Let's not forget the hidden costs of uranium mining

Jen Jackson writes and insightful piece in the High Country News about the gradual and insiduous toll that uranium mining takes on the largely indigenous communities that do the deadly work. Here's an excerpt:

With other extractive industries, we tend to see the tragedies boldly splashed across the front page of the newspaper -- the massive oil spills, deaths on the natural gas rigs, or the dozens of coal miners killed in collapses and explosions. We can't avoid a general awareness of some of the true costs of fossil fuels-based energy production. But many of the costs of nuclear power -- beyond the Three Mile Island tragedy now fading in our memories -- have been more insidious.

Cancer deaths do not occur suddenly, inside a mine. Instead, they happen slowly and at a remove from the time and place of exposure. The deaths occur at home or in the hospital, surrounded by grieving loved ones rather than reporters with TV cameras. The family mourns, but the nation goes on about its business; nobody makes speeches. Mining disasters are horrible, but uranium takes an even more deadly toll. And it's not just the miners who are affected. It's also the families that live near the mine or the mill.

Save the Date! Nuclear-Free Future Awards

The 2010 Nuclear-Free Future Awards will be presented to heroes and heroines of the Nuclear Age on the evening of Thursday, September 30. The event, to be held at the Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York City, is free and open to the public but tax-deductible donations are welcome. The Nuclear-Free Future Award is the world's most prestigious anti-nuclear award with a strong focus on the first victims of the uranium cycle: indigenous peoples on all continents poisoned by uranium mining. Honorees will be announced at the end of June. Please feel free to distribute the flier.The evening will be co-moderated by Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow! and Claus Biegert, founder of the Nuclear-Free Future Award. Joanne Shenandoah, Peter Gordon and Liam O'maonlai will bless the evening with their music.

Almoustapha Alhacen describes the tragedy of uranium mining in Niger

The German publication, Der Spiegel, has featured a strong three-part series on the impact of uranium mining upon the impoverished communities (see miner's house made of mine refuse, left) in Niger. Illnesses, radiation dispersed throughout the communities, and few benefits to the miners and their families are just part of the catastrophe. Almoustapha Alhacen, himself a mineworker at the Arlit sight run by the French nuclear giant, Areva, has fought these problems for close to a decade. Read the series (in English) and view the moving gallery of photos.

No radioactive waste on Native American lands!

In his public comments at their first meeting, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps urged Energy Secretary Chu's "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future" to "put a stop, once and for all, to the shameful history of targeting Native American communities and lands with radioactive waste dumps." Kevin thanked President Obama and Secretary Chu for the tremendous environmental justice victory represented by their wise decision to cancel the Yucca Mountain dumpsite proposal targeted at Western Shoshone Indian lands at Yucca Mountain in Nevada (pictured at left through the frame of a Western Shoshone sweat lodge, 2004 photo courtesy of Gabriela Bulisova), and honored Native American leaders such as Corbin Harney and Grace Thorpe, who devoted their lives to stopping radioactive waste dumps targeted at Native lands. In 2005, along with Pubilc Citizen, Kevin documented the history of this radioactive racism, including at Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah. Nearly 450 groups unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission against licensing the Private Fuel Storage "parking lot dump," but thanks to the tireless efforts of Skull Valley traditionals like Margene Bullcreek and Sammy Blackbear, it was ultimately blocked.

Uranium mining begins near Grand Canyon

Despite a moratorium authorized by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, that bans (for now) uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, mining activities have begun adjacent to the World Heritage site. Canadian company Denison Mines has started mining uranium on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. According to the Arizona Daily Sun the mine has been operating since December 2009. The Grand Canyon is ancestral homeland to the Havasupai and Hualapai Nations. An article posted on the Indigenous Action Media Web site details the deadly legacy of past uranium mining inflicted on indigenous communities and plans to resist this latest threat. And watch a video on Native resistence to a proposed new coal plant.