On Tuesday, Energy Fuels Resources, the company that owns a uranium mine near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, began hauling ore to a mill in southern Utah.
In a statement, the company said the shipments are safe, have low levels of radiation and have been permitted by state and federal regulators.
But the transport route includes a large swath of the Navajo Nation, which opposes the mine and has outlawed uranium hauling through its lands.
Navajo President Buu Nygren quickly sent out Navajo police in an effort to turn the trucks back, but the shipments eventually passed through the reservation on highways regulated by state agencies.
The president has vowed to stop any future uranium hauling and spoke with KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius about the tribe’s response.
Ryan Heinsius: You said that the company Energy Fuels Resources’ actions showed a disregard for the Navajo Nation’s tribal sovereignty and that the company didn’t contact you before starting to haul the uranium. Maybe you can just elaborate on what this means for Navajo Nation tribal sovereignty.
President Buu Nygren: These are the laws of the nation, you come on the nation, it says you’re entering the Navajo Reservation. Every time you’ve driven north of Flagstaff it says entering the Navajo Reservation, these are the boundaries, east, west, north and wherever you’re going, and that you got to not only uphold the laws of the U.S., uphold the laws of the state, but also uphold the laws of the Navajo Nation. It’s going to have to come down to that. It’s going to really showcase what is Navajo tribal sovereignty, ‘cause the thing too that makes it difficult too is that the Navajo Nation is not a small reservation. You’ve got over 200,000 people that live on the reservation, and all 200,000 people do not want uranium transportation. So, imagine the news now when they hear that uranium was actually transported across the Navajo Nation without the Navajo Nation notice. I could see Navajo people organizing, protesting, blocking highways, and it’s going to make it very tough, not only because it’s going to disrupt tourism, it’s going to disrupt commerce, it’s going to disrupt services if that starts to happen, and Energy Fuels should have thought about that.
RH: Energy Fuels has been very adamant that hauling uranium ore is safe and that even a spill wouldn’t threaten public health, but tell me about yours and other Navajo officials’ concerns when it comes to that. You clearly don’t agree.
BN: Maybe it’s acceptable elsewhere, but like I said, there’s nowhere else in this country where it’s affected thousands and thousands of people like the Navajo Nation. And I think that if there was another area in this country that has seen the effects of it, that it’s done to my people, then people would probably better understand it, and that’s what I’m hoping that people continue to realize as people read about this, today and tomorrow and into the future that, you know what, we’ve done our part. We’ve had our Navajo Code Talkers, we’ve had our uranium. We’ve really done our play in terms of national security and protecting this country. So now, protect us. Protect the people who protected this country.
RH: What’s next for the Navajo Nation in trying to prevent future uranium hauling?
BN: My stance is that we’re going to stop any trucks that are going to try to enter the Navajo Nation until, obviously, Energy Fuels is probably going to have to file an injunction and sue us and we go from there. But in the meantime, we’re going to stop any trucks that try to come through Navajo.
RH: What does that look like? Are you literally going to have Navajo police officers at the border of the nation and be on the lookout? How does that actually work?
BN: That’s going to be the tough one. We didn’t even know they were coming through today. I think that Energy Fuels is just such an undercover company that it’s going to make it very difficult on their end. And I think that if that’s how they’re going to play and that’s how they’re going to treat us then, I think that whatever it costs us in the end we’re going to make sure we’ve charged them back for it. Having police officers are not cheap and have somebody sit there and watch is very expensive. And the good thing too is we might have to partner with nonprofit organizations or organizers that have been tracking this on their own. And once they tell us that, we might have to make it a community effort. And then from there the communities can the nation and say, hey there’s a truck coming out this way, can you send Navajo police? And then we send Navajo police. I know there’s a lot of passionate people out there outside of the Navajo Nation government. At the end of the day, just disappointed that we had to react on a minute’s notice, and it’s just unfortunate that by the time we got to them, they snuck through the nation into Utah.
