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| Klee protesting abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Naition in DC. Photo by Danika Worthington |
Navajo Nation Dishonors Legacy of Klee Benally: Agrees to Uranium Transport Through Navajo Communities
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, February 3, 2025
The Navajo Nation dishonored the memory and legacy of Klee Benally by agreeing to allow radioactive uranium trucks to travel through the Navajo Nation. It was what Klee spent the last years of his life fighting against.
The deadly trucks from the Energy Fuels Pinyon Plain uranium mine in the Grand Canyon will pass through the Havasupai's homeland, and then past the homes of Paiute, Dine' and Hopi in Arizona before reaching the dumping ground: The Energy Fuels uranium mill in the White Mesa Ute Community in Southern Utah.
Klee is being honored with a Nuclear Free Futures Award in New York in March.
Nuclear Free Futures said, in announcing the award, "Klee Benally was a Navajo activist and musician and member of the Navajo Tódich'ii'nii Clan and the Nakai Diné Clan. In addition to a musical career with his siblings in the band Blackfire,
"Klee was a passionate campaigner and filmmaker exposing the colonialist legacy of uranium mines and working for the cleanup of the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines that continue to contaminate the Navajo Nation. A month before his death on December 30, 2023, Klee published his book, “No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.”
"Klee was a passionate campaigner and filmmaker exposing the colonialist legacy of uranium mines and working for the cleanup of the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines that continue to contaminate the Navajo Nation. A month before his death on December 30, 2023, Klee published his book, “No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.”
The award will be accepted by his mother Berta Benally.
Klee, co-founder of Haul No!, warned of the danger to the water and rivers from the uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and the planned deadly transport of radioactive ore, before he passed in December 2023.
"There is possible radioactive contamination to land, water, and air from the Canyon Mine, White Mesa Mill, and transport of uranium would impact northern Arizona, southeast Utah, the Colorado River, Moenkopi Wash, the San Juan River, and the lands and cultural resources of the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo, Ute, and Paiute peoples."
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Haul NO! said that on January 29, 2025, Energy Fuels announced that it reached an agreement with Navajo Nation regarding uranium ore transport, ending the temporary transportation pause.
"The agreement includes provisions for Energy Fuels to take 10,000 tons of abandoned uranium mine waste from Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill, in Utah impacting our Ute relatives."
"The agreement includes provisions for Energy Fuels to take 10,000 tons of abandoned uranium mine waste from Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill, in Utah impacting our Ute relatives."
"On January 30, 2025, Energy Fuels announced transport of uranium ore from Pinyon Plain uranium mine across Western Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill may begin on or around February 12, 2025."
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| Photo courtesy Klee Benally June 19, 2017 |
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| Haul NO! Tour Report Back 2017 https://www.indigenousaction.org/haul-no-tour-report-back-part-1/ |
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