by NMELC | Oct 25, 2021 | NMELC in the News
By Gwynne Ann Unruh
The Paper
October 25, 2021
“Much of our lands have been exploited by mining companies for profit; they left it contaminated, doing minimal reclamation or none at all to this day,” Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) co-founder Mitchell Capitan said in an Oct. 21 Zoom meeting hosted by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. “Water Is Life, and we will protect it for generations to come.”
Unprecedented reckoning is occurring for the U.S. government and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for past and future uranium mining and milling activities on Indigenous lands. The Navajo Diné people believe the NRC violated their human rights guaranteed in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, including the rights to life, health, benefits of culture, fair trial and property. After years of trying, their united voices are being heard…
by NMELC | Oct 22, 2021 | NMELC in the News
By Hannah Grover
New Mexico Political Report
October 22, 2021
With historic uranium mine sites already polluting communities, members of the Navajo Nation have been fighting for 27 years to stop a new mining initiative from starting in the Crownpoint and Church Rock areas.
On Thursday, the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining took that fight to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that the United States and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of Hydro Resources Inc. mines violated the human rights of Navajo Nation residents…
by NMELC | Oct 21, 2021 | NMELC in the News
By Theresa Davis
Albuquerque Journal
October 21, 2021
Christine Smith, a first grade teacher at Crownpoint Elementary in northwest New Mexico, lives a few hundred feet from a processing plant for a proposed uranium mine.
Smith said she worries about how a revival of uranium mining in the region could affect the health of her students and family.
“Even though the mining companies kept coming back and saying it was a safe process … we’ve seen many accidents in the past,” Smith said. “No company will ever convince me that one process is 100% safe.”…
by NMELC | Oct 21, 2021 | NMELC in the News
By Darren Thompson
Native News Online
October 21, 2021
For decades, the people on Navajo Nation have had no drinking water, due to uranium mining. Today, the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) submitted the additional documents needed for a petition it filed in 2011 against the United States over the issue, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In a Washington Post Live program on Tuesday, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said up to forty percent of Navajo people do not have running water or electricity in their homes, including his own family.“
by NMELC | Oct 21, 2021 | NMELC in the News
By Susan Montoya Bryan
Washington Post
October 21, 2021
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A group representing Navajo communities is presenting its case to an international human rights body, saying U.S. regulators violated the rights of tribal members when they cleared the way for uranium mining in western New Mexico.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights based in Washington, D.C., decided earlier this year that the petition filed a decade ago by Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining was admissible. With additional testimony and exhibits being filed Thursday, the commission is expected to hold a hearing in the spring….