Navajo Nation struggles with fallout from uranium mining

[Donald Polish]

As part of a cleanup settlement, the US will pay out more than $13 million to start dealing with hundreds of abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation territory. Navajo officials tell RT it is just the first step on a long road ahead.
The money will be put into an “environmental response trust” managed by the Navajo Nation with the support of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
“It will provide us with funding to do a very specific task under the cleanup process that’s authorized by the federal superfund law,” Stephen Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation’s EPA, told RT’s Ben Swann.
The funds will cover evaluations of 16 abandoned mines throughout Navajo lands, chosen from a list of 46 priority sites. There are hundreds of sites that still need to be addressed. By one estimate, there are more than 1,200 abandoned uranium mines within the borders of the Navajo Nation, a 27,000-square-mile territory stretching across Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.
The EPA says it has repaired 34 homes, surveyed 521 mines, compiled a list of 46 priority sites for cleanup, and performed stabilization or cleanup work at nine mines so far. The agency has also provided safe drinking water to more than 1,800 families.
A 2014 settlement set aside $985 million from a multi-billion dollar settlement with subsidiaries of Anadarko Petroleum Corp to clean up approximately 50 abandoned Kerr-McGee mining operations in the Navajo Nation.

I really doubt that they will ever cope with this problem. Money will go for nothing as usual.
However we have provided atomic energy successfully. Here is the very result of success.

 

[waltky]

Was done intentionally...

Mine that fouled rivers breached on purpose
Mar. 1, 2016 - The Republican chairman of a congressional panel investigating a 3-million-gallon spill of toxic wastewater from an inactive Colorado gold mine said Tuesday the mine was purposely breached by a government cleanup team.

The assertion by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah contradicts claims by the Obama administration that the cleanup team was doing only preparatory work at the Gold King mine. Once it was breached, wastewater loaded with lead, arsenic and other contaminants fouled downstream rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Bishop cited an email in which an Interior Department official said the spill last August occurred when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency team used an excavator to remove a dirt and rock "plug" blocking the mine's entrance.
The plug was holding back pressurized wastewater that had accumulated for years inside the mine north of Durango. "There was nothing unintentional about EPA's actions with regard to breaching the mine. They fully intended to dig out the plug and breach it," Bishop said during an Interior Department Budget hearing. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said under questioning from Bishop that she stood by her earlier testimony the EPA was preparing the site for future work. "It was an accident," Jewell said.

The spill forced the shutdown of public water supplies and left farmers on the Navajo reservation and elsewhere worried about long-term impacts to their irrigation supplies. EPA officials have said repeatedly that the cleanup team planned to stop their work before breaching the plug and come back later with additional equipment to drain the mine. A subsequent review of the accident by the Interior Department reached a similar conclusion.

The email cited by Bishop was sent two days after the spill by Brent Lewis, an abandoned mines expert from Interior's Bureau of Land Management. "EPA's plan was to slowly drain and treat enough mine water in order to access the inner mine working and assess options for controlling its discharge," Lewis wrote on Aug. 7. "While removing a small portion of the natural plug, the material catastrophically gave way and released the mine water." Lewis did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

House member: Mine that fouled rivers breached on purpose

 

[elektra]

Was done intentionally...

Mine that fouled rivers breached on purpose
Mar. 1, 2016 - The Republican chairman of a congressional panel investigating a 3-million-gallon spill of toxic wastewater from an inactive Colorado gold mine said Tuesday the mine was purposely breached by a government cleanup team.

The assertion by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah contradicts claims by the Obama administration that the cleanup team was doing only preparatory work at the Gold King mine. Once it was breached, wastewater loaded with lead, arsenic and other contaminants fouled downstream rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Bishop cited an email in which an Interior Department official said the spill last August occurred when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency team used an excavator to remove a dirt and rock "plug" blocking the mine's entrance.
The plug was holding back pressurized wastewater that had accumulated for years inside the mine north of Durango. "There was nothing unintentional about EPA's actions with regard to breaching the mine. They fully intended to dig out the plug and breach it," Bishop said during an Interior Department Budget hearing. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said under questioning from Bishop that she stood by her earlier testimony the EPA was preparing the site for future work. "It was an accident," Jewell said.

The spill forced the shutdown of public water supplies and left farmers on the Navajo reservation and elsewhere worried about long-term impacts to their irrigation supplies. EPA officials have said repeatedly that the cleanup team planned to stop their work before breaching the plug and come back later with additional equipment to drain the mine. A subsequent review of the accident by the Interior Department reached a similar conclusion.

The email cited by Bishop was sent two days after the spill by Brent Lewis, an abandoned mines expert from Interior's Bureau of Land Management. "EPA's plan was to slowly drain and treat enough mine water in order to access the inner mine working and assess options for controlling its discharge," Lewis wrote on Aug. 7. "While removing a small portion of the natural plug, the material catastrophically gave way and released the mine water." Lewis did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

House member: Mine that fouled rivers breached on purpose

You know why they breached this mine? They are searching for places to put CO2, I have not read this directly, but they are searching for places, I figured this out because they are trying to figure out if they can retrieve lithium from a geothermal well and then frack co2 back into the well, it dawned on me that the epa and the doe are just busy trying to find a place to put co2.

They are nuts.

Most likely they are now looking at uranium mines for the same reason.

Uranium? Who cares, it occurs naturally, it is not like it is a radiation hazard.