Development of risk maps to minimize uranium exposures in the Navajo Churchrock mining district.

BACKGROUND: Decades of improper disposal of uranium-mining wastes on the Navajo Nation has resulted in adverse human and ecological health impacts as well as socio-cultural problems. As the Navajo people become increasingly aware of the contamination problems, there is a need to develop a risk-communication strategy to properly inform tribal members of the extent and severity of the health risks. To be most effective, this strategy needs to blend accepted risk-communication techniques with Navajo perspectives such that the strategy can be used at the community level to inform culturally- and toxicologically-relevant decisions about land and water use as well as mine-waste remediation. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to develop GIS-based thematic maps as communication tools to clearly identify high risk exposure areas and offer alternatives to minimize public and ecological health impacts. METHODS: Thematic maps were produced that incorporated data derived from environmental sampling and public health surveys. The maps show the location and quality of unregulated water resources and identify regulated water sources that could be used as alternatives. In addition, the maps show the location of contaminated soil and sediment areas in which disturbance of surface deposits should be avoided. Preliminary feedback was collected from an informal Navajo working group to assess the clarity and efficacy of this proposed communication method. RESULTS: The working group found the maps to be both clear and effective, and made suggestions for improvements, such as the addition of more map features. The working group predicted that once the maps are presented to the public, water hauling and soil use behaviors will change, and dialogue with chapter officials will be initiated to accelerate further risk reduction efforts. IMPLICATIONS: Because risk communication is complicated by language barriers, lack of infrastructure, and historical mistrust of non-Navajo researchers, mapping provides an easily interpretable medium that can be objectively viewed by community members and decision makers to evaluate activities that affect toxicant exposures.

Rapid dissolution of soluble uranyl phases in arid, mine-impacted catchments near Church Rock, NM.

We tested the hypothesis that runoff of uranium-bearing particles from mining waste disposal areas was a significant mechanism for redistribution of uranium in the northeastern part of the Upper Puerco River watershed (New Mexico). However, our results were not consistent with this hypothesis. Analysis of > 100 sediment and suspended sediment samples collected adjacent to and downstream from uranium source areas indicated that uranium levels in the majority of the samples were not elevated above background. Samples collected within 50 m of a known waste disposal site were subjected to detailed geochemical characterization. Uranium in these samples was found to be highly soluble; treatment with synthetic pore water for 24 h caused dissolution of 10--50% of total uranium in the samples. Equilibrium uranium concentrations in pore water were > 4.0 mg/L and were sustained in repeated wetting events, effectively depleting soluble uranium from the solid phase. The dissolution rate of uranium appeared to be controlled by solid-phase diffusion of uranium from within uranium-bearing mineral particles. X-ray adsorption spectroscopy indicated the presence of a soluble uranyl silicate, and possibly a uranyl phosphate. These phases were exhausted in transported sediment suggesting that uranium was readily mobilized from sediments in the Upper Puerco watershed and transported in the dissolved load. These results could have significance for uranium risk assessment as well as mining waste management and cleanup efforts.

The Sequoyah corporation fuels release and the Church Rock spill: unpublicized nuclear releases in American Indian communities.

The Three Mile Island nuclear release exemplifies why there is public and policy interest in the high-technology, highly visible end of the nuclear cycle. The environmental and health consequences of the early steps in the cycle--mining, milling, and processing of uranium ore--may be less appreciated. We examined 2 large unintended acute releases of uranium--at Kerr McGee's Sequoyah Fuels Corporation in Oklahoma and United Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock uranium mill in New Mexico, which were incidents with comparable magnitude to the Three Mile Island release. We urge exploration of whether there is limited national interest and concern for the primarily rural, low-income, and American Indian communities affected by these releases. More attention should be given to the early stages of the nuclear cycle and their impacts on health and the environment.

Landfill-stimulated iron reduction and arsenic release at the Coakley Superfund Site (NH).

Arsenic is a contaminant at more than one-third of all Superfund Sites in the United States. Frequently this contamination appearsto resultfrom geochemical processes rather than the presence of a well-defined arsenic source. Here we examine the geochemical processes that regulate arsenic levels at the Coakley Landfill Superfund Site (NH), a site contaminated with As, Cr, Pb, Ni, Zn, and aromatic hydrocarbons. Long-term field observations indicate that the concentrations of most of these contaminants have diminished as a result of treatment by monitored natural attenuation begun in 1998; however, dissolved arsenic levels increased modestly over the same interval. We attribute this increase to the reductive release of arsenic associated with poorly crystalline iron hydroxides within a glaciomarine clay layer within the overburden underlying the former landfill. Anaerobic batch incubations that stimulated iron reduction in the glaciomarine clay released appreciable dissolved arsenic and iron. Field observations also suggest that iron reduction associated with biodegradation of organic waste are partly responsible for arsenic release; over the five-year study period since a cap was emplaced to prevent water flow through the site, decreases in groundwater dissolved benzene concentrations at the landfill are correlated with increases in dissolved arsenic concentrations, consistent with the microbial decomposition of both benzene and other organics, and reduction of arsenic-bearing iron oxides. Treatment of contaminated groundwater increasingly is based on stimulating natural biogeochemical processes to degrade the contaminants. These results indicate that reducing environments created within organic contaminant plumes may release arsenic. In fact, the strong correlation (>80%) between elevated arsenic levels and organic contamination in groundwater systems at Superfund Sites across the United States suggests that arsenic contamination caused by natural degradation of organic contaminants may be widespread.