Residents in the Southwest struggle with the health effects of nuclear ore extraction

Judy Woodruff:

For decades, residents of the American Southwest, including many indigenous peoples, have been exposed to elevated levels of radiation from uranium extraction and refining, a toxic legacy of the Cold War's weapons program and nuclear power generation.

In partnership with the nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica, Stephanie Sy reports on one community's fight to survive and to hold a company and the federal government accountable.

Jonnie Head, Cancer Survivor:

This is a map that my daughter put together to show the different types of cancer around the subdivision that we lived in.

Stephanie Sy:

In Cibola County, in the high, sparsely populated desert of Northwest New Mexico, it became known as the Death Map.

Jonnie Head:

The green is cancer. And then the yellow is cancer deaths.

Stephanie Sy:

Skin cancer, breast cancer, thyroid disease.

Jonnie Head, herself a breast cancer survivor, points to all the families who, over the years, were hit.

So, given how sparsely populated it is, it seems like a lot of cancers.

Jonnie Head:

It does, doesn't it?

Stephanie Sy:

She and her family lived in the nearby Murray Acres subdivision for decades.

Jonnie Head:

It was a beautiful little green community. We had lots of alfalfa, pastures, horses, cows. I would have left there earlier, much earlier, had I known the situation.

Stephanie Sy:

The situation was that their quaint slice of paradise was less than half-a-mile from 22 million tons of uranium waste.

From World War II through the Cold War, uranium ore was heavily mined across the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico to produce nuclear weapons and energy. Chemicals were used to extract and mill the uranium, and the waste was put into tailings piles, many of which were unlined and uncapped.

Massive piles of waste like this one in Northwest New Mexico have continued to leak and blow contamination into surrounding communities. Infrastructure from three decades of uranium mining has left a toxic legacy through the southwest.

Mark Olalde, ProPublica:

We're 40 years out from the kind of death of American uranium, and we still haven't cleaned this up.

Stephanie Sy:

Mark Olalde and a team at ProPublica have been investigating some 50 former uranium mills around the country for the last several months.

About half of the mills are yet to be cleaned up and sealed, including this one owned by the Homestake Mining Company, now a subsidiary of Barrick Gold. While operations ended in 1990, the cleanup continues.

Mark Olalde:

There are concerns from downstream communities that the plumes of uranium could eventually migrate to their intake wells and contaminate their drinking water sources too.

In one household close to the pile, we found levels of radon about almost twice as high as what the EPA says is an actual level that you need to pretty immediately clean up your house.

Stephanie Sy:

A 2014 study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency found an unacceptable level of excess cancer risk from the mill site.

John Boomer and Maggie Billiman are among the several thousand residents living downstream.

John Boomer, Artist and Resident of Cibola County: I was just thrilled to have all this space. I thought I could put my wood in here, all my art.

Stephanie Sy:

An artist, John needed a big space when he bought the land in 2001, and trusted the EPA, which said the site would be cleaned up by 2003.

John Boomer:

The site implied to me, or the way I understood it was that they were on top of the problem and that it would be fixed in short order, I mean, that they had been working on it already 20 years when I bought the property.

Stephanie Sy:

But he says there were problems with all the fixes. The contamination in groundwater and aquifers spread.

John Boomer:

We never get real clear answers. We have asked for health studies, cancer cluster studies and things like that, and it all seems to just kind of go here and there.

Maggie Billiman, Artist and Resident of Cibola County: It's depressing.

John Boomer:

And it's depressing.

Stephanie Sy:

Maggie Billiman is a member of the Navajo Nation. Not only her house, but much of her Native land has borne the brunt of America's toxic waste legacy.

More than 500 abandoned uranium mines pockmark the Navajo Nation, nearly all within a mile of a water source, and there are far higher levels of cancer among her people than the general population.

Maggie's own father, a Navajo code talker during World War II, died of stomach cancer, she believes due to nuclear testing in neighboring Nevada.

Have you started to see any health impacts?

Maggie Billiman:

My swallowing is kind of funny. And we have been coughing a lot in this household. And we don't know what that's coming from. I'm seeing changes. But the doctors are not pinpointing. I always think that, gosh, what about if it's too late?

Stephanie Sy:

In previous lawsuits, Homestake Mining Company has denied that its facilities are causing illness, and it is now trying to absolve itself of further responsibility.

Mark Olalde:

Barrick Gold and Homestake are now trying to be done with cleanup, to get exemptions from the government to change the regulatory standards at the site, so they can kind of wash their hands of it, hand it over to the Department of Energy, and have it now be the federal governments problem.

United States regulators can't possibly think that this is OK.

Stephanie Sy:

In the meantime, some, including Candace Head-Dylla, have agreed to take buyout offers from Homestake.

Candace Head-Dylla, Former Murray Acres Resident:

We trusted the federal government. We really thought that, once they said this is going to be cleaned up, that it would be.

Stephanie Sy:

Candace is Jonnie's daughter, the woman we met at the beginning of this story. She moved to Colorado in 2019. It wasn't an easy decision, leaving both her parents and her dream house in the Murray Acres subdivision behind.

Candace Head-Dylla:

This is my mom, my two grandmas. Yes. And this is outside. And the barn in the tailings pile is right over here.

Stephanie Sy:

The tailings pile was never far from mind, and, in 2006, she found her own place on the map of disease.

Candace Head-Dylla:

My thyroid is completely removed. I have no thyroid. What it means is that, if I ever don't have that medication, it's just a few months until I die.

Stephanie Sy:

Mark Olalde says Candace's story is representative of what's broadly happening in This community.

Mark Olalde:

They are moving people. They are tearing down the homes. And in the process, they're having the residents sign non-disparagement agreements and liability waivers saying, essentially, we can't sue you moving forward.

Stephanie Sy:

Even if we have cancer down the line.

Mark Olalde:

We can't see you for anything.

Stephanie Sy:

Despite signing the non-disparagement agreement, Candace continues to speak out to prevent a repeat of history.

Climate change and the push for more low-carbon energy, as well as sanctions on Russia, an exporter of uranium, have renewed conversations about nuclear power, which Candace says comes at a cost.

Candace Head-Dylla:

There is a high price that you pay for nuclear energy. They need to understand the front end of this process and they need to think a little bit harder about the back end of the process.

Mark Olalde:

The war effort in the Cold War made us rush headlong into an industry without thinking about the consequences down the road. And it tells us that, when you try to regulate at the tail end of an industry, as opposed to at the outset of its creation, it's really tough to get that right, and it's really expensive to get that right.

And it leaves us kind of asking the question of, well, who's going to take charge of this?

Stephanie Sy:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the cleanup of the Homestake mill, said in a statement that the site is hydrogeologically complex, making target dates for groundwater remediation difficult to estimate with precision — quote — "We understand and share the concern that the remediation is taking so long."

Meanwhile, in a letter to ProPublica, Homestake said it's no longer feasible to improve water quality at the site. It said it followed government requirements and standard practices of the time and, in the final stages of closing the site, the company will place a cover on the tailings pile to reduce radon emissions.

But there's still no deadline for when that will happen. It has already taken decades and, for Candace Head-Dylla's family, generations of waiting.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

Judy Woodruff:

And we would add this.

Our reporting partners at ProPublica are continuing their investigation, but they need your help. If you have worked with any public agencies, consulting firms, tribes or companies involved in the uranium industry, you can share your experience by going to ProPublica.org/uranium.