In a Dine Creation Story, the people were given a choice of two
yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were
instructed to leave the other yellow powder-uranium-in the soil and
never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a
great evil would come.The evil came. Over one thousand uranium
mines gouged the earth in the Dine Bikeyah, the land of the Navajo,
during a thirty-year period beginning in the 1950s. It was the lethal
nature of uranium mining that led the industry to the isolated lands of
Native America. By the mid-1970s, there were 380 uranium leases on
native land and only 4 on public or acquired lands. At that time, the
industry and government were fully aware of the health impacts of
uranium mining on workers, their families, and the land upon which
their descendants would come to live. Unfortunately, few Navajo uranium
miners were told of the risks. In the 1960s, the Department of Labor
even provided the Kerr-McGee Corporation with support for hiring Navajo
uranium miners, who were paid $1.62 an hour to work underground in the
mine shafts with little or no ventilation.All told, more than
three thousand Navajos worked in uranium mines, often walking home in
ore-covered clothes. The consequences were devastating. Thousands of
uranium miners and their relatives lost their lives as a result of
radioactive contamination. Many families are still seeking
compensation. The Navajo Nation is still struggling to address the
impact of abandoned uranium mines on the reservation, as well as the
long-term health effects on both the miners and their communities, many
of which suffer astronomical rates of cancer and birth defects. As
a college student, I worked for Navajo organizations, trying to inform
their people about the uranium-mining industry and the large
corporations-EXXON, Mobil, United Nuclear-that proposed to mine their
lands. It was a humbling experience, seeing some of the richest
corporations in the world faced by courageous peoples who fought for
the two things that mattered to them more than money: their land and
their identity. The Navajo people joined with many others across the
country who felt that there was a much better way to make energy. In
the end, the people did prevail-new mining proposals evaporated as
tribal resistance and legal and administrative battles merged with
economic forces. Eventually, contracts for uranium were canceled by
utilities, which no longer sought to build unpopular nuclear power
plants.Now I feel like I am having very bad déjà vu-only this
time nuclear power is seen as the answer to global climate
destabilization. In 2005, the Navajo Nation passed a moratorium on
uranium mining in its territory and traditional lands, which was
followed by similar moratoria on Hopi and Havasupai lands, where mines
are proposed adjacent to the Grand Canyon. "It is unconscionable to me
that the federal government would consider allowing uranium mining to
be restarted anywhere near the Navajo Nation when we are still
suffering from previous mining activities," Joe Shirley Jr., Navajo
Nation president, explained at a congressional hearing on opening
uranium mines in the Grand Canyon area. To the north, the Lakota
organization Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way) is an intervener in a Nuclear
Regulatory Commission hearing to allow the Canadian corporation Cameco
to expand its Crow Butte uranium mine, just over the Nebraska border
from the reservation.I recently traveled to Australia, the
country with the largest known uranium reserves in the world. In my
Sydney hotel room the television broadcaster summarized Australia's
economic strategy: "We dig it up, and they buy it." The mining
industry, in a world bent upon combusting and consumption, looks to be
very healthy. Australia's uranium mines include the Beverley Mine,
which is in the territory of the Kuyani and Adnyamathanha peoples.
Olympic Dam (operated by BHP Billiton-the largest mining corporation in
the world) is the country's second-largest uranium operation and is in
the traditional territory of aboriginal people as well. In fact, most
major mining operations in Australia are within aboriginal territory.
These are some ancient civilizations-resilient in the face of a deep
history of genocide and destruction, which continued well into the
twentieth century. Aboriginal people did not even get the right to vote
until 1967. Due to their relative isolation in the outback, many of
these tribes have had few interactions with outsiders. That is, until
recently.Kakadu is the longtime home to the aboriginal Mirrar
people, as well as a recent intruder: British-based Rio Tinto. In the
1970s, Kakadu's Alligator River System became the focal point of
Europe's uranium demands. Built right in the center of the Mirrar
homeland, the Ranger Uranium Mine is one of the largest uranium mines
in the world. But the Ranger mine is also in the center of Kakadu
National Park, one of just twenty-five UNESCO World Heritage sites in
the world designated on the basis of both cultural and ecological
significance. Kakadu includes over 190 major aboriginal rock-art and
sacred sites.The Ranger Uranium Mine opened in the early 1980s,
after much protest from the Mirrar people, who made it clear that they
opposed the mine. Rio Tinto has assured Australians, UNESCO, and the
aboriginal owners that it is operating under "world's best practices"
of uranium mining, a term some would argue is an oxymoron. Meanwhile,
radioactive groundwater contamination is reported to be spreading
through the park. A 2004 incident allowed a number of workers to drink,
ingest, and shower in heavily contaminated water, with a large amount
spilling out of the site itself. And in 2006, Cyclone Monica delivered
extreme rainfall, causing the radioactive containment ponds to fill.
The company responded by lifting tailings dams, redirecting runoff into
streams, and using the contaminated water for irrigation.In
1999, Jacqui Katona, a Djok aboriginal woman, and Yvonne Margarula, a
Mirrar woman, won the Goldman Environmental Prize for their struggle to
oppose development at Jabiluka, another mine proposed for Kakadu
National Park. Yvonne explained that an agreement to open the mine "was
arranged by pushing people, and does not accurately reflect the wishes
of the aboriginal people who own that country." In 2005, after a long
and heated battle, the Mirrar people fought off the proposal to open a
uranium mine at Jabiluka. But now, with demand for uranium on the rise,
the threat is once again looming on the horizon. With some 16
percent of Australian land controlled by aboriginal people and with
many of the mine sites in the aboriginal heartland, the upcoming
pressure on communities to buckle to the largest mining companies in
the world will be daunting. Coinciding with the proposed ramp-up of the
nuclear industry is the negotiation of land settlements for a number of
these aboriginal first nations. If history is any indicator, many of
these land-rights settlements will mirror what happened in Alaska,
where the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act-promoted by oil
companies that deemed it necessary to negotiate some agreements between
themselves and aboriginal people-established Alaskan Native
corporations, which today create a complex set of divided loyalties and
communities. This is perhaps best illustrated by the case of the
Gwich'in people, who find themselves not only opposing oil companies
that want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but also
Alaskan Native corporations, whose income has derived from the
exploitation of the land and its resources.There is another
prophecy that is relevant to this story, though. Ojibwe legends speak
of a time when our people will have a choice between two paths: one
path is well worn and scorched, but the second path is not well
traveled and it is green.There is an alternate economic future
for indigenous peoples, and it too is green. In order to stabilize
carbon emissions in the United States, the country will need to produce
around 185,000 megawatts of clean new power over the next decade, which
could mean up to 400,000 domestic manufacturing jobs. The Intertribal
Council on Utility Policy estimates that tribal wind resources alone
represent 200,000 megawatts of power potential. In fact, Native
American nations are some of the windiest places in the country.The
Rosebud Lakota put up the first large native-owned windmill in 2003, a
750-kilowatt turbine right in the middle of the reservation. The Turtle
Mountain Ojibwe just erected a 660-kilowatt wind turbine; ten more
megawatts are planned for Rosebud; and the White Earth Anishinaabeg
have several projects under way in Minnesota. Proposals for up to 800
megawatts of power for northern Plains states are being put forth by
the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy. There's also a 50-megawatt
project on lands held by the Campos and Viejas bands of Kumeyaay people
in Southern California, and a 500-megawatt project in which the
Umatilla Tribe of Oregon is a partner. Boston-based Citizens Energy is
working with a number of tribal communities in the U.S. and Canada to
bring green power from the reserves to the grid.In the U.S.,
native communities have an opportunity to lead the way to a green
future. We have a chance to create a just energy economy in the most
wasteful and most destructive country in the world. We need help,
though. Insuring that climate-change legislation does not reboot the
nuclear industry will be a critical part of supporting native struggles
to choose the green path over the scorched one.
© 2009 Orion Magazine
Winona LaDuke is executive director of Honor the Earth and a member of
the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg. She lives in northwestern
Minnesota. She is the author of
Recovering the Sacred.