The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial

September 16, 2003

Greenaction was honored to accept an invitation from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to join them at a Department of Energy meeting in Moab, Utah on September 12, 2003 to support tribal opposition against the proposal by International Uranium Corporation to build an 85 mile slurry pipeline to transport a mountain of radioactive and toxic waste from the abandoned Atlas Uranium Mill down to the IUC facility next to the White Mesa Ute reservation.

For more information, contact:

Bradley Angel Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

No to tailings

Back in the Old West, "the white man" paid little heed to what Native Americans wanted. The image from history has been replayed over and over on big screen and small: White leaders and Indians sit down to negotiate, and almost as soon as the meeting is over, the Native Americans are either betrayed or forgotten altogether.

Fast forward to the present.

Ute tribal leaders have repeatedly met or communicated with the U.S. Department of Energy over the past year to discuss proposals the DOE is considering for disposing of uranium mill tailings heaped on the banks of the Colorado River near Moab. Each time, the Utes have said the same thing: Don't dump the radioactive tailings at White Mesa.

In March the Ute Tribal Council in Colorado passed a resolution opposing International Uranium Corp.'s proposal to move the tailings to its processing mill about three miles from the White Mesa tribal community.

A meeting last Friday in Moab was the first of a series of "consultations" the DOE is having with Ute and Navajo tribal leaders to discuss three possible disposal sites that might affect the tribes. Once again, the Utes responded to the White Mesa proposal with an emphatic no.

The Ute leaders, like many of their ancestors who tried negotiating with white expansionists, have offered a deal. They are willing to allow some intrusion onto tribal cultural resources -- artifacts, grave sites -- at two other possible tailings dump sites, Klondike Flats and Crescent Junction, if White Mesa is left alone.

With good cause, they fear the tailings -- which amount to six times the rubble removed after the World Trade Center collapse -- could damage the health of Utes living near the White Mesa mill.

In April the DOE removed the East Carbon landfill and an existing waste site at Green River from its list of options because residents in those areas said the sites were too close to people. They complained about harmful dust that could blow off the pile and contaminate the air.

"Uranium-mill tailings are not something you want in the neighborhood at all," said Dale Andrews, mayor of East Carbon.

Something certainly has to be done about the tailings, which are currently fouling the water supply in the Colorado River for 25 million people in four states and threatening residents and wildlife in the Moab area.

This should be paramount in picking a site: Health concerns for Utes are the same as health concerns for non-Native Americans. The DOE should consider the tribe's compromise and strike White Mesa from its list.

And keep it struck.