A proposed plan for transferring uranium mine waste at the site of one of the worst nuclear accidents in U.S. history to a nearby storage location won’t adequately protect indigenous communities in the area, the Navajo Nation’s president said last week.
The proposed license amendment, which would allow the United Nuclear Corporation (UNC) to move waste from its Church Rock uranium mine in northwest New Mexico to a neighboring storage site for uranium mill tailings, would be like “taking it from one side of the road to the other,” Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez wrote to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a letter dated April 12.
The mill site where the radioactive uranium waste would be stored is less than a mile from the Church Rock mine and is surrounded by Navajo trust lands and communities, Nez said. The Red Water Pond Road community, the closest one to the mill site, is only about a tenth of a mile away, he said.
NRC’s draft environmental statement on the proposed license amendment — first published in November — is currently available for public comment, according to a Federal Register notice. Interested parties have until May 27 to submit comments.
In 1979, a dam breach at the Church Rock mine caused 94 million gallons of acidic, radioactive slurry to flow into the Puerco River, rendering it unusable for local residents. The accident released more radioactivity than the partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station that same year.
“Since the United States led the effort to conduct uranium mining on the Navajo Nation … it would seem appropriate for the United States to support the complete removal of the uranium waste that was improperly left behind from that effort,” Nez said in his April 12 letter, also signed by Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer.
The tribal leaders said the Navajo Nation will also be submitting more detailed comments on the draft environmental impact statement.
