No to uranium mining: Tribes set meeting in N.M. next month

Sep 22

Indigenous Peoples from all over North America will converge at Acoma Pueblo next month to join in an inter-tribal campaign to end the latest uranium boom threatening communities throughout Indian Country, Kathy Helms of the Gallup (N.M.) Independent’s Dine bureau reports here.

The 7th Indigenous Uranium Forum will take place Oct. 22-24 in Acoma Pueblo at Sky City Hotel. The Forum began 22 years ago with a series of conferences on the environmental and health impacts of uranium development in the Grants Mineral Belt in New Mexico. And, as Helms writes, it’s grown into a vehicle for strategy development and coordination of communities affected along the entire lifeline of nuclear power – from uranium mining in the Grants Mineral Belt to nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain.

Forum organizer Anna Rondon says the present political climate is perfect for organizing nationally. “For the first time in 60 years, indigenous peoples in North America have the greatest opportunity to stop further uranium/nuclear development and to promote renewable energy,” she says.

Gwen Florio

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