Environmental Justice for the Navajo : Uranium Mining in the Southwest

This website from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment describes an historical event where Navajo Native American's on a reservation in New Mexico and the U.S. southwest experienced unjust explotation for their labor to collect dangerous uranium ore for the purpose of providing energy for atomic weapons during the Cold War. The website describes the groups experience in working under dangerous conditions to extract this energy resource and how it impacted them in their daily life longitudinally. Not only did they risk their lives at a low wage to work in these mines, but their homes were built out of the dangerous rocks that contained the ore and exposed them to diminishing their health, leading to illness that was detrimental to their lives. The ore caused lung cancer and radiation exposure that was life threatening and fatal. This website also goes on to explain the measures that were required to be recognized as a harmed and wronged group that needed remediation by the U.S. government. These claims of biocitizenship and the coallescence of this group under a common goal of justice allowed the Native Americans to come together under grassroots organizations. It was only when the media got involved and exposed this injustice that they were recognized as a vulnerable group that should be due compensation for the lives lost and sicknesses endured because of their role in the uranium mining. This took nearly 40 years to even pass legislation, and even then accessing these funds was nearly impossible for this group under the circumstances laid out. This is an important artifact in broad globalized conceptualizations of energy justice and energy vulnerabilities because it exemplifies the way in which there are health risks and environemtnal degradation incorporated in the extraction of energy resources. This is directly tied to justice issues because it is an element of procedural justice, whereby the mining of the uranium directly caused injustices to a historically marginalized population through low compensation and wages, dangerous and unmediated health concerns, and overall disregard for these individuals well-being and safety in the name of achieving energy resources. These injustices are tied to vulnerabilities of energy, whereby we can see the way in which government and powerful actors in the energy landscape have overlooked this underrepresented group. The ability to legitimize power for the underserved population, that is the Native Americans, required going to the media to expose the injustices. This shows the way that vulnerable populations are often overlooked or pushed to the fringes of society even while extracting and providing an important resource to protect our national security during a critical time in our history.