Nuclear Threat to the Navajo

A nuclear power industry is taking over lands near a Navajo reservation. Residents of the Navajo Nation are still suffer from the effects of the radiation threats from more than a thousand gaping mine sites abandoned after the cold war arms race. Do to decades of uranium mining and the negligence of the mining companies to clean up the sites, there has been evidence of increasing number of cancer and disease that are spreading. Some of the horrible effects that are caused by these mining industries are that open mines leaching contaminated rain are running into the drinking water tables, wind is blowing radioactive dust, homes are being constructed from uranium mine slabs, and children are playing in radioactive swimming holes and ground pits. However, Tribal elders finally forbade mining, alarmed at the sudden rise in cancer deaths and the House oversight committee is rightly demanding a coordinated five-year remediation plan from the agencies most involved. Many criticize the government for their insult to the injury; they have not overlooked the cleaning of the old mines, and they are already talking of building new ones. Only God knows the effects, dangerous, and deaths that could be caused to the Navajo Native American who already been through so much abuse in their past.

In the 1800’s there was an overwhelming amount of people immigrating to America. After reading “the Jungle,” a true story which follows the life of a family from Lithuania, one would be shocked at the horrors which the immigrants had to face. In Chicago at that time, the meat industries would exploit and take advantage of these people who come in search of jobs and opportunity. The book describes how shabby apartments were built on top of a trash land fill of the meat industries, and flies would infest the skies. The smell was intoxicating and the children would be seen playing and eating from the trash. In both cases, powerful industries can be seen abusing and exploiting the vulnerable disregarding there dignity and rights.