GUEST SPEAKER: Good morning.
As you know, this past July our National Council overturn
legislation made in December that
would have allowed Uranium Resources Incorporated to start
mining near Church Rock.
This is the same Church Rock that
was the site of the largest release of radioactive material
in US history, even larger than the Three Mile Island accident
but with much less media coverage.
Over 1,000 tons of radioactive waste
and 93 millions of gallons of radioactive waste
water were dumped into the Puerco River that day in 1979.
For those of you that remember, the warnings
came late and in English only.
So our people went on with business as usual.
Many of our relatives suffered for it.
To this day the government has not
measured the health effects of the spill.
Now, within 35 years of the Church Rock spill,
there are members of our community
that are willing to open up our lives to mining again.
Thankfully, the council's ruling has held off URI and others.
But these mining companies were waiting
with bated breath for any opportunity
to mine on our lands.
The voices demanding access to domestic sources of energy
are growing.
We need to prepare our community for inevitable discussions
about uranium mining.
I'm not here today to argue whether or not
we should allow mining.
I know a lot of you want the economic growth and the jobs.
I'm here instead to outline a strategy for integrating
our voices into state and federal policy making
and to highlight the challenges that we face.
So I'll start first with the challenges.
Integrating our knowledge into the broader discourse
will be an uphill battle.
First, we face major disadvantages
compared to the mining companies.
We don't have an organized constituency.
We can't compete with them in terms of resources.
And we don't have the influence that they
have over politicians.
Second, many will dismiss us for not being scientific
and will try to argue that we're motivated by our own interests
and, therefore, not impartial.
Third, the scientific data isn't clearly on our side yet.
The scientific community has shown that uranium
has made our community sick.
But there hasn't been enough money or time
spent on how it's made us sick.
So why is that important for us to be able to clearly share
our narrative about these health impacts with the government
and broader public?
And why is it important that we ourselves
understand the full extent of these impacts?
Because the government and corporations have failed us.
Not just failed us, they've dismissed and rejected us.
So moving forward, what is our strategy?
First, we will develop a task force
that will be in charge of mobilizing community members
and spearheading an outreach program to let
our community know about the efforts
to reduce local knowledge about the health
impacts of the uranium mining.
Second, reach out to the scientific community
for local partners.
Several institutions such as the University of New Mexico
and Southwest Research and Information Center
have expressed interest in health data.
The task force can work to get these scientists
from different institutions to partner with us on this.
Third, facilitate the conversation
around the type of data we should collect
with members of the scientific community
and our own community.
Fourth, train researchers within our community
to conduct face-to-face interviews
in English and Navajo.
Make phone calls, organize public forums
to collect data about community health.
And the data can then be validated
through random sampling to ensure validity.
Fifth, pair community researchers
with members of the scientific community
to analyze and interpret findings
in a language that can be understood
within the scientific community but also
within our own community.
And then hold public meetings around this information
to facilitate discussion about the health effects of uranium
mining as well as the impacts of the remaining
remnants of mining.
Finally, the task force should pair
with members of the scientific community
to release findings to local media,
environmental organizations, and to the broader public.
Our strategy then is to ensure that our community is
knowledgeable about the impacts of uranium mining
so that we can understand the full impact of opening
our lands up again and to be able to translate what
we have suffered in our own language
and technical language necessary to make people sit up
and take notice of us.
So I'll leave you with these numbers; 29, 521, and 30.
A 2000 study showed that Navajo uranium miners
are 29 times more likely than Navajos
that are not involved in mining to develop lung cancer.
There are now 521 abandoned mines across the Navajo Nation.
Although the federal government is taking the lead
to clean up after these mines, it
will take billions of dollars and hundreds of years.
It's time that we just don't have.
And the mining has left scars on our water and our land
that you can now estimate that 30% of our people
don't have access to uncontaminated water.
The EPA has been a valuable partner
in cleaning up old mines but there's still much to do--
sorry, but there's still much to do in protecting ourselves.
So we must convince the government that they cannot
stand by and watch as waste from the mining continues to seep
into our water, land, and our bodies.