(NewsNation) — The Navajo Nation is asking President Biden to use his executive authority to ban the shipment of uranium or on roads that pass through the reservation.
“Our Navajo people, land, and water are very precious to us, and we are unwavering in our stance against uranium,” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a news release.
Energy Fuels, one of the country`s largest uranium producers, is set to begin trucking uranium ore from its mine in Arizona near the Grand Canyon to the White Mesa Mill in southern Utah.
While Navajo law and such shipments, state roads are exempt. The tribe would like the President to close that loophole.
“Transporting a radioactive substance poses environmental concerns and direct health risks to the Navajo people, clean water, and livestock. The routes of transporting the uranium travel many miles within the Navajo Nation,” the release reads.
The Navajo Nation straddles much of the Four Corners, the only spot in the U.S. where four states (Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico) border each other.
“We want to assure the Navajo Nation that Energy Fuels takes transportation very seriously,” Energy Fuels senior vice president Curtis Moore told News from The States. “we meet or exceed all applicable U.S. Department of Transportation laws and regulations regarding the transport of uranium ore.”
Moore says Energy Fuels will notify the Navajo Nation when the shipments begin.
From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands under leases with the Navajo Nation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has been working with the tribe since 2007 to clean up abandoned mines and mitigate legacy health issues from remaining contamination.
Uranium mining resumed in Utah earlier this year after a nearly 10-year decade hiatus, fueled by Congress passing a ban on Russian uranium imports amid its invasion of Ukraine.