Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren threatened to stop trucks carrying uranium ore across the tribe’s reservation Tuesday, saying “the lack of notification” about the trip showed “blatant disregard for our tribal sovereignty.”
The trucks were transporting uranium ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine on the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the White Mesa Mill in Blanding for processing. They had crossed the Navajo Nation border into Utah by the time tribal police caught up with them, Nygren later said.
In a Tuesday afternoon interview, Nygren vowed to stop any future loads. “They’re smuggling [an] illegal substance and illegal material through the Navajo Nation that is completely banned by the Navajo Nation government,” he said.
The CEO of Energy Fuels, the Canadian company that owns the Arizona mine and the Utah mill, heralded the first trip as “an exciting day for Arizona” in a news release that did not mention Nygren’s attempt to stop the trucks or the tribe’s opposition.
“We are working together to combat climate change,” said Energy Fuels President and CEO Mark Chalmers, “while meeting the growing demand for clean energy and reducing the country’s reliance on Russia for uranium and critical minerals.”
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
The company said its transportation of the ore is safe and legal, and said it had gone “above and beyond” requirements in its efforts to keep stakeholders informed. A briefing on July 19 was attended by federal, state, county, and tribal officials, according to the company, which has headquarters outside Denver.
Nygren said that he had not been notified that the trucks would be entering the reservation on Tuesday.
Before Tuesday, he added, his government had been working on regulations that would incentivize Energy Fuels to transport the uranium around the Navajo Nation, taking a more circuitous route to Blanding. But, he said, “that’s out the window now.”
Nygren predicted: “There’s probably going to be a legal battle, and we’ll let the courts handle that. And while the courts are handling it, there won’t be transportation of uranium.”
‘Health, safety and welfare’ of tribal members
Earlier this summer, Gabriel Pietrorazio, a correspondent at KJZZ, had asked Chalmers about transporting uranium ore.
“To notify the public of every shipment that is being made in and out would take a lot of work,” Chalmers said, “and I think people would get bored.”
But after a truck was spotted Tuesday, Nygren objected on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the ore transportation without notice “exposes our Diné people to toxic uranium, a substance that has devastated our community for decades.”
Stephen Etsitty, who leads the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, had confirmed that the truck was carrying uranium, said a spokesperson for the Navajo Nation president.
In March, Nygren had asked President Joe Biden to stop uranium transport across the reservation, which includes land in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. And in April, Nygren approved a resolution also calling for a ban.
A tribal ban was passed in 2012 but a loophole exempted state and federal highways U.S. 89 and U.S. 160, allowing for the transportation of ore.
Still, uranium, the most widely used fuel for nuclear energy, is a long-standing threat to the tribe, Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said Tuesday.
“We still have the ability to regulate and ensure the protection of the health, safety and welfare of our tribal members on those highways,” Branch said, “and obviously, uranium factors into that quite a bit.”
‘Simply natural rock’
Energy Fuels said Tuesday that the trucking of the ore was “in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.” Specially licensed operators drive the trucks, which are tightly covered and appropriately labeled as carrying radioactive material, it said.
The company also said that the Pinyon Plain Mine ore bound for its mill, the last conventional uranium mill operating in the country, contains just 1% uranium.
“Tens of thousands of trucks have safely transported uranium ore across northern Arizona since the 1980s with no adverse health or environmental effects,” said Chalmers. “Materials with far greater danger are transported every day on every road in the county. Ore is simply natural rock. It won’t explode, ignite, burn or glow, contrary to what opponents claim.”
Still, Energy Fuels worked to educate communities along the company’s trucking route about safety measures, he said.
“It was at these meetings where we provided extensive information on legal requirements, safety, and emergency response,” added Chalmers. “We have gone far above-and-beyond the legal requirements, and we look forward to future dialog on these important issues.”
Over 500 abandoned uranium mine claims from the 1940s to 1980s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports, remain on Navajo land. And as recently as 2008, federal and tribal agencies found water sources on the Navajo Nation contaminated with uranium and other radionuclides resulting from past uranium production on the reservation.
Correction • 1:45 p.m. July 31, 2024: This story has been corrected to state two trucks crossed the reservation Tuesday. An earlier version had an incorrect number.