As Uranium Firms Eye N.M., Navajos Are Wary

Teddy Nez, a Navajo, lives near a 40-foot-tall pile of uranium tailings. Little ground vegetation grows in the parched climate.

"You're breathing uranium right now," Nez said as dust swirled through the air.

There are more than 1,000 abandoned uranium mines and several mill sites in the region, according to the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit public interest group that focuses on energy development and natural resources. Chris Shuey, director of the group's Uranium Impact Assessment Program, says three-quarters of the sites have not been cleaned up.

None of URI's holdings are on the Navajo reservation, though there is some intersection with Navajo private allotted lands. Jurisdiction in the area is a complicated web of mineral and water rights underlying a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal holdings.

URI Chief Operating Officer Richard Van Horn said the Navajo tribe's uranium mining ban could limit the company's plans but would not stop mining in the region.

Along with conventional mining, in which uranium-laden ore is taken out of the ground and milled, URI plans to use a process called in situ recovery mining. The ore is left in the ground, and oxygenated water is injected into uranium-laden aquifers to essentially bond to the mineral and pump it to the surface.

While the process causes much less waste and surface disruption, opponents worry that it will contaminate the water supply since it involves mobilizing uranium within the aquifer.

URI's New Mexico operations director, Randy Foote, counters that the area's water is already not potable and that the company would be required to return the aquifer to its baseline state before ending operations.

"Uranium is actually relatively benign," Foote said. "All the wells out here have small amounts of uranium in them."