indigenous peoples, have been exposed to elevated levels of radiation
from uranium extraction and refining toxic legacy of the Cold War's
weapons program and nuclear power generation in partnership with
a nonprofit investigative newsroom propublica.
Stephanie Sai reports on one community's fight to survive and to
hold a company and the federal government accountable.
This is a map that my daughter put together to show the different
types of cancer around the subdivision that we lived in.
In Cibola County. In the high, sparsely populated desert of northwest
New Mexico. It became known as the death map. The green is cancer.
And then the yellow is
Cancer deaths, skin cancer, breast cancer, thyroid disease.
Johnny head herself a breast cancer survivor.
All the families who over the years were hit given l. Sparsely populated
is it seems like a lot of cancers. It does, doesn't it
and her family lived in the nearby Murray Acres subdivision for decades.
It was a beautiful little green community. We had lots of alfalfa
pastures.
Horses, cows, I would have left their earlier much earlier. Had I
known the situation. The situation was that their quaint slice of
paradise was less than half a mile from 22 million tons of uranium
waste from World War two through the Cold War uranium or was heavily
mined across the four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, Utah and
New Mexico.
To produce nuclear weapons and energy.
Chemicals were used to extract and mill the uranium, and the waste
was put into tailings piles, many of which were unlined and uncapped.
Massive piles of uranium waste like this one in northwest New Mexico
have continued to blow and leak contamination into surrounding communities.
Infrastructure from three decades of uranium mining has left a toxic
legacy throughout the southwest
40 years out from the kind of death of American uranium and
We still haven't cleaned this up. Markle all day in a team at Propublica
have been investigating some 50 former uranium mills around the country
for the last several months. About half of the mills are yet to be
cleaned up and sealed, including this one owned by the Homestake
Mining Company, a subsidiary of Barrick Gold, While operations ended
in 1990, the cleanup continues. There are concerns from downstream
communities that the plumes of uranium could
Eventually migrate to their intake wells and contaminate their drinking
water sources too.
In one household close to the pile. We found levels of rate on
about almost twice as high as what the e P A says, is an actual level
that you need a pretty immediately clean out your house.
2014 study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency found
on acceptable level of excess cancer risk from the mill side.
John Boomer and Maggie Billman are among the several 1000 residents
living downstream. I was just thrilled to have all this space. I
thought I could put my wood in here on my art and artist. John needed
a big space when he bought the land in 2001 and trusted the EPA,
which said the site would be cleaned up by 2003.
The site implied to me or the way I understood it.
Was that
They were on top of the problem and that it would be fixed.
In short order, I mean that they had been working on it already.
20 years.
When I bought the property, this was another office. But he says
there were problems with all the fixes. Contamination in groundwater
and aquifers spread never get real clear answers.
We've asked for health studies, cancer cluster studies and things
like that. And it all seems to just kind of go here and there.
It's depressing. It's depressing. Uh, no
woman is a member of the Navajo Nation, not only her house, but much
of her native land has borne the brunt of America's toxic waste legacy.
More than 500 abandoned uranium mines pockmark the Navajo nation,
nearly all within a mile of a water source and there are far higher
levels of cancer among her people than the general population.
Maggie's own father, a Navajo code talker during World War two died
of stomach cancer she believes due to nuclear testing and neighboring
Nevada. Have you started to see any health impacts? My swallowing
is kind of funny, and we've been coughing a lot and this household
and we don't know what that's coming from, Um, seen changes. But
you know, the doctors are not pinpointing. I always think that gosh,
what about if it's too late?
In previous lawsuits. Homestake Mining company has denied that its
facilities are causing illness, and it is now trying to absolve itself
of further responsibility. Golden Homestake are now trying to be
done with clean up to get exemptions from the government to change
the regulatory standards at the site so they can kind of wash their
hands of it handed over to the Department of Energy and have it now
be the federal government's problem.
United States regulators can't possibly think that this is okay.
Meantime, some, including Candace Head Villa have agreed to take
buyout offers from Homestake. We trusted the federal government.
We really thought that once they said, this is going to be cleaned
up that it would be sold out. I thought Mom told me
Candice is Johnny's daughter. The woman we met at the beginning of
this story
Journalists could be today she moved to Colorado in 2019.
18. It wasn't an easy decision.
Leaving both her parents and her dream house in the Murray Acres
subdivision behind
my mom. My to Grandma's, Yeah.
And this is outside on there.
Barn in the tailings piles right over here. The tailings pile was
never far from mind. And in 2006, she found her own place on the
map of disease. Thyroid is completely removed to have no thyroid.
What it means is that if I ever don't have that medication, it's
just a few months before until I die. Mark along, says Candice's
story is representative of what's broadly happening in this community.
They are moving people. They are tearing down the homes and in the
process they're having. The residents signed non disparagement agreements
and liability waivers, saying essentially, we can't sue you moving
forward. Even if we have cancer down the line. We can't sue you for
anything.
Despite signing the non disparagement agreements, Canada's continues
to speak out to prevent a repeat of history, climate change and the
push for more low carbon energy as well as sanctions on Russia, an
exporter of uranium have renewed conversations about nuclear power,
which Candace says comes at a cost.
There is a high price that you pay for nuclear energy. They need
to understand the front end of this process, and they need to think
a little bit harder about the back end of the process. The war effort
in the Cold War, you know, made us rush headlong into an industry
without thinking about the consequences down the road. And it tells
us that when you try to regulate at the tail end of an industry as
opposed to at the outset of its creation, it's really tough to get
that right, And it's really expensive to get that right, And it leaves
us kind of asking the question of
Well, who's going to take? Who's going to take charge of this?
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the cleanup of
the Homestake. Mille said in a statement that the site is hydro geologically
complex, making target dates for groundwater remediation difficult
to estimate with precision quote. We understand and share the concern
that remediation is taking so long.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Propublica, Homestake said it's no longer
feasible to improve water quality at the site. It said it followed
government requirements and standard practices of the time and in
the final stages of closing the site, the company will place a cover
on the tailings pile to reduce rate on emissions, but there's still
no deadline for when that will happen. It's already taken decades
and for Candace Head villas, family generations of waiting
For the PBS news hour. I'm Stephanie Sigh.
And we would add this are reporting partners at pro public are continuing
their investigation, but they need your help. If you have worked
with any public agencies, consulting firms, tribes or companies involved
in the uranium industry. You can share your experience by going to