Navajo Nation blasts transport of uranium ore across reservation to Utah, firm defends effort

WINDOW ROCK, Arizona — Leaders in the Navajo Nation are crying foul after two trucks hauling uranium ore traversed the reservation on Tuesday on their way from Arizona to Utah.

"They snuck through the Navajo Nation, and they made it onto the Utah side, outside of the reservation," Buu Nygren, the Navajo Nation president, said in a statement. "To me, they operated covertly to travel the Navajo Nation illegally."

Nygren took the additional step of issuing an order Wednesday to stay in effect for six months that requires Energy Fuels to reach formal accord with the Navajo Nation ahead of transporting radioactive material through the reservation. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is also looking into the matter and decried the situation.

"Hauling radioactive materials through rural Arizona, including across the Navajo Nation, without providing notice or transparency and without providing an emergency plan is unacceptable," Mayes said in a statement.

It's a touchy issue in the Navajo Nation given the adverse impact uranium mining has had on the Navajo people over the years. "Our Navajo people have suffered for many years, and many lost their lives due to uranium mining on our homelands. The Navajo Nation will continue to oppose and fight against the transportation of uranium ore through our lands for the health and safety of our people," said Crystalyne Curley, speaker of the Navajo Nation Council.

A representative from Lakewood, Colorado-based Energy Fuels, meanwhile, rebuffed suggestions that transporting the uranium ore poses a safety risk and said the shipment was carried out legally. The product was transported Tuesday from the Pinyon Plain Mine in Tusayan, Arizona, through the Navajo Nation where northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah meet on its way to the White Mesa Mill in Blanding.

"Hundreds of thousands of tons of uranium ore have been hauled across the Navajo Nation since about 1980 with no spills, accidents or other incidents, including as recently as 2022. Does transport pose a risk to the public? No," company spokesman Curtis Moore said in a message to KSL.com. The ore contains around 1% uranium, can't explode or catch fire "and is far less dangerous than other materials commonly hauled on roads and highways, including gasoline, diesel, propane, chemicals, etc."

Moreover, Moore said, Navajo Nation representatives took part in a July 19 "safety and emergency response exercise" when Energy Fuels officials said uranium ore would be transported in the subsequent 30 to 45 days. "None of the stakeholders raised any issues or concerns," he said.

Whatever the case, the issue has sparked the ire of Navajo Nation officials, who last April called on President Joe Biden to order a halt to hauling of uranium on Navajo land. That call, outlined in Navajo Nation legislation approved at the time, stemmed from worries about possible accidents involving vehicles hauling uranium ore and was also meant as a show of sovereignty. The two trucks on Tuesday were hauling around 50 tons of ore, according to Nygren.

"We are taking care of our people and our communities. When we stand together on this resolution, we're telling the world that we're exerting our sovereignty over our roads, land, air and water," Casey Allen Johnson, a member of the Navajo Nation Council, said at the time.

Nygren said in a tweet Tuesday that he had ordered Navajo Nation police "to escort the transport vehicles off our land." What he said was the failure to advise Navajo officials about the transport plans was "a blatant disregard for our tribal sovereignty" and a potential health risk to tribal residents. Navajo Nation officials told Mayes that Energy Fuels representatives had promised to give two weeks notice ahead of uranium ore shipments, she said.

Johnson put out a call in the wake of Tuesday's shipment for support from Biden, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and others. "Energy Fuels Resources is threatening the lives and health of our people by transporting uranium across our land. We need President Biden, Gov. Hobbs and our congressional delegation to stand up for the Navajo people and other tribes who are impacted," Johnson said.

Aside from health concerns, Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said the shipments at issue underscore the psychic scar created by the "long legacy of contamination" involving uranium and uranium mining. "Anyone bringing those substances onto the Nation should undertake that activity with respect and sensitivity to the psychological impact to our people, as well as the trauma of uranium development that our community continues to live with every day," she said.

Energy Fuels, for its part, said in a statement that the uranium ore in question would eventually be converted into "the fuel for safe, reliable and carbon-free nuclear energy."

"These ore shipments advance the overwhelmingly bipartisan efforts to rebuild domestic nuclear fuel supply chains that have been offshored to adversarial nations like Russia over the past several decades," said Mark Chalmers, the Energy Fuels president and chief executive officer.

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