The Environmental Protection Agency had added a site on the Navajo Nation to its Superfund National Priorities List.
The remote area in the Lukachukai Mountains in northeastern Arizona is within the Cove, Round Rock and Lukachukai Chapters and includes a hundred waste piles from abandoned uranium and vanadium mines containing radium 226, uranium and other metals.
The waste has flowed into washes and surface water and may have polluted groundwater.
Navajo families use the land for livestock grazing, recreation and hunting and it’s a sacred area that provides plants for ceremonial use and threatened owl habitat.
EPA officials say the contamination poses a major threat to human health and the environment.