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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
French translation by Christine Prat
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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Moving Nuclear Waste from one Native Community to another Native Community is No Solution -- and Endangers Everyone on the Deadly Haul Route
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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," Haul NO!
The Ongoing Deception and Genocidal Acts of the U.S. Government
The U.S. EPA has misled the public. Although it constantly announces new sites of abandoned uranium mines to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation -- it doesn't actually clean up the 524 sites, and there are strewn radioactive tailings remaining from Cold War uranium mining.
Eric Jantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Jantz pointed out that the U.S. appears to want Native people to sacrifice more for "national security" -- rather than to deal with the devastation. As for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it has not honored public comments. And as for the EPA, it's too late. There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the Commission in March of 2024.
"Our ancestors remains were desecrated to build the mill," Anferny Badback, Ute Mountain Ute at White Mesa, told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington. Badback testified that Energy Fuels uranium mill has contaminated the groundwater, plants, birds, wildlife, and air in his community in southeastern Utah.
The young people are getting asthma, and the people can no longer use their spring water for ceremonies. Ute must buy bottled water to drink, and no longer hunt because of the contamination. Now, the mill is bringing in international waste and has become a low-level radioactive waste repository, because of the lax standards of the state of Utah. "We want the mill to be shut down," Badback told the Commission.
Carletta Tilousi, Havasupai, testified that uranium mining contamination at Pinyon Plain mine is now threatening the water supply of Havasupai in their homeland. he uranium min is located above the aquifer, at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
"This is a serious urgent case," Tilousi told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington.
The Havasupai Tribe asked the Commission to present their case to the Inter-American Court to seek an order requiring the adoption of provisional measures.
"Pinyon Plain mine can not be allowed to continue."
"There was no respect for the people living on these lands, and certainly no respect for Mother Earth," Edith Hood, Dine' from Red Water Pond Road community, told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
"The government was aware of the risks and the dangers but failed and neglected to inform our people," testified Hood, who lives down the road from Church Rock, New Mexico, the site of the worst radioactive spill in U.S. history.
Dine', Havasupai, Northern Arapaho, Oglala Lakota and White Mesa Ute testified on uranium exploitation by the United States on Wednesday, during the session, "Impacts of Uranium Exploitation on Indigenous Peoples' Rights."
The BIA, EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission praised themselves, and attempted to cover-up the legacy of death from uranium mining, strewn radioactive waste, and deadly uranium mills in Indian country, Censored News reported.
In the agreement with the Navajo Nation, announced on January 29, 2025, to transport radioactive uranium ore through the Navajo Nation, Energy Fuels listed the terms of the agreement. The company said the ore from Energy Fuels' Pinyon Plain Mine will be processed at the White Mesa Mill into uranium concentrates (U3O8), which are used in the production of baseload nuclear energy.
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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/ Klee Benally "No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred" Purchase online at: https://detritusbooks.com/products/no-spiritual-surrender-indigenous-anarchy-in-defense-of-the-sacred |
