Northern Arizona U. study examines effect of uranium mining on Navajo Nation

Uranium mining from 1948 to 1956 on Navajo Nation land left a legacy of uncertainty and fear about the cancer risk of exposure from contamination of water sources. There are an estimated 1,200 mine sites on reservation land, mostly in the Four Corners area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet.

An August 2015 accident during mine waste mitigation at Gold King Mine spilled 3 million gallons of toxic waste into the Animas and San Juan rivers.

A team of researchers from the Northern Arizona University environmental analytical laboratory has compared three different approaches to get information, to learn community concerns, and create an ongoing dialogue with Navajo Nation.

The paper, by Tommy Rock, Lindsey Jones, and Jani C. Ingram, appears in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, June 23, 2021. Rock and Ingram are members of the Navajo Nation. 

Their results can help guide other researchers on Navajo Nation land, as well as researchers elsewhere working in similar situations. But there are challenges.

"While the link between environmental uranium exposure and health problems is still being determined, the perception of the Navajo people is that the uranium has poisoned people from their communities," they wrote. "The Navajo’s perspective can be understood considering the many abandoned mines following the mining boom, general fear surrounding environmental uranium exposure and an increased risk of cancer, kidney disease, and other health problems, and their limited success in gaining compensation following the passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990."

The paper explains the specific steps scientists must take before research can begin. Because the Navajo Nation has sovereignty over the reservation, researchers need tribal permission to conduct environmental studies, including resolutions of support from tribal health boards, the Navajo Historic Preservation Department, and other community organizations. 

They also are required to report their findings to the community before publication in scientific journals.

Reaching out to the Navajo Nation

Jani Ingram, Regent’s professor of analytical and environmental chemistry at the university, discussed some of the difficulties the team faced. 

"The largest challenge in disseminating the research back to the Navajo Nation is finding the right place/approach to reach the most people," she said. "In-person dissemination is the best, but the Navajo Nation is very large, so it is difficult to provide in-person presentations to a large number of people. 

Providing written dissemination works well if it is written in language that is understandable to the communities and is provided to a large number of people," she added. "This can be difficult--particularly if the community members do not speak English. Having family or friends translate is very important."

The three approaches used by the team each dealt with a different environmental topic. 

In the first case they advertised community meetings on the subject on flyers and in radio announcements. The second approach involved partnering with a grassroots organization to advertise the meeting. Third, the research team attended regularly scheduled community meetings to make a presentation on their work.

Ingram noted the most effective method.

 "I believe the combination of in-person presentations with written handouts was the most effective of the approaches described," she said. "This provided the opportunity for those present to ask questions. We hoped that they would then provide some of the information in the in-person discussion to other family and friends in the community who were not able to attend but received the written information."

What works best?

The researchers found that the less personal approach--radio announcements and flyers--was the least successful. The grassroots involvement of the second approach was more effective, because of the help of grassroots leaders in getting people to the public meetings.

In the third approach, the team combined physical and social sciences to make the data understandable to the community members. The researchers summarized their results on uranium and arsenic contamination in a booklet with maps, graphs and charts of water wells tested. The results were also summarized in the Navajo language.

The future

The Northern Arizona environmental analytic research is ongoing. 

"In working with the communities there have been health issues such as kidney disease and cancer," Ingram said. "There also have been mental health issues of being unsure of the safety of the community water and land resources."

As for who is responsible for the cleanup of waste contamination from the Gold King Mine spill, Ingram said, "That is a good question. It seems that it would be the contractor who caused the spill or the EPA that contracted for group who caused the spill. However, I think this will be up to the courts to decide."

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T. Rock et al., "Approaches for Disseminating Environmental Research Findings to Navajo Communities,"

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, June 23, 2021.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136753