Below the hills are Navajo homes made of the same rocks, but all the homes are abandoned. From the 1940s and into the 1970s, the Atomic Energy Commission oversaw the uranium mining that fueled America's nuclear-weapons arsenal during the Cold War. But the agency did not tell the people that their newfound building material could emit dangerous radiation. Now they know, said Phil Harrison of the Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims Committee, which is seeking federal compensation for relatives of uranium miners who are sick. They all think it came from their exposure, but nobody can prove it.
Kids are sick, mentally retarded, disabled.
We need to find out who else is sick besides the miners. The Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency learned of the danger in the late 1970s and began replacing some of the houses. But that effort fizzled in the 1980s and lay dormant until the mid- 1990s. Since then, the poorly funded, undermanned effort has been unable to learn the severity of the problem, and no one is sure how many buildings or people are affected. Still, the scope of the lingering effects from the mines, and from the homes made from the cast-off rocks, is potentially vast.