On March 8, US Appeals Judge David Ebel ruled to uphold a license for uranium mining in northwestern New Mexico. It’s a decision that concludes (temporarily, at least) 22 years of legal wrangling between a Navajo community and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The NRC is the government-created agency charged with safely developing nuclear resources while protecting the environment and public health.  In 1998, the NRC issued the license to Hydro Resources for a handful of sites close to Navajo Nation land. Some of the sites had been mined in the past and, in certain areas, radioactive contamination levels already exceeded Environmental Protection Agency standards. Outraged that the NRC would allow additional mining in already-contaminated areas, two groups, Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining and Southwest Research and Information Center, filed the first-ever challenge to the NRC’s licensing process.

The court, however, sided with the NRC. In his decision to uphold the license, Judge Ebel writes that the NRC’s job is to regulate only what contamination would result from the current Hydro Resources license—not what it would mean when combined with contaminants that are already there.
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