Federal agencies release plan for (Navajo Nation) uranium cleanup

[struggle4progress]

By Felicia Fonseca
ASSOCIATED PRESS

9:23 a.m. June 22, 2008

CHURCH ROCK, N.M. – This community has become a poster child on the Navajo Nation, but residents don't brag about it.

Among the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines on the vast reservation the size of West Virginia, the Northeast Church Rock Mine here tops the list as the most contaminated.

No one lives on the 220-acre property that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fenced off to keep livestock and people from roaming onto it.

But just 500 yards away from the fence and a 40-foot uranium mine waste pile lives Teddy Nez, a rancher who complains of breathing difficulties he attributes to the contamination ...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20080622-0923-wst-navajo-pollutedtown.html