CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Under the Stars in Old New Mexico: the Growing Resistance to Uranium Mining

Radiation warning sign at Ambrosia Lake uranium mining area, New Mexico. Photo: Netherzone. Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0

In New Mexico, resistance to Trump’s demand to resume uranium mining appears to be growing, from local protests against mines, mining-permit proposals and a processing mill in Utah, to statewide and congressional action.

Most recently, on September 4, New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard signed an executive order that bans all new uranium mining projects on the more than 13 million acres of state trust lands she oversees.

“New Mexicans have been overlooked by the uranium industry and the federal government for far too long,” Garcia Richard said, “and now the Trump administration is once again completely ignoring these communities and pushing for aggressive uranium development nationwide, despite the fact that there still remain thousands of sites that are abandoned and need to be remediated.”

U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, along with U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, wrote Carson National Forest Supervisor James Duran in April to protest exploratory uranium drilling by a Canadian-based company within the forest near Canjilon. They urged the Forest Service to conduct a full environmental review before taking any further action. They also asked the Forest Service to suspend that review pending legislation they intended to introduce into Congress to protect the Chama watershed from further development. The April letter also emphasized the important role of the Chama River, which supports agriculture and provides drinking water to numerous towns across northern New Mexico.

“This watershed is not simply an environmental amenity. It is critical water infrastructure — as essential to the communities of northern New Mexico as any road, pipe, or reservoir,” the members of the state’s congressional delegation wrote. The water has “continuously sustained agricultural production and community identity for more than 400 years …Tribal nations have exercised cultural, ceremonial, and........

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