In 1966, a boy named Jon Maughan died of leukemia in Monticello Utah. At sixteen, he was captain of his basketball team. Seven other young people living in a five block radius around his home, also died. One of their favorite pastimes was to swim in the pond of water that near the uranium mill. There were no fences and no warning signs, as the tailing contaminated the pond and the uranium dust contaminated the town.
Those were the boom times for "yellowcake" uranium mining, when there was money to be made and commies to kill. Ironically, the mining of uranium killed thousand of American miners, leaving the commies untouched and unaware of what awaited them in U.S. ballistic missile silos. Today, the astonishing red rock landscape of San Juan county hides millions of tones of radioactive mill tailings and water supplies so contaminated that the extent of it is not yet known.
There are dozens of similar sites scattered around the region. Piles of raw ore with unprofitable concentrations of uranium now lie beneath Lake Powell, the polluted lake formed by the Glen Canyon dam in 1975. The citizens of Los Vegas and Arizona are enjoying radioactive supplements in their water to enhance their pursuit of the western lifestyle.
Most amazingly, there are those who say the government of the United States knowingly allowed this massive scenario of contamination and death to take
place. Did you ever? According to environmental activist types such as Chip Ward, government scientists and mining companies assured the citizens of Southeastern Utah that there was no health threat. In his 1999 book
Canaries on the Rim, Ward makes a case that the same officials took advantage of the patriotism and poverty of the locals and Navajos. We know they did it
elsewhere, so why not?
Evidence of government complicity in radiation-infliced cancer is so overwhelming that congress has
Congress has acknowledged limited government responsibility. In 1990 the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act provided $100,000 to each underground uranium miner who has one of six lung diseases linked to radiation exposure. And of course, the government is going to study it futher, with the results of two major DOE studies to be issues this year. (If you can't trust the DOE under the Bush Administration, who can you trust?)
RADIATION HUMOR CORNER
Former San Juan County Commissioner Cal Black had a sense of humor. A former uranium prospector, Black was fond of wearing uranium-laden bolo ties from time to time to promote the safety of uranium mining. He died of cancer. His sons now show signs of lung ailments. The man was a card.. |
The looming question now: what are state and federal officials going to do about the massive contamination of drinking water and soils from an estimated 5,000 abandoned uranium mines in Utah and hundreds of uranium mills. At the Atlas sita alone, over 10,000 tons of contaminated soils leach into the Colorado River, a major source of downstream drinking water. An unknown number of smaller, mills remain lost and forgotten in the canyons of southern Utah. Every time it rains, the radioactive sediments is carried into local streams and, ultimately, into the Colorado River.
And who do you suppose will pay to clean it up. Perhaps the mining companies?
