Navajo President Joe Shirley, Jr., asks U.S. Senate committee to respect Diné Natural Resources Protection Act, Uranium Ban

“Decades after mining has ceased on the
Navajo Nation, my people continue to get
sick and die from the contamination left
behind. The legacy of uranium mining has
devastated both the people and the land.”

– Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr.

News Release from the Office of the President and Vice-President of the Navajo Nation (March 13, 2008) :

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., on Wednesday asked a U.S. Senate committee to respect Navajo sovereignty and to uphold the 2005 Navajo prohibition on uranium mining.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, President Shirley said the Navajo people have suffered through a traumatic and tragic experience of illness and death resulting from uranium mining from the 1940s until the 1970s, and they did not wish to repeat it - or be forced to by uranium mining companies who now want to return to Navajoland.

"The Navajo people do not want renewed uranium mining on or near the Navajo Nation," President Shirley said. "I ask you to respect the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act that places a moratorium on Navajo land and within Navajo Indian Country."

The President said the Nation would use "any and all measures" to fight the return of uranium mining to its land. Speaking forcefully, he said he is unwilling to risk the health, safety and welfare of his people against the promise that the proposed in situ leach mining process will keep them, their land and their water safe and free of more radioactive contamination.

"I will not risk the health and safety of my people on the promises of those who advance as a fact something for which there is little evidence," he said. "I will not allow my Navajo people to be the guinea pigs of those seeking only profit. I will not sit idly by and watch as another generation of Navajos face a litany of cancers and other illnesses."

For more of this story, including the political ramifications of current statutes, please click here:
http://opvp.org/cms/kunde/rts/opvporg/docs/204799030-03-15-2008-22-11-21.pdf

This is a follow-up to http://sccchatham.blogspot.com/2008/03/july-19-2006-forced-uranium-mining-in.html