonderful, then why don’t they dig some holes in their backyards and bury some radioactive waste for generations of their families to enjoy for the next 10,000 years?

Robert Bullard a well known professor of sociology and a pioneer of Environmental Justice argues, “No community rich or poor, black or white, should be allowed to become an ecological “sacrifice zone.” Bullard recognizes “…institutionalizing sustainable and just environmental policies that meet human needs without sacrificing the lands ecological integrity,” as something categorically imperative for our society to achieve. The Navajo aren’t the only minority living with a toxic waste dump in their backyard. In an investigative report mentioned on CNN, Bullard notes that “more than half of the 9 million people living within two miles of the nation's hazardous waste facilities are minorities.”

In summary:

It is evident that our environmental injustices are shackled to our social injustices. We must first adopt a holistic value of our diverse society in order to develop a holistic value of our ecosystem. Then we must strive to implement just policies with long term strategy, in order to achieve true sustainability and preserve our diverse ecosystem.  Many ethical arguments, usually utilitarian based, cite an overall benefit to society as justification of the burden on a smaller group. Furthermore the same arguments justify an environmental burden on smaller group, such as a toxic waste dump in Nevada, because they believe any group that bears the burden can be compensated.

1. Does the supposed overall economical and environmental benefit of so-called clean, nuclear energy justify the burden to be placed on a less populated, less affluent area such as the Navajo Nation, whose arid lands are supposedly best suited to contain radioactive waste?

2. Keeping in mind that the uranium waste and its toxic effects will last for over 10,000 years, can the past and future social, economical, and environmental damages to the Navajo people and their territory be compensated?

3. Is nuclear power an answer, or at least part of the solution, to global warming and is it justifiable to place the majority of the nuclear burden once again on the Navajo lands?

My Conclusion:

In truth nuclear power is not any cleaner than carbon power and the long term burdens will outweigh any benefits. Evidence shows that the radioactive waste will not be contained to Navajo lands and even if it was, it is still not justifiable by any means to place the burden on any one area or group, nor could we truthfully compensate the losses of said group. The burdens are essentially upon us all and they are unacceptable. In our hearts, in our minds, in our air and in our water. Nuclear power, based on current technology, policy, and social-environmental injustices, should not be considered as even part of the solution to global warming.

Thankfully, Obama's new budget proposal aims to steer our nation away from nuclear energy by cutting many of the subsidies afforded to the nuclear industry and his budget proposes to stop the construction of the infamous Yucca Mountain radioactive waste facility project in Nevada.  Check out my post on the Environmental news blog for more information on Obama's budget proposal. 

For more information on the Navajo environmental justice issue out in the Southwest, check out "Blighted Homeland" the four part, special report series at the LA Times online.

- Cyrus