Title: Yellow dirt
Description: "Yellow Dirt offers readers a window into a dark chapter of modern history that still reverberates today. From the 1940s into the early twenty-first century, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe for the sake of atomic bombs. Secretly, during the days of the Manhattan Project and then in a frenzy during the Cold War, the government bought up all the uranium that could be mined from the hundreds of rich deposits entombed under the sagebrush plains and sandstone cliffs. Despite warnings from physicians and scientists that long-term exposure could be harmful, even fatal, thousands of miners would work there unprotected. A second set of warnings emerged about the environmental impact. Yet even now, long after the uranium boom ended, and long after national security could be cited as a consideration, many residents are still surrounded by contaminated air, water, and soil. The radioactive 'yellow dirt' has ended up in their playgrounds, in their bread ovens, in their churches, and even in their garbage dumps. And they are still dying"--Cover, p. 2.
Subjects: Health and hygiene, Government relations, Radiation, Uranium, Congenital Abnormalities, Etiology, Government Regulation, North American Indians, Mining, History, Navajo Indians, Ethnic relations, Adverse effects, Uranium mines and mining, Radioactive Soil Pollutants, History, 20th Century, Biography, Indians of north america, southwest, new, Indians of north america, government relations, Indians of north america, health and hygiene, Indians of north america, biography, Mines and mineral resources, History, modern, 20th century, Pollutants
Places: Southwestern United States, New Southwest, Navajo Indian Reservation
Time periods: 20th century