Environment | National

NYT Blog: Cattle near old Navajo uranium mine sold as food





"As I reported last weekend in The Times, a cattle rancher stumbled upon an abandoned uranium mine in the summer of 2010 on his grazing land, about 60 miles east of the Grand Canyon on the Navajo reservation, and notified federal officials. They came in with Geiger counters and found levels of radioactivity that were alarmingly high.

A year and a half later, the former mine in Cameron, Ariz., is not fenced off to either humans or animals, and cattle continue to roam through the site and eat grass that might be tainted with uranium and other toxic substances.

“Those cattle go to auction in Sun Valley and are sold on the open market,” said Ronald Tohannie, a project manager with the Navajo advocacy group Forgotten People. “Then people eat the meat.”"

Get the Story:
Green: Uranium, Cattle Grazing and Risks Unknown (The New York Times 4/4)

Related Stories:
Cleanup of uranium mines on Navajo Nation poses huge cost (4/2)

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