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Apr. 24—THOREAU — Sitting around a table in a library at Thoreau High School, 10 Navajo students all nodded when asked if they are scared for themselves.

But it's not only about them, they said. The 15- and 16-year-olds said they fear for their sacred land and their future generations.

The Thoreau High School sophomores are afraid a radioactive waste facility could be set up in their community on Navajo Nation and have been gathering more information about a possible facility .

Uranium waste sits in a pile in the Red Water Pond Road Community, where some of the largest Navajo uranium mines operated on the Navajo Nation. The federal government is considering cleanup plans to take care of the toxic waste and prevent exposure to people and the environment.

There are a few proposed plans, but the one recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is to move the waste to the Red Rocks landfill, about 5 miles northeast of Thoreau. The EPA is accepting public comments about the proposals for another month as it works through its siting process.

In an effort to prevent any facility from coming to their community, the Thoreau High sophomores sent a group letter and 82 individual letters about two weeks ago to New Mexico agencies and officials, Navajo Nation officials and media outlets, voicing concerns about the damage radioactive waste storage could do to their communities and land. Many touched on the systemic racism they perceive with bringing a waste facility to their small town.

Their outreach has drawn interest and praise from the governor as well as a promised visit by other state officials.

"We don't want it here on the Navajo Nation, and we especially don't want it here in our community," sophomore Cailey Bebo said.

The students asked why nobody told them about the waste facility proposal. It's so close to home, Reagan Russette said, and she's afraid a spill could wipe out her whole community.

"And our future generations, and our land," her classmate Isaac Charley added.

Damage can happen, and it has

Uranium is a natural radioactive element, according to the EPA, that people commonly mine as a fuel for nuclear reactors to make electricity. The process leaves behind radioactive waste.

New Mexico has informally banned uranium mining leases because of the dangers.

Spills can also come with uranium mining.

The largest radioactive waste spill in U.S. history happened less than 30 miles from Thoreau in 1979, when 1,100 tons of mill tailings and 94 million gallons of wastewater were released into a tributary of the Puerco River.

Bebo has seen firsthand the toxic effects of mining. Her grandpa caught pneumonia, a potential indirect effect from working at a uranium mine because he didn't know how to protect himself and nobody told him what to do, she said. She's also seen her father and uncle get sick from working in mines.

The students described abandoned uranium mines on or around their family land. Bebo brought up that there are more than 500 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation.

"And this means radioactive waste has been polluting our natural resources — for example, water, air and soil — for the past 70 years," Bebo said. "This uranium mining has been killing by giving cancer to people."

Russette said Jamie Pagett, their teacher, is the one who taught them about the toxic effects of the mines. The students said they're trying to help educate people in their community about a potential uranium waste facility and the dangers they believe it would bring.

"Not many people knew about it until we started telling our families, and they started telling other families," Charley said.

Bebo asked why the facility couldn't go somewhere that's already contaminated. Pagett suggested Ambrosia Lake, a uranium mining district to the east.

Sophomore Maddox Smiley said some towns would never be considered for a nuclear waste site.

"I feel frustrated," he said. "It really concerns us. I mean, it makes us angry that people would still choose to marginalize Indigenous people by even considering putting a nuclear waste dump in our town."

Classmate Hazel Antonio said she's talked with her mom about systemic racism around uranium mining.

'"If you look at the history, it's there," Antonio said. "They take us off our land, they use it for their own gain to make money — just to make money — and once they're done with it, it's a mess. And then they just put us back here on the land that they messed up."

Charley said people think just because they pushed Navajo people around in the past, they can do it again.

"What are we? What are we to them?" Charley said, and his classmates echoed the sentiment.

Response from leadership

Pagett said a lot of people in Thoreau had no idea about the potential for any uranium waste facility to come to or near Thoreau and haven't heard anything from Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren or their council delegates.

A spokesperson for the Navajo Nation president's office said they couldn't find a record of the students' letters and asked for further details of when the students sent the letters and how. The office didn't respond with any other comment after the Journal confirmed the details.

When asked if they feel unheard by the leadership, the students nodded again.

"That's exactly why this 10th grade class is banding together and representing our community," Pagett said. "... Our next order of business is to organize a protest in our town. We're taking it all the way."

Russette said Navajo leadership can help amplify the student and community voices.

Bebo and Charley said standing up to leaders and facing potential consequences is a "risk we're willing to take" in order to help themselves and future generations and their land.

"As long as we're in it together, we'll be strong. And as long as you get a bigger community together, we'll be stronger," Charley said.

In the students' letters to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, they requested a public audience on a proposed uranium waste facility.

On April 19, the Governor's Office shared a letter with the Journal Lujan Grisham wrote to the students dated April 18.

"I have carefully read and considered your thoughtful letters. I'm impressed by your passion and appreciate your concern," Lujan Grisham wrote.

Lujan Grisham encouraged the students to submit their letters to the EPA while the public comment period is ongoing, before the agency will determine next steps about what to do with the radioactive waste.

If Red Rocks is the chosen location, a company still would need to obtain permits from New Mexico, Lujan Grisham wrote, and there would be another public comment period she said the students could participate in.

"I highly encourage you to take part in those comment processes," the governor wrote. "However, please note that at this time no permit applications have been submitted to the State of New Mexico."

An EPA spokesperson told the Journal the process of selecting a company to operate and run the recommended uranium waste facility at Red Rocks hasn't begun, "and that decision will not be made for some time."

Officials from the New Mexico Environment Department — another agency the students wrote to — plan to take a trip out to Thoreau soon to speak to the students in person, Governor's Office spokesperson Michael Coleman said. He said the agency hasn't determined a date yet on when that'll happen.

Sophomore Mia Bella Burrola said she wished they didn't need all these other voices but they do.

"We also didn't sign up to be the nuclear waste dump of the town," she said. "We want a voice in all decisions that affect our people and our land."