Re: [Fwd: [Know_Nukes] (NYT) Navajo Miners Battle a Deadly Legacy of Yellow D...

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

I will try to make this brief:


1.  I have traveled extensively in the Southwest  including a lot of time on the Navajo reservation (the Big Reservation) .  The rocks and the desert are not  yellow, but the typical orange-red of sandstone.  Sandia (the name of the mountain behind my house) means "watermelon" in Spanish, and that is the color of the mountain in the setting sun.

2.  Uranium minerals come in a variety of colors. Uraninite, the mineral generally found in the southwest, has different colors depending on the trace elements present.  Pitchblende (which is black) is a form of uraninite.  Uranium-doped quartz is orange, and looks like dark topaz (I used to have a pair of earrings of U-doped quartz).  "Yellowcake" is almost 100% UO2, and the crystals of UO2 are black (See Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, 12th edition).

3.  Uranium miners' health has been studied extensively.  BEIR IV is based largely on the effect of inhaling alpha emitters, principally radon, by uranium miners.  we know a lot more about  the health effects of exposure to alpha emitters than was known in 1950.  Solution mining is done precisely because miners are not exposed to the very high concentrations of radon that are present in active underground uranium mines.  Solution mining, if done properly, can be done without contaminating aquifers, and this is something the mining companies must be (and are) careful of.  The University of Northern Arizona has done considerable work in this area.

4.  Mining is a dangerous and environmentally destructive business.  The Black Mesa coal mine (on the Navajo reservation) is responsible for more health and environmental damage than the uranium mines, but that is beside the point.  The point is that mining -- any mining -- is going to continue, so it should be done  as safely as possible with minimal environmental damage.


Ruth 

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com