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Group Claims U.S. Water Supply is Contaminated with Uranium: Canadian Firm Held Responsible

Water, food supplies and the agricultural grocery basket of half the entire nation may be contaminated.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A group representing five Indigenous petitioners, the Oglala Sioux Tribe and two environmental organizations, Clean Water Advocacy Project and Rock the Earth, claim that a vast water table that spans the central plains from South Dakota to Texas is being poluted by a uranium mining process that extracts uranium from underwater deposits. The High Plains Aquifer supplies water to a region that provides many, if not most, of the nation’s essential grains, vegetables and livestock, and spans a cross-section of the entire U.S. from southern South Dakota to Texas..

“Based on available science, we believe there is an inter-mixing between the radioactive and toxic releases in and around the mined aquifer and the Brule, Arikaree and High Plains Aquifers which are being used by the petitioners, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and people in eight states from Nebraska down to Texas” says Bruce Ellison, Attorney for Oglala petitioners Debra White Plume and Owe Aku.

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, identified in red, draws its water from the High Plains Aquifer.

Members of the group have filed indigenous rights briefs opposing a proposed license amendment requested by Crow Butte Resources, Inc.(CBR), a Canadian mining company licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extract uranium from the aquifer. The mining near Crawford, Nebraska, in the northwestern corner of the state, has been going on for more than 17 years.

The group believes that this underwater mining releases radioactive and toxic chemicals like Radon, Thorium, Radium and Arsenic into the environment, not only in the water but in the air as well.

he In Situ Leach (ISL) mining process involves injecting a bicarbonate solution into the water aquifer which releases uranium from sand particles in the aquifer and also stirs up and releases radioactive and toxic chemicals like Radon, Thorium, Radium and Arsenic into the environment. The uranium is removed from the water and a form of “geo-chemically changed” water is re-injected into the aquifer. No ISL uranium mine has ever returned the water in the mined aquifer to baseline levels and ISL mining may be responsible for elevated kidney and cancer problems and the closure of 98 wells due to arsenic contamination at Pine Ridge.

In addition to the use of additional valuable water resources, CBR has admitted to:

§ a spill of approximately 300,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste at its mine in Crawford , Nebraska ;

§ failure to clean up one-third of the spills equaling approximately 100,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste;

§ admission that a broken coupling led to a one gallon per minute leak for several years into the Brule aquifer. It is believed that the leak resulted in toxic contamination of at least 525,000 gallons of water per year; and

§ admission of a leak that contaminated 25,000 sq. ft. of the Brule aquifer.

From existing operations, CBR has had no less than 23 reported leaks of radioactive material. The petitioners assert that this contradicts CBR’s statements that they have operated without any environmental impact and indicates that CBR should not be allowed to expand its existing operations.

Some 98 private wells closed on the Pine Ridge Reservation following the 1997 Chadron well-casing failure.

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