<http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-navajo22nov22,1,7439221.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage>http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-navajo22nov22,1,7439221.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
BLIGHTED HOMELAND
Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land
Demand for uranium is soaring. But the tribe vows a 'knockdown, drag-out legal battle.' By Judy Pasternak Times Staff Writer
November 22, 2006
Crownpoint, N.M. When mining companies started calling tribal offices last year, Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. issued an edict to employees: Don't answer any questions. Report all contacts to the Navajo attorney general.
Decades after the Cold War uranium boom ended, leaving a trail of poisonous waste across the Navajo Nation, the mining industry is back, seeking to tap the region's vast uranium deposits once again.
Companies are staking claims, buying mineral rights and applying for permits on the edge of the tribal homeland. They make no secret of their desire to mine within the reservation as well.
That prospect has turned neighbor against neighbor and touched off legal, political and financial maneuvering far from Navajo lands.
Fifty years ago, a nuclear arms race propelled the search for uranium. Today, the driving force is the quest for new sources of energy. China and India are building nuclear reactors at a rapid pace to fuel their growing economies, and the Bush administration is pushing to expand nuclear energy in this country to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
With demand increasing, the price of uranium has climbed to more than $60 a pound. Six years ago, it was as low as $7.
Mining companies are extracting uranium in Texas, Wyoming and Nebraska, and are taking steps to mine in Colorado.
But Navajo country, covering some 27,000 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, is the biggest prize of all "the Saudi Arabia of uranium," in the words of Mark Pelizza, a vice president of Uranium Resources Inc.
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