Dear Editor,
On July 16, 1979, “the worst incident of radiation contamination in the history of the United States” occurred when a United Nuclear Corporation “state of the art” earthen dam gave away releasing a torrent of radioactive sludge, heavy metals (including uranium, molybdenum, arsenic, thorium, radium, polonium and cadmium) and other toxins into the Little Puerco River and Puerco River that flows through Gallup and the Navajo Nation 80 miles westward.
Presently, within the Red Water Pond Road Community sits a mound over two football fields in size and three stories high as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “Superfund” site remains on the National Priority List unabated in the middle of the residential areas. The Church Rock uranium tailings spill is the third largest radioactive water release in history after the Fukushima, Japan crisis in 2011 and the Chernobyl, Ukraine meltdown in 1986.
Three months prior to the Church Rock disaster, a partial meltdown in one Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania nuclear reactor occurred, although the mostly white community was returned to safety immediately after containment. Then New Mexico Governor Bruce King was asked by the Navajo Nation to seek federal assistance in the cleanup of the deadly radioactive Church Rock “accident;” the request was denied. Subsequent studies discovered that the heavy metals have seeped up to 30 feet into the alluvial soils and ground water of the Rio Puerco.
A few years before the Church Rock Incident, on February 27, 1973, about 250 Oglala Lakota and members of the American Indian Movement began an Occupation of Wounded Knee that lasted 71 days on the Pine Ridge reservation, bringing global attention to the inhumane and unsafe living conditions and the generations of abuse and mistreatment by the federal government and local renegade agencies. The media was banned from the area during this siege dubbed the “longest civil disorder”by the U.S. Marshals Service.
However, in the Black Hills, a uranium and molybdenum rush worth a half a billion dollars was behind the Native resistance to the U.S. government’s efforts, allowing the potential for outside corporate interests to profit from uranium extraction. The Native resistance to unbridled greed, is one of the main reasons why Leonard Peltier has been in prison for nearly 50 years, framed by the same FBI the MAGA Republican GOP (Gang of Putin) has insisted is a “Deep State” operation in a “Shadow Government.”
Considered the “Badlands” at the time, Indigenous nations were sent to reservations to rot and die. Today, tribal lands hold vast amounts of natural resources (coal, gas, oil, uranium and water) that are historically exploited, and are now viewed as an intricate part of “National Security” as much as it did in WWII, during which, the Navajo Code Talkers helped propel America to victory with our language, over the world-wide threat imposed by the Axis Allies. Notwithstanding Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After 45 years of absolutely no accountability, the July 16, 1979 breach of the UNC holding ponds is glaringly evident and the “trust responsibility” of the federal government breached altogether; even under the terms of the Treaty of 1868. Under the threat of a possible Republican win, the Navajo Nation government must take legal action before the November elections and insist on total clean up by the responsible parties before any further uranium mining ever starts up again and America is still under the Rule of Law.
Sincerely,
Mervyn Tilden
Church Rock, New Mexico
