By Charmaine White Face ©
The USDA Forest Service from Custer National Forest out of
Billings, MT, is responsible for a large area in the
Northwestern corner of South Dakota. The Cave Hills and Slim
Buttes area exhibits some of the most unique and beautiful
landscapes in the state. This area also was used extensively
in the 1960s for uranium mining, …open-pit uranium mining.
Unfortunately, at that time, there were no laws for
reclamation, so 89 mines and prospects were left abandoned,
according to information from the US Forest Service.
On Nov. 13,
2007, in the nearest community to the Cave Hills area, a
blink of an eye place known as Ludlow, the Forest Service
held an open house “to update the public on the activities
happening at the site.” It was advertised in the regions’
daily newspaper a few times, and flyers were sent to
interested individuals.
There is a
federal law called the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA. The Forest
Service has a CERCLA program that “cleans up hazardous
substances from abandoned mine lands and other sites to
protect human health and the environment (such as watershed
soil, water, and vegetation).” This sounds excellent,
however, the Forest Service can only do this if they have
enough money, or there is a Potentially Responsible Party.
In this case, the Potentially Responsible Party is Tronox
Worldwide LLC, formerly Kerr-McGee Corporation, which mined
at least six of the bluffs in the North Cave Hills area at
the Riley Pass site.
More than 150
acres were disturbed from 1962-64 when Tronox pushed a
million plus cubic yards of overburden over the edges of the
rimrocks surrounding the plateau at the Riley Pass site,
spewing radioactive dust and destroying hundreds of
petroglyphs, burials and sites sacred to many Native
American nations. From these activities more than 28,000
tons of ore was removed which produced 150,000 pounds of
uranium. The wastes left behind included poisonous arsenic,
molybdenum which harms cattle, and the highly radioactive
thorium, not to mention other uranium decay products such as
radium, and radon. The radon gas alone, at that time and
today, is carried for hundreds of miles in the air and
causes lung cancer.
With the
release of all these radioactive substances into the
environment for more than 40 years, the Forest Service
reached a settlement agreement with Tronox who is developing
reclamation plans only for Bluff B. One of the disturbing
statements used in the 38 page settlement agreement was:
“Respondent shall prepare, perform and submit to the Forest
Service for review and approval the non-time critical
removal action…” Probably after more than 40 years of
allowing these radioactive contaminants to harm the
environment, including the human beings downwind and down
stream, then it seems to be “non-time critical.” Yet, it
would seem that the clean-up would be ‘more’ time critical
in order to stop the environmental and human health effects
as soon as possible.
Bluff B was
chosen since tests have shown it contains the highest amount
of gamma radiation. This is the deadliest form of nuclear
radiation in comparison with alpha and beta radiation which
is also found at the Riley Pass site. The material
containing the most gamma radiation will be scooped up into
“containment cells.” In other words, this radioactive
material will be wrapped up like a burrito in a manmade
synthetic wrapper. How long the wrapper will hold the
material remains to be seen, since uranium can take billions
of years to decay eventually to it’s non-radioactive final
self while the wrapper will fall apart long before the
uranium is finished. The reclamation plans are only for one
bluff at the Riley Pass site. This raises the question, what
about the other 88 mines? Are all 89 mines going to be
reclaimed? Or is only one bluff of one mine going to be
reclaimed?
When I asked
this question of Laurie Walters-Clark, the USFS On-Scene
Coordinator, she quickly deflected the question and never
gave an answer. However, there is another entity watching
this whole course of action, a Quality Assurance body called
Millennium Science and Engineering, Inc. Maybe it’s because
they are the watchdog that I was able to get a more honest
answer. To the question of: “When will all 89 mines be
cleaned up?” The answer from MSE was: “Not in your
lifetime.”
It wasn’t an answer I wanted to hear. I kept thinking of all
the people in the village of Bullhead, 100 miles away, who
are downstream from these mines. I kept thinking of the
abandoned mines just west of the Pine Ridge Reservation. I
kept thinking of all the people in South Dakota affected by
the radioactive dust and radon gas as the winds blow across
this northwest corner to the rest of the state. The answer
was an honest answer and one that treated me like an
intelligent, responsible adult. Millennium Science and
Engineering, Inc, should be proud that they have employees
who are not afraid to give an honest answer.
After going through the large amount of written material
made available on the plan, my conclusion was that this
massive amount of paperwork is only a “pacifier for the
public.” It is an insult to the courage and the right of the
people living downwind and downstream from these mines to be
duped into believing that the situation is being remedied
when work will only be completed on one bluff of one mine
with the result of that work not guaranteed.
People have
to right to know when something harmful is, or has been
coming to them. With the proper information, then choices
can be made to remain and take chances with the ’known’
danger, to move to a different location, or to do something
to help lessen the danger.
It is
estimated that there are more than 1,000 abandoned uranium
mines located in this region which also includes the
southern Black Hills in South Dakota, parts of Montana, and
a major portion of Wyoming. How much radioactive dust has
been carried by the wind from all these mines in the past 40
years? How much radioactive runoff from 40 years of rain and
snow has collected in the Missouri River? What will it take
to wake up the country and the world to this deadly “silent
Chernobyl” in the middle of the United States?
####
Charmaine White Face, (Zumila Wobaga) is a member of the
Oglala Tetuwan, a former college instructor, writer, and
coordinator for Defenders of the Black Hills. She can be
reached at
bhdefenders@msn.com.
12.13.07