Trump will Continue Environmental Injustice Tribal Lands: The Case of Uranium Mining

• In Event: Crime, Law, Justice and the Trump Administration 3: Regulatory Rollbacks and Environmental Threats

Abstract

Internal colonialism in the United States has long relied upon collusive relationships between the U.S. government and private corporations to extract valuable minerals from Native lands, frequently in violation of treaty rights, while poisoning the air, land, and water on which Native Peoples depend. A prime example of this is uranium mining which began on the Navajo reservation in the 1940s. Even though active uranium mining ended in 1986, Navajo today live with its aftermath, inhaling radioactive dust and drinking water contaminated with uranium and arsenic left behind by multinational corporations. Despite this ugly history, uranium mining is now being revived on the Navajo reservation with the January 2024 reactivation of mining at the Pinyon Plain Mine. This paper examines the pervasive influence of white supremacist ideology prevalent in the Trump administration along with the Administration’s pro-nuclear colonialism agenda that perpetuates the historical pattern of sacrificing the health and well-being of Native peoples in service of corporate interests and political objectives. It gives particular attention to the Pinyon mine’s location on the Muav Aquifer that provides water for the Havasuapi Nation, and the hazards of transporting and processing highly radioactive uranium ore across the Navajo reservation.

Author

• Linda Marie Robyn, Northern Arizona University