Compensation elusive for most Navajo radiation victims
Lung diseases blamed on work in uranium mines
He had been born and raised in the redrock canyons. He had married and raised his family here on Navajo tribal lands, his lands.
Maryboy enjoyed his job, not worrying much whether the mines were ventilated or if the water inside the mines was safe to drink. Like the other miners, he believed the government and industry officials who promised there were no dangers.
Trust came easy, and with poverty running rampant on the reservation, John Bill was just glad to have a job that could provide the basics of life for his wife and seven children.
John Bill was 51 when he succumbed to lung cancer in 1977.
"All of a sudden he got sick," said his son, San Juan County Commissioner Mark Maryboy. "He certainly didn't expect to die so early."
There's not a shadow of doubt in Mark Maryboy's mind that his father was a victim — one of thousands on the Navajo Reservation — of a government conspiracy that sacrificed indigenous peoples in the name of Cold War nuclear superiority. It is a conspiracy that Congress has tacitly admitted by agreeing to compensate uranium miners and mill workers across the West who were deceived about the effects of uranium that sickened and killed them.
"Definitely, the government discriminated against us," he says. "The government knew the effects of radiation, but with the Navajo people, with any minority, they didn't see the need to provide the necessary equipment to protect them. And now you see suffering everywhere."
Maryboy, who also serves in the Navajo legislature, is one of many who now champion the cause of government compensation for Navajo uranium workers, not just those in Utah but those throughout the region who answered the siren call to work in the mines. Another is Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who last year pushed through amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that allows more uranium miners to qualify for compensation.
"The next battle is for appropriate funding for the trust fund," Hatch said. "It's currently broke."
Advocates are encouraged that Congress again admitted culpability, but they are frustrated at interminable delays that have persisted more than a decade since the original compensation bill, also sponsored by Hatch, was passed in 1990.
Recent comments
My Husband was a uranium mine worker in the 70's in New Mexico...
Kathy | July 19, 2008 at 7:18 p.m.
