Navajo Youth Rally In Denver To Protest Uranium Mining - Native Journalists In NAPT Fellowship Program

<strong>New Generation Of Navajo Activists Protest In Denver</strong><br />By Kathy Helms<br />Dine Bureau<br />Gallup Independent<br />WINDOW ROCK – Nadine Padilla, a community organizer with the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, and Gerald Brown of Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining were in Denver last week with a group of Navajo youth to protest a uranium recovery workshop.<br /><br />The National Mining Association and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hosted a two-day workshop at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.<br /><br />Representatives of the federal agencies along with the U.S. Department of Energy, uranium recovery licensees and other stakeholders met to communicate directly on uranium recovery issues. Industry representatives also were offered a “side-bar” meeting with the NRC on Tuesday.<br /><br />Alan D. Cox of Homestake Mining Co., was part of a panel presenting Wednesday on radon flux from evaporation ponds. Homestake, owned by Barrick Gold Co., is in the process of cleaning up contaminated groundwater at its Superfund site in Grants, the former Milan mill, where Cox is project manager.<br /><br />Christopher Pugsley of the Thompson &amp; Pugsley law firm spoke Thursday about recent legal actions regarding Hydro Resources Inc.’s proposed Crownpint in-situ leach uranium recovery project on the Navajo Nation, followed by Mark Pelizza, senior vice president of Health, Safety and Environmental Affairs for Uranium Resources Inc., parent company of HRI, on URI’s restoration of La Rosita Mine in Duval County, Texas.<br /><br />MASE and the Think Outside the Bomb youth network were protesting outside the workshop to ensure their voices are heard when it comes to expansion of the nuclear industrial complex and efforts to renew uranium mining.<br /><br />“We are taking a group of young people from here in New Mexico and we are heading up to Denver,” Padilla said Monday evening. “The National Mining Association, the NRC, and other federal agencies are all meeting, and they’re talking about revamping uranium mining. It’s just this big pro-uranium mining conference. HRI is going to be there, and so we are going in protest.<br /><br />“We’re going there just as a statement to tell them that we’re going to continue to be against uranium mining and we’re asking them to respect the Navajo Nation’s ban on uranium mining,” she said. “It’s mostly a lot of younger people that are a little bit newer to the uranium issues. On our part, it’s just getting our younger Navajo people involved in some of the work that we’re doing.”<br /><br />Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. reaffirmed Navajo’s ban on uranium mining and processing, as set forth in the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005, during the 30th anniversary commemoration of the Churchrock uranium tailings spill held July 16, 2009. The event was sponsored by MASE.<br /><br />Padilla also was invited to speak at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Rally in New York City on May 2.<br /><br />“Peace Action was one of the main organizers. I went and just shared the stories of the people here and what their situation is with all of the contamination and the uranium legacy,” she said.<br /><br />Padilla told a crowd estimated at 15,000 that they want to stop uranium mining in Navajo communities and clean up the contamination from past uranium mining. She said there are four proposed uranium mines on Navajo land which could irreversibly contaminate the sole source of drinking water in Crownpoint and Churchrock.<br /><br />“Various federal and state agencies have acknowledged this but continue to permit these mines anyway. Our communities are already affected with contamination of past uranium mining. When uranium mining ended in our area it left a devastating legacy of contaminated water systems, piles of radioactive waste, hundreds of abandoned uranium mines, and thousands of sick people.<br /><br />“The rates of cancers, miscarriages and birth defects are rampant in our communities. This environmental racism must stop,” she said. <br /><br />Padilla requested support in asking elected officials and President Obama to “honor our indigenous Nation’s sovereign right to determine what happens or does not happen on our own land,” and asked the crowd to remember the human cost of uranium mining, nuclear power and weapons, and “stand with us as we continue to fight to protect our land, our resources, our livelihood, Mother Earth and all that we hold sacred.”<br /><br />Candace Head-Dylla of MASE said there are major similarities in the nuclear industry and the oil industry. Two weeks before the BP oil spill, the industry told the Obama administration, “’ ‘Everything has changed with this industry. It’s safe to drill offshore now because the industry has improved,’ and then we have this disastrous accident,” she said.<br /><br />Referring to Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch coal mine accident April 5 in West Virginia and the 29 lives lost, she said, “Every day when I listen to the coal miners talking about the MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration,) violations, I think of the uranium mines.<br /><br />“I think how the companies are telling us everything has changed, and we see right there in those coal mines that nothing has changed in all these years. And the same thing with the nuclear industry, ‘Oh, it’s perfectly safe. We’ve got safety controls and a handle on this’ – and that’s exactly what BP was saying too.<br /><br />“They are nightmares that will take them years and billions of dollars to clean up, just like our nightmare (Homestake). But I guess as long as people are willing to stand for it, this is what we’ll get,” she said. “If this is ‘change’ – please! What is the change here? I just don’t see it.”<br /><br /><strong>NAPT Welcomes Multimedia Fellowship Journalists Gemma Givens – Kiera Lasiloo</strong><br /><a name=”LETTER.BLOCK3″>Native American Public Telecommunications, Inc. (NAPT) is pleased to announce a first-ever, four-month journalism project that will bring free news content this summer to public television and radio websites, as well as other interested media.</a><br /><br />As part of the NAPT Multimedia Fellowship Program, two full-time Native American journalists will write and produce multimedia projects about national Native American issues starting in early June and ending in late September.<br /><br />With major funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the project is meant to increase the quantity and quality of multimedia reporting on Native news available to public radio and television audiences, and other news outlets.<br /><br />”The goal of the program is two-fold,” said NAPT Executive Director Shirley K. Sneve. “First, we want to provide this valuable opportunity for Native college students to advance the skills they’ve been learning in the classroom. Second, we want to increase the availability of the stories they will cover through many outlets on the Internet, as well as PBS programs like <a href=”http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103448961538&amp;s=7046&amp;e=001qxXniqRUD_Db6cjHs9PJh467SDRAp1BdjZVC4FYU5GwelZPfFrcMqQNIGDl9pOO7jc7MTjerntrkCivcH4z4FGmvOxzfET81e3lgRJ7XAt3kWkKGPeMHJf0KHCU29FOk3uZs769hfMo=” target=”_blank”>Need to Know</a> and <a href=”http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103448961538&amp;s=7046&amp;e=001qxXniqRUD_Cv6ocmOAX6S-qp2vaZA7hcTTc0uyDQe78VAPeQc5I26_wtkiYWg312idMiGoAHmUNQ02-3Is6D8mB-IEcyG0D6utg9feqhYQW-horA-Y1RkipVvQceNXs_S32hDnqQjkqiXU5Yqfvl5A==” target=”_blank”>The NewsHour</a>.<br /><br />”The two Native American student journalists are: Gemma Givens, who is Cakchiquel (Mayan) and Yaqui from Santiago Sacatepéquez, Guatemala; and Kiera Lasiloo, who is Zuni and Cochiti Pueblo from Santa Fe, N.M. Givens attends the University of California-Santa Cruz, where she majors in politics and American studies. In summer 2009, she graduated from the American Indian Journalism Institute at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and later worked as an intern at the Santa Cruz (Calif.) Sentinel.<br /><br />”My passion for journalism comes as a direct response to a static and often inaccurate portrayal of my culture through visual media,” Givens said. “I seek to utilize education and experience from NAPT to redefine and tell my story and my peoples’ stories.<br /><br />”Lasiloo attends the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where she majors in new media arts with an emphasis in moving images. She comes from a large family of jewelers and is married with one daughter.<br /><br />”I’m excited and honored to be a NAPT Multimedia Fellow,” Lasiloo said. “Not only am I able to do something that I love, but I’m also helping our people tell their stories. I can’t begin to describe how happy that makes me.”<br /><br /><a href=”http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103448961538&amp;s=7046&amp;e=001qxXniqRUD_CRbnGekY6r-ly5-w58RqBQuIUl1Abfts0VDEkfb5XnSd6KDlOMoOEe-oDNn4ReF8WpaB_hxiCbjTUwEVRgTc_4qR43D6IC5BATj9x_OsHuUw==” target=”_blank”>Native American Public Telecommunications, Inc. (NAPT) </a>shares Native stories with the world through support of the creation, promotion and distribution of Native media.<br /><br />TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail <a href=”mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]</a>.<br /><br />NATIVE UNITY – A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.<br /><br />News Blog – American Indian Report – AIR BLOG<br /><a href=”http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com/”>http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com</a><br /><br />THE BUFFALO POST – Missoulian Montana’s Native News Blog about Native People And The World We Live In.<br /><a href=”http://buffalopost.net/”>http://buffalopost.net/</a><br /><br />Check Out NATIVE PRIDE- It’s a great site!<br /><a href=”http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/”>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com</a><br /><br />NATIVE AMERICA, DISCOVERED AND CONQUERED<br /><a href=”http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/”>http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/</a><br /><br />PATHOLOGY.ORG – Up-to-date informmational database on general health and disease information, medical schools and medical resources.<br /><a href=”http://www.pathology.org/”>http://www.Pathology.org</a><br /><br />FOR ANNIE’S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS<br />- go to <a href=”http://www.nativecelebs.com/”>www.nativecelebs.com</a><br /><br />SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE – ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC.<br /><a href=”http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com/”>http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com</a>.<div class=”blogger-post-footer”><img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5740324-2590518775910485884?l=nativeunity.blogspot.com’ alt=” /></div>

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