Crazy For Yellowcake In Paradox Valley, Colorado
Uranium's new glow: Ghosts of paradox valley
David Chiles stood bowlegged under his oil-stained hat as his three sons worked the drill mounted on their '65 flatbed truck. The diesel engine caterwauled; when the drill hit 120 feet, it began spewing white dust. On Chiles' leathery and liver-spotted face, you might have detected something resembling happiness. To a man who learned geology the hard way, white dust meant rock layers where ancient salt had leached out the red of iron oxide and magnesium. Where there was salt, there had once been water. And where water had wended through 140-million-year-old bedrock, there might also be the radioactive ore that once brought big money to places like Nucla, Colorado.
After a hiatus of more than 20 years, nuclear energy is resurgent. Worldwide, more than 130 new nuclear plants are under construction, and momentum is building toward new plants in the United States, where no reactors have come online since 1996. The result is a uranium boom in the Southwest: Since 2000, 175 U.S. firms have jumped into the market, and exploration expenditures have more than tripled to $185 million a year. In Colorado's San Miguel County, south of Nucla, some 1,731 new claims were staked last year; in all of 2002, there were 3. At the vanguard of the rush are the dilapidated towns whose residents reaped the rewards—and paid the price—of the last boom.
Nucla sits in a constellation with neighboring Naturita and Uravan, high on the hardscrabble uplift of the Uncompahgre Plateau in southwestern Colorado. This is the Uravan Mineral Belt, where prospectors once dug for copper and amethyst and, beginning in 1898, a canary-yellow substance known as carnotite that was found to contain radium and uranium. At the close of World War II, the Manhattan Project was fashioning the world's first nuclear weapons from Uravan yellowcake.
By the 1970s the Cold War uranium rush was in full swing, and David Chiles, then in his 40s, was drilling hundreds of exploratory holes each year. Prospectors filled the saloons, the Uranium Drive-In, and the Radium Theater; thousand-dollar poker games were commonplace. But then came the headlines about faraway places such as Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. The two accidents brought new nuclear plant construction in the United States to a dead halt; for the existing plants, there was cheap uranium from Canada and Australia, and from the vast nuclear weapons stockpiles that were decommissioned as détente took hold.
By the mid-'80s, Nucla and Naturita had decayed into a kind of high-desert Appalachia, stripped of population from a high of nearly 1,000 each to about 1,400 people between them today. Nucla's elementary school closed two years ago for lack of students and now sits fenced off, its swing sets overgrown with Russian thistle. Sixteen miles up the San Miguel River, Uravan—a company town once wholly owned by the Union Carbide Corporation—is gone altogether, so thoroughly contaminated by radiation that federal officials declared it a Superfund site in 1986 and ordered it razed. More than 80 of Uravan's former residents, many suffering from cancer and other illnesses linked to radiation exposure, have sued Union Carbide; the case was dismissed earlier this year, though the plaintiffs are appealing the decision.
George Gore, 59, a retired uranium miner and mill worker, grew up in Uravan, where his father worked for 24 years in the Union Carbide mill; he now lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. Gore, whose big white beard makes him look like a weather-beaten Santa, spent 18 years in the mining industry, several of them digging for uranium in the Lazy L Mine outside Uravan. By age 30, he had developed severe lung problems. "In 1977, I was told by a doctor that I'd be dead in two years if I didn't get out of uranium mining," he says. (Government records show that radiation levels at the Lazy L in the 1970s were so high, a worker would hit the maximum exposure to radiation considered safe over a lifetime—or 30 years of work—in just 4 years.) I met Gore when he returned to Nucla with his sister, Gladys, last winter. The siblings visited the local cemetery, its rows of headstones adorned with pickaxes, mining jacks, shovels. They listed off the dead as they walked: their father, from cancer; three brothers, from cancer, one at the age of 24; their uncle, who drove uranium trucks, from emphysema ("Never smoked a day in his life," said Gore); their aunt, from lung cancer; several cousins, from cancer; dozens of schoolmates, from cancer. "Almost all the people I grew up with—all of 'em dead," said Gore. "It's one of the tragedies of the Cold War. And now we want to try it again."
Then again, 20 years of hard times are a strong incentive to get over things like that. "People here who have lost families tell me they are not as worried as they once were," says Roger Culver, editor and publisher of the San Miguel Basin Forum, Nucla's paper of record. "They're thankful that the federal government has stepped in and acknowledged the impacts. They are optimistic that safety in mining and milling has improved." Besides, towns such as Nucla and Naturita have never been exactly obsessed with safety rules: The Chiles men don't always bother to wear respirators when their drill kicks up sun-blotting plumes of possibly radioactive dust, and David says no one in his family has suffered the classic mine-town health problems such as cancer, birth defects, and emphysema. Miners recall regularly eating lunch at 400 feet down, just next to mounds of radioactive ore.
Last winter, a local financier, George Glasier, announced plans to build what would be only the region's second uranium mill, just outside Naturita. Milling, which is the process of separating pure uranium from the raw mineral ore, is a highly toxic endeavor that has been linked to many health problems in workers, including cancer and a range of lung ailments. The mill would provide about 100 jobs, according to Glasier—steady, local jobs in a place where many residents now drive 60 miles to Telluride, Colorado, to clean hotel rooms and wait tables. Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have vowed to oppose the plan, which in any event will likely be tied up in the state's licensing process for several years.
In the pines above Paradox Valley, the Chiles brothers were drilling their 18th straight dry hole—220 feet deep, each linear foot another $10 down the drain. Their father, covered in grime from the day's work, stood by, his face expressionless. Experience told him there might be just a single pound of uranium below for every 10,000 pounds of shale. When the Geiger counter confirmed what David already knew, the brothers collapsed the drill, picked up the wooden blocks stabilizing their rig, and drove a hundred yards up the road to start anew. A pale, shimmering dust covered the ground and shrubs and trees for 10 yards in every direction, as if a spot storm of something alien had blown in.
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This article does not mention the impact uranium mining has had on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico.
Navajo People are still suffering from the waste produced by the mines cantaminating their land, air and water.
I entirely agree Rick: The lack of any reference at all to the impact of such mining on Native communities seems egregiously irresponsible here, and it further erases the history of military-industrial colonization of Indian country. See Ward Churchill's "Nuclear Trust: The Radioactive Colonization of Native North America."
What Planet are you two from; this government that we hold so dear...doesn't now and didn't then care for the welfare of the Native Americans. It tried to exterminate them for Heavens Sake!
Extermination wasn't an official policy. But then neither was "the final solution" in Nazi Germany. The "peacetime" military in the nineteenth century was stationed mostly in western territories. It was deployed against native Americans and anyone foolish enough to band together against wealthy capitalists. The old westerns were wrong. Cattle barons didn't hire goons;they called in the cavalry or used the local law enforcement. It's no wonder low life outlaws became folk heroes. Anyone wanted by the law was a hero.
I lived in Grand Jct., CO. for over forty years..its my home....when they were developing the city, they brought down the "tailings" from Naturita, Uravan, Nucla, etc. and "filled" the marshes and low spots, making it suitable for building, then I watched as in the late '70's and '8o's it all had to be hauled out again, at the expense of the taxpayers, I also witnessed several deaths of friends and family from cancer in just about every form...the mill tailings curse...will that be the future of this quiet little city, my home, again?
Clarence, the point of the comment(s) was not an indictment of the government but a concern for the historical erasure of violence against Indians in an article from Mother Jones. When the vast majority of Uranium mining and milling occurred in and around Indian country, it seems especially alarming to fail to mention this. I am not surprised that the "government we hold so dear" would neglect this history; however, I am surprised that the "Mother Jones we hold so dear" would.
Considering our use of 340 tons of uranium in the first and second Gulf Wars. It seems we will have no justice for anyone on earth affected by our mining of uranium or it's use in weapons against humans. We have to put Humanity before profit. Until this happens we will continue to lose any right to consider ourselves Civil!
Doug Rokke ex-military officer has shown the sensors in Europe registered high levels of DU around the nuclear plants sensors. Europeans traced it back to Shock and Ah and every major battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What do we expect if we poison our own air but, to die from cancer's or health problems.
If you review the Uravan website where former residents have set up a bulletin board, most of the children who were raised there all comment on having thyroid cancer. Unfortunately, our govt hasn't gone far enough to protect the uranium workers.
Who ran the mines that killed all of the Navojo miners? Kerr MaGee. Who killed Karen Silkwood? Kerr MaGee.
Thanks anarkissed for clarifying our statements to Clarence.
There are intentions to start a third uranium mine here in Australia. Despite all the evidence pointing towards the effects such a proposal will have on the health of the people involved. Some government ministers seem to never learn. It was recently pointed out that the waste will be needed to be "guarded" for "hundreds" ( more likely thousands) of years. This only makes sense if you have the "government" contract for the job, a contract with the government for hundreds of years (?). Who'll be getting the contracts,I'd bet on some government minister's/member's family business or one of their "paid-up" cronies, that's where the real money is when the uranium runs out, guarding the waste for hundreds of years. Makes you sick really that these "greedheads" are prepared to pollute the planet for thousands of years so they can suck money off the government.
I just heard over NPR (National Public Radio) that the cost for Uranium has doubled and makes it very very profitable to mine it. The US government says that there are now safe guards to protect the environment and people against the deadly effects of uranium waste. Something like the way Bush's Administration is protecting the environment. The fact is that governments are corrupt and full of greed. And typically works with, I should say, works for large corporations. We all know that most corporations do not care about people or the environment. It is all about profit.
If you think colorado has the blues, check out what is going on in Nunn, CO. A new dead zone is in the creation if a Canadian company starts drilling in northeastern colorado. The aquifer in this area is at risk with possibly contaminating the entire central part of the state from Nunn, CO to Denver and beyond.
A little correction: The tailings used in Grand Jct. for fill came from Moab, not Uravan. As a geololgical engineer, I used to carry uranium ore samples on the floor in the back of my car, alon with the kids! Luckily none of us have developed cancer.
I grew up right in the middle of the whole Uranium boom. I graduated from Nucla High School, and worked at the Rim Shaft Mine, up on Deer Neck, Utah, before joining the Army and leaving the industry for good, in 1975. I know a lot of folks who died of cancer, more from the yellow cake mills, than mining itself.
It probably doesn't matter a great deal, but a magazine who claims to love the truth should at least make sure that they have Uravan down stream from Naturita in the story! On the western slope of the Great Divide, most rivers run to the west, and San Miguel certainly does.
This isn't about profits to a small town. It's about providing a good living without having to travel 50 miles to get it. It's about rebuilding a community that was forgotten 20 years ago. I know we shouldn't forget the past, but when do we get to stop paying the price of it?
Reading this article,Chris Ketchum didnt even hit the surface of this matter,I just wished that there is someone out there will listen,looking at www.Uravan.com,people were happy there now I now hear or read the comments area residents are claiming of medical issues.Please someone out there please make this terrible story happen.
I'm a new school teacher in Paradox. We might communicate... my class is going to be testing water this year.
jennifermjardine@yahoo.com
I grew up in Uravan in the 60's and 70's and I have to say, it was quite a childhood. For years the loyalty of people like my father kept families smiling as we breathed in the poison that was our trade-off for having the only olympic pool in the 200 mile radius, the first tennis courts on the western slope, and opportunities to make more than the current day minimum wage - straight out of high school.
Problem is, folks, that Union Carbide knew all along. I didn't then and I don't now consider the trade off of human life for quality of life the God-given right of big business. That's exactly what we endured, unknowingly. NOR did we know our part in the Manhattan Project.
Having just lost my father this past summer, to COPD (lung disease - he didn't smoke), I'm told he was the oldest living employee of the Uravan Mill camp. He was 82.
I have much to be grateful for, mostly the years we had with him, where most of the folks I know from Uravan lost loved ones long before my family. We were blessed a little longer, I suppose, but the suffering was longer too.
I can't help but wonder if having a better income for a shorter life is a good trade off. I hope the people making the decisions in Paradox will ask themselves this question before allowing the valley to become another Uravan. Yes, I know...'safety is our priority'...those are deja vu words in my life, heard that as a child, yet so many aren't now here to tell you whether they'd rather have lived long enough to watch their children and grandchildren grow up, or had the money they had from working in Uravan. Hard call on this stuff, but it's best we all keep an open mind. Even as sinister as it seems to have Uravan just disappear the way it did, the possibility it could happen all over again is even stranger.
After reading this article and the comments, I have to say that I don't think there is any safe way to mine and mill uranium. The proposed uranium in situ leach mining near Nunn, CO (see nunnglow.com) will just be another in a long line of mining eco disasters. The payoff for the local economy is very minimal--maybe 100 jobs. The potential for huge economic costs is, sadly, a given. Whenever mining companies have left a site, the government has to come in to pay for the clean up. In the case of uranium, I'm not even sure clean up is possible.
The health risks alone would preclude allowing uranium mining. Besides, CO is trying to establish itself as an alternative energy research and development area. Better to focus on that and keep the poisonous mining out.
My Stepfather-in law is 92 and worked for years in Uravan, He also has uranium exposure associated lung disease now must limit his activities.
There are more of us alive that George Gore grew up with than there are that are dead. As children living in Uravan during the "boom days", we ate, drank and breathed radiation contamination, some of us are heathly, some of us are not.
I think the safe guards that are in effect now are so much greater than they were in the 1940-80's when my family lived in Naturita and Uravan. Processes change and we know so much more about exposure now than then. (The Federal Government knew about the risks of raiation exposure in the 1920's, but wanted the uranium and vanadium at any cost.) I lost my father to cancer from silicosius at age 70. My grandfather had never lived in Uravan nor worked in the uranium industy, he died at 79 from cancer. He had a fruit farmer. Not living or working around radiation may make some difference, but nothing is truly safe.)
On the bulletin board for former Uravan residents I did not see where most of the residents have had thyroid cancer. Did I miss that page? I di see where prople made a good living and lived close to their jobs. their children received good educations. (I did not realize just how good the education was until I went to college and I was light years ahead of children from other towns & cities. Almost all of us raised in Uravan and the surrounding area had excellent work ethics and excell in our fields (whether it is manager at Burger King or research scientists). We had great childhoods - we played softball, swam, rollerskated, rock climbed, hiked, etc. As with any other area, the opportunities were there, you just had to take advantage of them.
Grand Junction had their own little tails production facility know as the Climax Mill, located on the Colorado River.
I think what has been done to the Navajo Nation is an abomniation, but since I am part-native american, I would hardly quote Ward Churchill as an authority on anything (with the possible exception on how to perpetuate fraud).
There are more of us alive that George Gore grew up with than there are that are dead. As children living in Uravan during the "boom days", we ate, drank and breathed radiation contamination, some of us are heathly, some of us are not.
I think the safe guards that are in effect now are so much greater than they were in the 1940-80's when my family lived in Naturita and Uravan. Processes change and we know so much more about exposure now than then. (The Federal Government knew about the risks of raiation exposure in the 1920's, but wanted the uranium and vanadium at any cost.) I lost my father to cancer from silicosius at age 70. My grandfather had never lived in Uravan nor worked in the uranium industy, he died at 79 from cancer. He had a fruit farmer. Not living or working around radiation may make some difference, but nothing is truly safe.)
On the bulletin board for former Uravan residents I did not see where most of the residents have had thyroid cancer. Did I miss that page? I di see where prople made a good living and lived close to their jobs. their children received good educations. (I did not realize just how good the education was until I went to college and I was light years ahead of children from other towns & cities. Almost all of us raised in Uravan and the surrounding area had excellent work ethics and excell in our fields (whether it is manager at Burger King or research scientists). We had great childhoods - we played softball, swam, rollerskated, rock climbed, hiked, etc. As with any other area, the opportunities were there, you just had to take advantage of them.
Grand Junction had their own little tailings production facility know as the Climax Mill, located on the Colorado River.
I think what has been done to the Navajo Nation is an abomniation, but since I am part-native american, I would hardly quote Ward Churchill as an authority on anything (with the possible exception on how to perpetuate fraud).
Personally experienced consensus of academic nuclear engineers
Uranium Ore: Usually not going to hurt you.
A Well Run Nuclear Power Plant: Usually not going to hurt you.
Unless they have a hole in their reactor the size of a bathtub and no one has checked lately to make sure they aren't leaking plutonium through the hole. (see: Ohio)
Uranium Mill: Oh Jesus, No! If there is anything wrong with nuclear energy it's the milling wastes. Whatever you do, stay away from the uranium mill wastes... that stuff will kill you. It'll leach into the environment, it'll get into the soil and become bio available, it'll kill birds that land on it, it'll contaminate whatever it touches for thousands of years, it'll screw up your genes, it'll give you bone cancer.... but...
Nuclear Energy is Great!
I mean... if you take out the uranium milling and mill wastes.
mortality study of Uravan residents
Mortality among residents of Uravan, Colorado who lived near a uranium mill, 1936–84; John D Boice Jr et al 2007 J. Radiol. Prot. 27 299-319
A cohort mortality study was conducted of all adult residents who ever lived in Uravan, Colorado, a company town built around a uranium mill. Vital status was determined through 2004 and standardised mortality analyses conducted for 1905 men and women alive after 1978 who lived for at least 6 months between 1936 and 1984 in Uravan. Overall, mortality from all causes (standardised mortality ratio (SMR) 0.90) and all cancers (SMR 1.00) was less than or as expected based on US mortality rates. Among the 459 residents who had worked in underground uranium mines, a significant increase in lung cancer was found (SMR 2.00; 95% CI 1.39–2.78). No significant elevation in lung cancer was seen among the 767 female residents of Uravan or the 622 uranium mill workers. No cause of death of a priori interest was significantly increased in any group, i.e. cancers of the kidney, liver, breast, lymphoma or leukaemia or non-malignant respiratory disease, renal disease or liver disease. This community cohort study revealed a significant excess of lung cancer among males who had been employed as underground miners. We attribute this excess to the historically high levels of radon in uranium mines of the Colorado Plateau, coupled with the heavy use of tobacco products. There was no evidence that environmental radiation exposures above natural background associated with the uranium mill operations increased the risk of cancer. Although the population studied was relatively small, the follow-up was long, extending up to 65 years after first residence in Uravan, and nearly half of the study subjects had died.
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