The following story was written and reported by Talli Nauman. All content © Native Sun News.

RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA -- As Powertech USA looks forward to receiving permits for its proposed Dewey Burdock uranium mining project north of Edgemont, the non-profit Defenders of the Black Hills steps up its advocacy for a ban on all uranium mining.

The local group lobbied successfully to achieve the Global Call to Action for a Ban on Uranium Mining, adopted on Aug. 29, by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) following the organization’s 19th World Congress in Basel Switzerland earlier this year.

“We were told the physicians probably would not approve indigenous people’s statement asking for a ban on uranium mining,” Defenders of the Black Hills spokesperson Charmaine White Face said at a news conference in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Sept. 14.

Her organization was invited to a preliminary meeting at the congress, in which indigenous representatives from Canada, Niger, Mali, Namibia, Tanzania, Malawi, Russia, Germany, Australia, Brazil, and India also took part.

The event entitled “Sacred Land, Poisoned Peoples” culminated in submission of the statement to the IPPNW. It says: “Past, present and future generations of indigenous peoples are disproportionately impacted by uranium mining, nuclear weapons and the nuclear power industry.”

One of the main reasons is that much of uranium mining and nuclear waste disposal occurs in Indian country, according to White Face.

“The nuclear fuel chain radioactively contaminates our people’s health, land, air, and waters. Uranium mining, nuclear energy development and international agreements that foster the nuclear fuel chain violate our basic human rights and fundamental natural laws of Mother Earth, endangering our survival and spiritual well-being,” the international indigenous statement said.

Drafters of the statement were surprised when the IPPNW agreed and issued its declaration to stop uranium mining, White Face said.

According to the IPPNW statement: “Approximately three-quarters of the world’s uranium is mined on territory belonging to indigenous peoples. The inhabitants of affected regions are for the most part vulnerable to exposure from radioactive substances that threaten them with short- and long-term health risks and damaging genetic effects.

“As well as the direct health effects from contamination of the water, the immense water consumption in mining regions is environmentally and economically damaging – and in turn detrimental for human health.

“The extraction of water leads to a reduction of the groundwater table and thereby to desertification; plants and animals die, the traditional subsistence of the inhabitants is eliminated, the existence of whole cultures are threatened,” it said.

“Banning uranium mining would reduce the risk of [nuclear weapons] proliferation,” it added. “Banning uranium mining would promote the phasing out of the irresponsible practice of using nuclear energy and increase pressure globally to force a change-over to renewable energies,” it concluded.

Colorado and Canadian physicians groups have passed similar resolutions to ban uranium mining. “I wish South Dakota doctors would do something like this and come forward about the health effects caused by mining uranium in this region,” White Face said.

Accepting an IPPNW invitation to speak at the Switzerland congress, she addressed cancer statistics, including Indian Health Service findings that she said reveal much higher rates of death among Indians from the five leading cancers in the Northern Plains region as compared to all races in the United States (1999 – 2003).

“The Indian Health Service can get the documentation on us,” she said when she returned to Rapid City. “If that’s what’s happening to us, what are the other issues in this region?” she asked.

“When I think of the uranium mining in Custer, Fall River and Harding County, I’m very concerned for them, and there needs to be studies,” she added. Some of the old uranium mines dating back to the 1950s in those counties have not been cleaned up. “When dust blows, how many innocent tourists are also being affected?” she asked.

High readings for radioactivity remain. On the Sept. 15 stakeholder tour of old and proposed uranium mining sites, White Face took her Geiger counter – a device used to measure three forms of radiation. She measured the amount of radiation coming from a large rock on a hill near an old mine pit. The open pit covered nearly a square mile area. It was mined in the 1960s and 70s, before miners went bankrupt due to lowered demand in the post-WWII era, according to the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) website.

White Face explained that the area’s normal background radiation – the amount of naturally occurring radiation exposure in the environment – is 15 REMs. The reading she obtained at the pit was 100 REMs.

REMs are measures of ionizing radiation; the name is an acronym for the shorthand term Roentgen Equivalent in Man. Also on board the tour, DENR Air Quality Board member Chuck Munson commented, “I had no idea anything like this was here in this area. Back then reclamation laws did not exist. This shows the benefit of a reclamation plan.”

Powertech’s Project Manager for the Dewey Burdock site, Mark Hollenbeck, explained that open pit mining of the 1960s and 1970s was much different than mining today. The type of mining Powertech proposes at this location now is in-situ recovery (ISR).

Powertech’s description of ISR is pumping oxygenated native water and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), into the underground uranium ore, dissolving it, and then forcing it into a solution recovery chamber on the surface. Once the uranium is collected and removed, the remaining water is reused throughout the life of the operation.

Monitoring wells are positioned surrounding the mining site. The aquifer is then checked for unsafe leaking of pollutants. If elevated levels of pollutants are found, the pumping pressure is reduced to stop spreading.

Once the ore is depleted of commercially viable uranium, Powertech is required to reclaim the site by treating used water and removing the pollutants for disposal at a government facility, as well as to continue monitoring for a matter of years.

(Talli Nauman is a co-founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness. Contact her at talli@hughes.net)