On Thursday, April 27, an EPA meeting was held in San Juan County concerning the Bonita Peak Mining District plans for 2017 to address the Gold King Mine environmental disaster.
The Gold King Mine continues to release 550 gallons of treated water each minute and the water inside the mine has continued to rise. As a down river community, we need to demand a thorough study be conducted with a focus on possible health and environmental concerns.
I came away from the meeting most concerned about the accumulation of concentrated lead levels deposited into our ecosystem and farm land. Documentation needs to start now. Lead exposure is very serious and needs proper treatment. We need to have a baseline to monitor and accumulate the data for future reference. There is no quick remedy to lead contamination. It’s going to take several years of results to analyze the effects of the contamination on the land and community.
The data collected on human, animal and plant effects could prove to be invaluable. As a community, we need to have the ability to make well-informed decisions concerning the health of our families and livelihood. We have to stand together and support one another.
Our children and families deserve to live in a healthy environment where they can prosper. I speak from experience. In my family alone, we have suffered high rates of cancer and autoimmune diseases due to the close proximity to uranium tailings. We will never know if my mother and daughter’s breast cancer or the high incidence of autoimmune diseases in my children resulted from our residential location in Shiprock.
By sharing my contamination experience, I hope to warn my neighbors. We may not see direct results in our generation, but are you willing to see your children and grandchildren deal with undue illness? Is our community ready? I propose the appropriate assessments need to be initiated as soon as possible and be paid for by Superfund,
Justin D. Yazzie Jr.
Farmington
