Ray, you justifiably cite the case of what happened to Picher, Oklahoma, because of poorly monitored and poorly regualated industrial development. Some twent years ago, I did a study of the impact of the impact of potential uranium mining on northern Saskatchewan. Part of the study involved finding out what happened elsewhere because of unregulated "mom and pop" operations. Some of my findings follow.
Ed -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tailings can have immediate somatic or genetic health effects if people are exposed to them. Indeed, many of the fears associated with uranium mining appear to derive from an earlier era in which regulations were non-existent or, at best, lax. The American western states, and especially the Colorado Plateau states, have experienced significant health effects from old uranium mines and improperly decommissioned tailings. A study undertaken in this region in 1979 is reported to have found a 50% higher death rate for congenital anomalies, a two-fold increase in cleft lip and cleft palate, higher death rates due to cancer after excluding lung cancer, lower birth rates, and a leukemia rate for all age groups 2.5 times the expected rate.[1][1] Another study, focusing on birth defects among Navahos, is reported to have found certain major physical abnormalities conspicuously higher in 5,344 births that took place between 1967 and 1974. These included hydrocephaly, microcephaly, Down's syndrome, cleft lip and cleft palate, as well as grande mal epilepsy. In 1981, statistics developed by the Navaho Health Authority reportedly showed a serious increase in bone cancer and reproductive organ cancers in children under the age of 15 in parts of the Navaho Reservation where uranium mining had taken place. Navaho children were said to have exhibited ovarian and testicle cancer at least 15 times greater than the US average, and bone cancers 5 times the US average. Other important findings apparently included a 16 year period of altered sex ratios in Shiprock during the height of operation of a uranium mill there, increased demand for handicapped services for Navaho children, and elevated rates of birth defects in all areas of uranium mining in the Four Corner states. Parts of the Navaho Reservation in Arizona are pock-marked by numerous open-pit uranium mines, the remnants of small "mom and pop" uranium mining operations of the 1950s. Many of these abandoned mines have filled with water over the years, providing attractive, although clearly hazardous, summer swimming holes for Navaho youngsters.[2][2] The ignorance of the hazards of exposure to uranium mines, and hence a lack of standards, is perhaps best illustrated by the case of Grand Junction, Colorado. "In Grand Junction, Colorado, more than six thousand structures -- including several schools -- are now known to have tailings deposits in the building materials or in the landfill under them. Streets and sidewalks were also laid with them. In all at least 270,000 tons of tailings were used, resulting in dangerous radiation levels in many Grand Junction houses. A state- and federal-funded program that has thus far cost taxpayers at least $6.5 million has brought "remedial action" to only seven hundred sites. Costs have been estimated at fifteen thousand dollars per home and seventy-five thousand dollars per commercial building. For some the cleanup may have come late. A 1978 study by the state of Colorado indicated cancer rates in Mesa County, where Grand Junction is the prime population center, showed an acute leukemia rate twice the state average. More women were suffering from the disease than men, an indication of radiation poisoning."[3][3] Currently, mine managers and regulators have a much better understanding of the immediate dangers of mine tailings, and every effort is made to keep the public away from them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1][1] Taylor, Lynda, "Resources for Self-Reliance, Uranium Legacy", The Workbook, Vol. VIII, No.6, Southwest Research and Information Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November-December 1983 [2][2] Ibid. [3][3] Wasserman, Harvey and Solomon, Norman, Killing Our Own, A Delta Book, New York, 1982, p.187
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