“The Legacy of Uranium Mining on Navajo Nation: an environmental impact workshop” will be hosted in Zimmerman Library on Thursday, Nov. 17 at noon in the Willard Reading Room.
The workshop is sponsored by the University Libraries’ Indigenous Nations Library Program, UNM Native American Studies and the US Environmental Protection Agency.
From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore was mined on or adjacent to the Navajo Nation, resulting in more than 500 abandoned uranium mines. Since 2008, the EPA and five other federal agencies invested more than $130 million to reduce the highest risks to Navajo people by conducting initial investigations at all the mines, remediating 48 contaminated structures, providing safe drinking water to 3,013 families, cleaning up groundwater at mill sites, and performing cleanup or stabilization work at nine mines.
Michele Dineyazhe, Remedial project manager, and Elsa Johnson, Community Involvement coordinator, from United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), will present case studies and moderate a discussion on the legacy of uranium mining on Navajo Nation.
USEPA along with Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency work together to investigate and cleanup the 523 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation.
For more information, contact Kevin Brown at firstname.lastname@example.org.