Uranium: A Toxic Legacy at Red Water Pond Road

For the Navajo people Mother Earth is sacred. She places her
mineral riches below ground. That’s where they’re meant to
stay. If the Earth’s elements are hauled up to the surface,
Navajos believe they can turn monstrous -- or they can unleash
the monsters in humankind.


 


Uranium mining produces radionuclides and other toxic wastes
full of heavy-metals. Transformed for weaponry and fuel,
uranium can affect human genes, according to the Journal of
Environmental Radioactivity.


 


To get at uranium deep underground requires scouring the earth
with chemicals to extract the raw ore and its poisonous
bedfellows. What’s left are soils that blow contaminants
through the air as dust, and wastewater that seeps deep into
underground aquifers and pollutes groundwater. The residents of
the Red Water Pond Road community in New Mexico have lived
with uranium mining contamination for 50 years.

 



(pictured: Jean Hood and Peterson Bell at Standing
Black Tree Mesa. Credit: Hannah Colton)


 


They’re sick of the mess -- and tired of being in a state
of toxic limbo that the uranium industry bequeathed when it
packed up and left.




 


Producer Ellen Berkovitch made several trips to Red Water Pond
Road to visit this community. She brings us the story.



 




Learn more about the Navajo Nation and uranium
contamination. 


 



 


Music from this episode includes:


 


Moonlight Sonata (Shifting Sun Mix) by Speck 2018
The Code of My Heart by Gurdonark, 2017
8-String Ballad (Instrumental) by Aussens@iter  2017
Where the Wind Blows by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD) 2016
Dark Clouds by onlymeith 2013
The Raven by Analog By Nature 2007
The Drilling Begins by Stefan Kartenberg 2017

All of the music titles above licensed under Creative Commons
licenses courtesy of CC Mixter dot org.

Geiger counter, recorded by Scott Williams of Death Convention
Singers. Courtesy Death Convention Singers.


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