CHURCH ROCK NEW MEXICO 1979 RADIATION
ACCIDENT, BUT ONE UNPREDICTED EFFECTS
Written
by NaBahe Katenay-KeedÃniihii, July 2019
Almost every deadly
and lethal releases of poison or lethal toxins in the U.S. are always put into
obscurity and society tends to forget about them because the “official
statements” said to do so. “There were no dangerous levels to the public that
would cause harmful effects, BUT precautionary measures were taken.” Main
tribal news and state media will reinforce the official conclusion. All such
incidents would not matter whether it is heavy toxins in drinking water in
Flint, Michigan or a toxic spill in the Appalachian mountain-top coal mining
regions, and government concern normally favors corporate profits over the
health of poor communities.
This happened in July
16, 1979 when the United Nuclear Corporation’s tailings pond broke at its
Church Rock uranium mill, and tons of radioactive water and solids flooded down
the Rio Puerco wash. A wash or an arroyo that passes through the city of
Gallup, New Mexico then into numerous DÃneh (Navajos) communities along the
Rio. The actual flooding and the length of travel of this radiation was an
unimaginable catastrophe. The spill traveled about 100 miles along, U.S. colonial
corridor Route 66, or Interstate 40 in Arizona and DÃneh country. And if you do
not know about the nuclear life cycle and if you do, many forms of the deadly
radiation last for tens and tens to hundreds and hundreds of years.
Much is out there
about this tragedy and horribly nothing else is known about its size of impact
since 40 years ago. The Church Rock uranium tailings spill was much larger, in
terms of radioactive quantity, than the U.S. - Three Mile Island nuclear
accident on March 1979. Church Rock release of radiation would have rank close
to the melt down at Chernobyl, Ukrain in 1986. Again like any pollution or mega contamination
of the environment near or around poor population, responsible state agencies fumbled
with corporate politics first instead of measuring out the magnitude of the lethal
discharge and its potential outcome of health effects.
But what does this
have to do with Big Mountain DÃneh which is a few hundred miles away from the
Rio Puerco?
A new U.S. government
made DÃneh community outside of Sanders, Arizona. The 1979 spill also passed
through here. It is a modern day refugee settlement, and part of the federal
government program of forced Indian removal. Here, the original relocatees and
hundreds more descendants were settled here in a rural style community. These
refugees were victims of the so-called “Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute” where nearly
18,000 DÃneh were either uprooted or displaced from the late 1970s to the
1990s. Some refugees relocated from remote and pristine Big Mountain on Black
Mesa also. Then about ten years ago it was discovered that the water sources in
this big new reservation of Sanders had high concentration of radioactive
contaminants. Waters in this region have never had this issue, but that was
sort of the end of an evolving story. Navajo Nation tribal government and the
U.S. immediately redirected the issue to promises of alternative wells which
all sounded good. No one dared to asked, “Well where exactly did the radiation
come from?”
Finally here is
another one of my many
theories about the state of nature and native histories. The structure of earth
likely have played a role. The narrow and small basin of Sanders area was
created by three geologic structures, the southward plunging of the Defiance
Uplift, a northward plunging of the Torrivo Upwarp and the Chuska Mountain volcanic
uplifting. They all facilitate the west ward flow of the Rio Puerco and on the
west end of the basin, a west to east dipping of strata starts but the Rio wash
continues over that. Sanders basin is spooned as the handle of the spoon is the
path of Rio Puerco wash to the Church Rock uranium mill in 1979. Over time
since the tailings spill, much of the radioactive contaminants have been
reaching the spoon or bowl. Heavy metals like cadmium, aluminum, magnesium,
manganese, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, sodium, vanadium, zinc, iron, lead,
and sulfates sank or settled in the basin. There were more lethal elements of radioactive
uranium, thorium, radium, and polonium that accumulated and drifted down into
the Rio’s alluvial fill.
The U.S. government
and its collaboration with the Navajo Nation administration poses a hidden sinister
backdrop to the magnificent tall cliff walls, and those native oriented but cheap
tourist attractions along Interstate 40. And outside of Sanders, Arizona is the
new extended Indian reservation where the ancestors’ past have long been forgotten, and why care about the
past because Americana has erased those memories of the pristine high desert
mesas and canyons of Big Mountain? Perhaps much radiation is yet to be
announced, but hopefully the promises safer waters are in place. Our problems
as “diverse” society continues in the areas of so-called activism and the
dreams of surviving the onslaught of climate chaos. We all continue to not see
a larger picture than what the media, which we all do not trust, presents. It
seems as though official and “expert” conclusions still disable our thinking. The
life span of the nuclear cycle from Church Rock 1979 may continue to inflict
dangers to many not to just natives.
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