Navajo uranium legacy produces cancer rates far above the US average.

Evidence

Over 1,000 slag piles and tailings from abandoned uranium mines sit on Diné land, leaking radioactivity into the air and water. Nearby is the largest coal strip mine in the world, and some groups of Diné teenagers have a cancer rate 17 times the national average. According to Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Most Indigenous governments are over 22 years behind the states in environmental infrastructure development. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 54

Categorization

• XREF: A canonical environmental-racism case central to eco-justice pedagogy on uranium mining. — connects to: US tribal lands are prime targets for nuclear and toxic waste disposal. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 53; Navajo uranium miners faced disproportionate contamination and disease burdens — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 213
• SEED: Possible essay angle: the half-century of abandoned uranium tailings on Diné land as the unpaid cost of the Cold War nuclear complex.

Broader Connections

• Navajo uranium miners faced disproportionate contamination and disease burdens #expands (0.95) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 213