Defenders of the Black Hills  - Hesapa O'nakijin

Aug. 31, 2015

Hello Everyone,

Last week, I participated in the Hearing by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on the Crow Butte Resources Uranium Mine License Renewal as an expert witness on behalf of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.  Crow Butte Uranium mine is located near Crawford, NB, just southwest of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

My Statement is on this website of all the reasons why I contend that Crow Butte Resources is the cause of the radioactive pollution in the water for the majority of people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The experts showed the leaking aquifers, faults and cracks allowing the numerous excursions or spreading of the dissolving agent with the Uranium and other radioactive elements,the more than 350 above ground spills of radioactive water into the White River which runs through the Reservation, the potentiometric surface map showing the direction of flow underground from Crawford, NB, to underneath the Pine Ridge Reservation combined with the pull of 5 deep wells.

However, the main indicator I observed from our water tests of the 5 deep wells was the Isotope Ratio between Uranium 238 and Uranium 234.  However, it appeared as if all the parties: the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, and Crow Butte Resources had no idea what the Isotope Ratio refers to except one expert for Consolidate Intervenors, our allies. 

The Isotope Ratio is an indicator of a disturbance of Uranium, or mining.  The NRC does not require this test in the wells that monitor excursions away from an In Situ Recovery Mine which is shocking!  It should be the main indicator of an underground spreading or excursion.

The only way a disturbance of Uranium in an underground system could occur is by In Situ Recovery mining which dissolves the Uranium.  The only In Situ Recovery mining operation near Pine Ridge Reservation is Crow Butte Resources.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing board has not made a decision yet on allowing Crow Butte Resources to continue operations. 

Defenders did the water tests of the 5 deep wells (see also Porcupine and Manderson Results) not to point fingers at who caused this pollution, but to help the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation to have good water now.  An organization, Veterans for Peace, has offered to provide the filters necessary to keep the radioactive pollution out of the water supplies.

Watch for updates of this situation.

Thank you.

Respectfully submitted by Charmaine White Face, Coordinator

 

 

 

Quebec City, Canada | April 16 2015

We, the signatories of this declaration, including the participants of the World Uranium Symposium 2015, coming from 20 countries on five continents, having gathered in Quebec City, Canada, in April 2015;

Acknowledging that in 1943 Quebec City was the site where the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada entered into a formal cooperation agreement to develop the first atomic bombs, resulting in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945;