Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 1.3: Indigenous Peoples, Mining and Climate Change
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other respiratory diseases, and tuberculosis for Navajo uranium
miners. Increasing duration of exposure to underground
uranium mining was associated with increased mortality risk
for all three diseases…” 64
In areas near uranium mills, residents suffer stomach
cancer at rates 15 times those of the national level. In some
areas, the frequency gets as high as 200 times the national
average. 65 Hundreds of abandoned uranium mines with exposed
tailings remain unremediated in the Navajo Nation
area posing a contamination hazard. 66 Near the former uranium
mills, water contamination and contamination of rocks,
which many residents used to build their houses, continue to
be problems.
Yet for many years—even while medical studies were revealing
heightened rates of cancers and other diseases associated
with coming into contact with radioactive material—the
Navajo were not fully informed or warned of the dangers they
faced. For example, a US Public Health study in 1951 into the
dangers of exposure to heightened levels of radon and other
radioactive materials failed to inform the subjects of the scope
of the study or the dangers involved in exposure.
“The cancer death rate on the reservation—historically
much lower than that of the general U.S. population—doubled
from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, according to
Indian Health Service data. The overall U.S. cancer death
rate declined slightly over the same period.” 67
France also continues to actively develop its nuclear power
industry, which depends heavily on mining of uranium on
Tuareg lands in Niger. Mining and extraction of uranium
there is performed by two subsidiaries, formerly of French
Cogema, now subsidiaries of French AREVA, which is a majority
state-owned corporation. The similar patterns of failures in
worker safety are well documented; likewise, inadequate management
of radioactive waste materials leading to exposure of
both workers and the community. 68