It looks like beautiful landscape but it has hidden dangers in plain sight: Inside residents’ toxic nightmare
New Mexico is embarking on a costly project to clean up abandoned uranium mines, starting with the five that pose the most risk to nearby residents.
The state legislature passed a law in 2022 requiring state agencies to create a plan to remediate the 1,100 mines and milling sites throughout New Mexico. In last year’s session, the legislature allocated $12 million to begin work.
Contractors assigned to clean up the selected mines – including Schmitt Decline, Moe No. 4, Red Bluff No. 1, Roundy Shaft and Roundy Manol – are expected to make ‘significant progress’ by June 2026, when funds are forecast to run out, according to a progress report from the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED).
Living at Moe No. 4 for one year would expose a person to the equivalent of 13 years of radiation, according to NMED communications director Drew Goretzka.
Moe No. 4 is also a priority because it drains into the San Mateo Creek, a body of water that has previously been identified as possibly contaminated with uranium.
Goretzka told the Daily Mail that open shafts still exist at some of the sites, leaving humans and animals alike vulnerable to falling inside.
‘Exposure pathways posing risks to human health include inhalation of contaminated dust and ingestion through contaminated groundwater in untreated private wells used as a primary source for drinking water,’ the NMED said in a statement.
‘While radiation readings may be relatively low at smaller sites, chronic exposure over long periods of time may present an increased hazard to nearby residents,’ he added.
The entrance to an abandoned mine shaft at Moe No. 4, one of the five mines first selected for cleanup by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED)
A deep, exposed mine shaft at Schmitt Decline, another mine currently being assessed by contractors and state employees
All these mines are in McKinley County, where well over three quarters of the population are Native American. The northwestern portion of the county overlaps with the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
‘It’s about time,’ Teracita Keyanna said of the cleanup. Keyanna, now 44, grew up and spent most of her life in a part of the Navajo Nation that had two uranium mines and a uranium mill.
She said some of her neighbors and friends in the community, many of whom never drank or smoked and otherwise led healthy lives, have developed diabetes or cirrhosis of the liver.
‘These issues have been overlooked for way too long. The impact uranium has had on some of these communities is heartbreaking,’ Keyanna said. ‘There are not enough health studies to hold [companies] responsible.’
Of the 261 abandoned uranium mines identified by the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, at least half of them have never been the subject of any cleanup operations.
New Mexico has the second largest uranium ore reserves behind Wyoming, and companies began large-scale commercial mining outfits in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
These operations tapered off massively after the Church Rock uranium mill spill in 1979, which sent 1.23 tons of highly radioactive uranium tailings into the Navajo Nation via the Puerco River, killing livestock and leaving children swimming in the river with serious burns.
Uranium becomes especially dangerous if inhaled or ingested. High levels of exposure can lead to kidney damage and various types of cancers.
The landscape at Red Bluff No. 1, which is nearest to the Roundy Shaft and Roundy Manol mines
Leona Morgan, a longtime Navajo anti-nuclear activist, said that it is encouraging to see the state beginning to take real steps but that the effort is ‘just scratching the surface’
Although no deaths have been definitively linked to the Church Rock spill, there have not been a wealth of studies looking into the matter.
The Navajo Birth Cohort Study has been the most comprehensive research on this topic, and it has revealed that over 1,000 mother-child pairs still suffer from uranium exposure decades after mining ceased.
The study found that pregnant Navajo women have significantly higher levels of uranium and other toxic metals in their bodies than the general US population.
Nearly 92 percent of babies in the study born to mothers with uranium in their systems had detectable levels of the heavy metal in their bodies as well.
As children in the cohort have grown older, scientists have documented higher-than-expected rates of developmental delays, particularly language and speech disorders.
While researchers caution that these findings do not prove direct causation, they say the patterns raise serious concerns about the long-term consequences of prenatal and early-life exposure to uranium.
Leona Morgan, a longtime Navajo anti-nuclear activist, told Source New Mexico last month that it is encouraging to see the state beginning to take real steps to clean up mines.
Still, she stressed that the effort is ‘just scratching the surface’. That’s because NMED financial analysts have said it will cost ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ to adequately clean up all the mines in New Mexico.
Contractors are seen assessing the level of radiation at the Schmitt Decline site
A more dire study from the University of New Mexico said the cost could be ‘infinite’ given that uranium dust, commonly known as yellowcake because of its color, has become integrated within the soil surrounding the mines.
Morgan believes that any successful cleanup will require federal involvement and more importantly, federal dollars.
In the meantime, NMED has begun conducting on-site surveys, environmental sampling, groundwater testing and community engagement efforts at the five mines it has targeted for remediation.
‘We’re hoping that we can show the public that we are going to do the right thing,’ Miori Harms, NMED’s uranium mine reclamation coordinator, told The Albuquerque Journal in December.
‘I’m hoping that when they see everything we’ve completed, that they’re willing to fund us for more years to get more work done.’
