More than 100 people were in attendance at the resolution vote. Many voiced their concerns about the proposal to transport large amounts of radioactive ore through communities like Flagstaff and across the Navajo Nation on its path to refinement. Members of the Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and Pueblo nations attended the meeting to express solidarity with the proposed motions.

Councilmember Eva Putzova issued a statement later on, saying, “With this resolution, the Council is rallying behind the Native American communities in their fight for social and environmental justice. I’m looking forward to working with our congressional representative and state representatives on legislation that bans uranium mining and the transport of uranium ore for good,” according to Haul No!, an activist and educational organization that’s fighting the uranium haul route.

But while Flagstaff moved one step closer to impeding the uranium mining industry, the nation as a whole opened up even more protected lands to the resource extraction industry. During the fall season, Trump talked about letting more uranium mining around the Grand Canyon region. Then, in December 2017, he reduced Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, setting off what The New York Times predicted would be “a legal battle that could alter the course of American land conversation.” The decision opened millions of preserved public acres to oil and gas extraction, mining, and logging. One month later, he opened up land in Bears Ears National Monument for further resource drilling.

The nation recently learned about Energy Fuels Resources when documents obtained by The Washington Post showed that the company “launched a concerted lobbying campaign to scale back Bears Ears National Monument, saying such action would give it easier access to the area’s uranium deposits and help it operate a nearby processing mill.” Energy Fuels officials had pushed the White House to reduce Bears Ears as much as possible to minimally protect the “key objects and areas, such as archeological sites, to make it easier to access the radioactive ore.” The Canadian company has been designing similar plans that would result in the desecration of sacred spaces and practices—earning the attention of local conservation organizations focused on the Grand Canyon Region as covered throughout our series.

Indigenous communities know the history and the effects of nuclear colonialism. “My great-grandfather was a soldier who fought in Normandy, lived, and returned home to provide for his family,” said Sarana Riggs, a member of the Navajo Nation and the Native American Coordinator for the Grand Canyon Trust. Her great-grandfather worked at the Rare Metals Uranium Mill on the Navajo Reservation while facing the unknown dangers of radioactivity throughout his life. Riggs said the problem surfaced at its peak 10 years ago when he was suffering from pains that no one realized were due to stomach cancer.

Riggs great-grandfather soon passed away from the disease. The Rare Metals Mill has since been shut down, and houses around the mill were subsequently demolished due to documented health and environmental effects on nearby families and homes.

Members of the Navajo Nation also struggle with the health repercussions due to the 523 abandoned uranium mines and 22 wells closed by the EPA due to high levels of radioactive pollution. According to the EPA, “Approximately 30 percent of the Navajo population does not have access to a public drinking water system and may be using unregulated water sources with uranium contamination.” A disproportionate number of the 54,000 Navajo living on the reservation now suffer from organ failure, kidney disease, loss of lung function, and cancer.

The Canyon Mine could have a similar impact on the Havasupai Nation and millions of Americans who depend on water from the Colorado River.

Riggs and others present during the Flagstaff City Council’s resolution meeting were relieved to see Flagstaff recognizing that members of the Navajo Nation and surrounding indigenous nations also make up the Flagstaff community. “Many travel over 80 miles to Flagstaff each day for work, school, or medical needs,” Riggs explained. “Flagstaff recognized the Navajo Nation, dealing with over 500 abandoned uranium mines, doesn’t need uranium hauling on top of that.”

The resolution was symbolic because the federal government, not the town of Flagstaff controls those roads. According to a press release by Haul No!, during the resolution meeting, Councilmember Celia Barotz reminded those in attendance that, “‘this is just the beginning, and we’re going to need all of you to help us through the various processes at the state and federal level if we’re going to make meaningful changes over the next several years.’” Borotz implored the community to remain engaged in the ensuing debate.

“With a unified voice of Flagstaff, Havasupai, Navajo, and Hopi communities, I hope representatives will address this,” said Riggs. “This isn’t U.S. land. They might have laws controlling Navajo highways, but ancestrally these are our lands. We’re upholding our rights. I’m looking at the Navajo Nation now to stand up, fight, and hold our leaders accountable because this is a threat to our health.”

Prior to the resolution, the Indigenous Environmental Network gave the city council a report detailing education, economic development, and social justice regarding Indigenous Peoples throughout Flagstaff, Riggs said.“The city hasn’t been so friendly to us native people. We’re more likely to get arrested or harassed by police and not always given the same treatment in businesses.” Following the report, the city council committed to addressing some of these problems. “The uranium transport resolution is one of the first steps,” said Riggs. “I hope the decision sets a precedent recognizing we have equal rights to everyone in Flagstaff.”

The final decision by the Flagstaff City Council was not without significant debate from both sides through months of town hall meetings. At one meeting this past July, the President and COO of Energy Fuels, Mark Chalmers, was in attendance to declare support for the mining operation. In defense of the project, Chalmers told the council that the uranium transported by Energy fuels is coming out of the ground in a natural state. “If you look at the Grand Canyon, and you looked at the Canyon Mine and the other uranium mines on the north side of the Grand Canyon, hundreds of these things have eroded naturally by the Colorado River over millions of years, hundreds of natural uranium deposit formations because the Grand Canyon cut through a zone of natural radioactive activity,” Chalmers said.

However, in a survey of 474 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation by the EPA, researchers have shown that 85 percent of those mines produced gamma radiation levels clocking in at twice the background level for the area. Furthermore, nearly half of the mines demonstrated radiation levels rising to 10 or even 25 times the background radiation.

Throughout his speech, Chalmers reiterated that the ore being transporting is not as dangerous as some of the other materials traveling through the city like sulfuric acid that could dissolve your hands or the “immediate hazards” that could be present with chlorine gas or fuels. “Whereas uranium ore you would just literally shovel it up, scan it, you’d make sure you cleaned it up, but it is not an immediate hazard,” said Chalmers. “I think that’s one stigma with uranium mining that they don’t fully understand.”

In an area plagued by the various remnants and continuations of nuclear colonialism, from the Church Rock uranium mill spill, to the documented health effects of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, to the desecration of sacred sites without permission of the affected indigenous nations, the crowd was unresponsive to Chalmers claims.

Councilman Jim McCarthy responded to Chalmers’ assertions. A former member of the Grand Canyon Historical Society, McCarthy once attended a meeting at the rim of the Grand Canyon, overlooking the Orphan Mine uranium mine. “I asked the man who was giving the presentation who used to be the manager of that mine and I asked if there were any health effects on the miners,” McCarthy said. “He told me that’s the sad part, almost everyone who worked there got cancer and is dead.” Studies support that anecdote. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s mortality study on uranium miners, which began in the 1950s and has been updated several times through 2000, causes of death among this population that were significantly above average included lung cancer, pneumoconiosis (a type of lung disease caused by dust), tuberculosis, emphysema, and work-related injuries.

Chalmers told the audience that he also had friends who died of lung cancer from uranium mining but said that the industry had learned a lot in the last 50 years to combat that. “So does that mean that no one gets cancer anymore from these mines?” asked Coral Evans, the mayor of Flagstaff.

Chalmers attempted to respond. “Well, I mean, when you look at cancer, this is something that always drives me crazy. They say you get cancer from uranium or smoking or whatever, and then they haul you in and give you radiation to get rid of it,” Chalmers said. “People get cancer from different things, and I don’t think people really know all the reasons that people get cancer like if you’re at high altitude at 7000 feet, you get more radiation at 7000 feet than 1000 feet or 2000 feet.” Chalmers continued to argue that even with all the research surrounding cancer, there are unanswered questions as to what causes it and many contributing factors.

While Chalmers used the idea of unknown factors to support uranium mining, Mayor Evans used it as the very reason to support the hauling ban. “I just feel like I need to say this because this is something I feel is weighing heavily on me,” said Evans. The mayor reminded the audience of the people affected by U.S. nuclear bomb tests outside of Vegas in Nevada throughout the 30s, 40s, and 50s. “My mom was one of the individuals who were downwind of that, and as a result of her being a downwinder she died of breast cancer.”

Before that, Evans said there wasn’t cancer in her family. Evans has now had breast cancer twice, and her daughter, 23, is being tested by doctors annually. “They think something might have happened with this whole downwind thing and now it might be in our genes,” she added. “While we have changed, grown, and do things differently now, future generations pay for what has happened to the generations that came before, so I just want to make sure that we all understand that.”

The mayor’s points made a case for caution, emphasizing the many unknowns surrounding how uranium could affect generations to come and urging this generation to take the proper precautions to avoid destroying the lives of those yet to come. McCarthy, who has a masters degree in environmental engineering, said that he has a background in exploring issues like this and understands that even though we have learned a lot, risk analysis in these industries can be complicated.

According to a press release by Haul No!, “Right before the resolution went to vote, Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans shared, ‘I want to talk about the constitutionality and legality part of it. In his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’ Dr. King writes about something he calls just and unjust laws. I would say that in this country, historically we have seen several laws over the course of time be changed or overturned because we, the people, have determined that they were unjust.’

“Mayor Evans challenged all council members to pass the resolution with a 7-0 vote. ‘The legacy of uranium mining in Northern Arizona is unjust. I believe that it has been clearly shown through the routes that this ore takes… [and] clearly shown through the level of cancer and cancer-related death experienced by the indigenous people in our region. We have Indigenous neighbors that have been fighting and asking for relief on this issue for decades, for generations. And they are asking us, as the largest city in Northern Arizona, to help them.’”

At the Havasupai Prayer Gathering, Fydel Rising Sun, member of the Havasupai Tribe, sang of resisting uranium mining to the sound of his beating drum. It was 3 a.m., and the sacred fire crackled under the dark outline of Red Butte, a site of great ceremonial importance to the surrounding native nations nations beside the Grand Canyon. The sun soon crested the horizon, and color returned to the land, as well as sweltering heat. Green shrubs poked through the red dirt, their roots a stalwart defense against erosion and increasingly common dust storms, in this parched land being robbed of millions of gallons of clean water.

As explored in our previous pieces within the series, millions of gallons of clean water have been contaminated with uranium and arsenic, directly above an aquifer feeding waters such as those pictured. Moreover, Canyon Mine is accused by conservation organizations and surrounding indigenous nations of desecrating land, medicine, and water surrounding Red Butte: just six miles from the Grand Canyon and from land held sacred by the Havasupai Tribe.

The aqua-marine waters of Havasu Falls on the Havasupai Reservation.

The president of the mine’s company, Mark Chalmers, has denied that that the tribe holds these areas sacred. In response, a four day Havasupai Prayer Gathering, the first in eight years, invited other native nations to come together beneath Red Butte for ancestral ceremonies, inter-tribal gatherings, entertainment, direct action training, and speakers.

Well over 100 people were in attendance over the course of the four-day gathering, many camping out each night for the entirety of the event. Speakers delved into a variety of topics covering past and current illegal land grabs, religious and cultural oppression, spiritual guidance, and stories of resistance. All these narratives came together to now fight the Canyon Mine’s desecration of the land surrounding Red Butte. These are their stories:

Richard Watahomigie, descendant of the first Havasupai leader, spoke to the audience about how he was able to overcome the challenges in his early life and return to his roots to help to lead the Havasupai Tribe. At the event he said he wished he was able to tell this story to more people, but hopes for his words to be shared broadly to help inspire others as well. He is pictured in front of Red Butte:

When I was five I was taken from my family by the white man. They put me in a Mormon school. I wanted to go home and started getting myself in trouble. Eventually they got tired of me and told me I was going home. I was happy. I was going home. Instead they took me to a boarding school in White River, Arizona called Theodore Roosevelt. There I got mistreated by government workers at nine years old.

Some of my relatives and people from Supai went to school there too. I tried to listen and understand them, but could only understand a little. They laughed at me and made fun of me because I couldn’t talk Supai. When I was alone I practiced and tried hard to talk my language.

From then on I went to other schools, tried to learn the white man’s way. One time I heard a native man, Chief Dan George, make a speech. He said, ‘if you finish high school, you’re going to become a half breed.’ So I ran away. I traveled, hitchhiked. I was 14 or 15 years old and eventually made it back home. Then I started over, trying to speak my own language. I finally got it. I listened to the songs with the elders at the sweat lodges and circle dances and practiced them. Now I claim myself a full blood because I got back my roots.

When I grew older I was nominated for office. I didn’t want to accept that; I wasn’t about that. I’m not a political person, but I said to myself, ‘okay I’ll just let it flow and see how it goes and see what the people think of me.’ My people voted me into office. And now I’m a member of the Havasupai Tribal Council. Now I have great admiration, love, respect for my people, my land, water, wildlife, plants, Mother Earth.”

Rex Tilousi, elder and former Chairman of the Havasupai, spoke to the Havasupai people in both the Havasupai–Hualapai language and English, encouraging the Havasupai to remember their history, continue their traditions, and continue their duty of protecting their lands:

“My great-great-grandfather asked to be buried on top of Havasu Falls. They called him Captain Borough. He got that name when the first trainload of tourists visited the Grand Canyon and saw him hiking up Bright Angel Trail with the harvest. They said, ‘look at that animal coming up that trail, look at that jackass coming up the trail, look at that borough coming up the trail.’

Later President Theodore Roosevelt stood on the canyon rim too. He wanted to make a national park and take it from those before him. Rangers say John Wesley Powell discovered this area, but native peoples were already there and regard the canyon as a place of emergence.

When Roosevelt came to our village, he gathered elders to sign papers even though they couldn’t read them. Then he said, ‘I’m taking your lands. Don’t go up to the rim anymore. No hunting or gathering here, no prayers, no sweat lodges. I don’t want you in the park.’

In 1919, they removed the peoples living there. The last Havasupai chased out was my great-great-grandfather, Borough. He refused to leave the home he loved and gave him life. But rangers went down the trail, stuck him on a mule, and forced him out. That same year he passed away and was buried at the top of Havasu Falls.

Years ago rangers asked me to work for the park. I said I needed to do prayer work before responding so spoke to my great-great-grandfather’s grave. That night I had a dream and his voice said, ‘find out why we were chased away.” I accepted the position.

The park gave me a gray and green uniform and that hat Smokey the bear wears. I found out why. They said they wanted to protect the canyon for everyone who wanted to see its wonders. But they aren’t protecting it. They are allowing this destruction.

We were given a responsibility to protect and preserve this land and water for those yet to come. We have a job to do. The ancient rock writing in our canyon tells us to protect this place. The canyon doesn’t belong to us. We belong to the canyon, to the earth, to the water. It created us and gave us life. We are fighting for our lives and for those who are yet to come.”

Photo: Garet Bleir

Krysta Manakaja, Miss Havasupai, spoke to IC regarding the sanctity of the area of Red Butte and the mission of the Havasupai people at the prayer gathering:

“I am standing here in front of you as an ambassador of the Havasupai, to protect my home land and the waters of the Grand Canyon. Red Butte behind me was our first home, our first land, this was where we first lived. There are a lot of our ancestors buried out here and we are here to protect them.”

In the late 70s, when the Havasupai first heard that the Canyon Mine was being developed upon land they hold sacred, it wasn’t the company who told them. Someone working in the nearby city of Tusayan noticed the development and contacted the tribe. According to Rex Tilousi, “Without letting us know, they had already scraped the ground, the sage, and underneath the dust they destroyed ancient grinding stones, baskets, the pottery work our people traded with other tribes, and even bones. They had scraped everything away getting that place ready for mining.”

Photo: Garet Bleir

Havasupai Medicine Woman, Dianna Baby Sue White Dove Uqualla, is a third generation spiritual traditionalist, former member of the Havasupai Tribal Council and former Vice- Chairwoman for the tribe:

“Things are simple, but in this world we made it chaotic. Take away that complication and just live and breath love and have faith. The land behind me of Red Butte is sacred land to our people. You step on this ground and you are being blessed, even if you are not doing ceremony or prayer.

“This land is testing each and every one of us to see if we’re meaning what we are doing here. When you speak, speak truth. We have made lying a norm in this world which is not right. We have to go back to truth, because that’s what is the healer. We have once been the little sheep and they pulled the wool over our eyes. But now we have seen through this wool to recognize what is happening to us. We the people have the ability to take down our president but we have to walk in a force of many and share the word of respect and dignity so that all of us and all our children can survive. Right now we are in a dark place. And we’re sitting here thinking that we cannot do anything, but it’s not true. Yes, we will have to stand in the front lines and give life or give some kind of hurt, but if you’re really in the place of saying, ‘yes I do want to protect my land, my people,’ then that’s the sacrifice we make without question.

“Before you begin your journey, question yourself and ask, ‘am I ready?’ Because it does get scary. Your heart is going to flutter. Your feet are going to chatter. Your hands are going to begin to tremble. That’s human. But you can overcome these things, because we have our mind and our mind is so powerful. More powerful than we know and we have all that to give. To give and acknowledge.”

Photo: Garet Bleir

Rex Tilousi, former Havasupai Chairman, also spoke about why it is so important to resist the developments of the areas they hold sacred:

“Water is going to be just as valuable as gold in the future and that is what is happening today. Arizona calls itself the Grand Canyon State. But what are they doing about the Grand Canyon? They are allowing this destruction.

“To those of us who live in the Canyon, our religious stories and our creations stories from our elders say that this is where we all came from. Black, white, red, green, yellow, doesn’t matter what color one is, we all originated inside of the Canyon. When I hear those stories of how humans came to be, I feel this that is our mother, our grandmother, this is where we all came from, inside our mother earth.

“That’s the reason why we are fighting. Fighting for a home that gave us life, is still giving us life, and is still protecting those that lived down below. Not only us, but the many visitors who come below the rims. The visitors who have been there, if they knew what was going on today, I am sure they would sign the petition that is going around to help stop uranium mining around the Canyon.

“Projects like the Canyon Mine and the casino and tramway they want to make to the bottom at the Grand Canyon with the Escalade Project serve to make more money for those that are developing these things. It is not the idea of the native people. This idea comes from the lawyers, the developers, and the people that are going to disturb this area. Drilling holes, pumping our waters, and pumping the springs that was created by these waters. We have been told many times, when you come to a spring, talk to it before you drink, thank it after you leave, do not bother the spring. Even though I may not be here to see the end of it, I will look down from behind the clouds and say I am very proud of my people.”

Members from the Havasupai Tribe, Navajo Nation, and Haul No take their message to the gates of the Canyon Mine, located just 6 miles south of the Grand Canyon on the site of the sacred Red Butte.

Klee Benally, volunteer with the indigenous-led activist group, Haul No and member of the Navajo Nation taught direct action trainings for the camp in preparation to resist the Canyon Mine:

“Two of my uncles worked at Canyon Mine back in the ‘80s. They helped lay concrete and build the headframe for the uranium mining shaft. Today I feel a great sense of responsibility to rectify their transgressions.”

Photo: Garet Bleir

Photo: Garet Bleir

Guardians of the Grand Canyon, a group of Havasupai dancers, tour Arizona and the world while bringing back a lost tradition to the Havasupai people. The group performed the Ram Dance at the prayer gathering and IC spoke with Richard Watahomigie, who reignited these once-lost traditions:

“My brother in law and I were out hunting one day and we came upon a trail of blood. We tracked it and found two bighorn sheep. They were slaughtered. Hidden underneath bushes. I took them back to the village, did the proper blessings and buried them. The bighorn sheep are sacred to the Havasupai. When we pass away we reincarnate into the bighorn and travel along the rim of the Grand Canyon, back and forth, guarding it. That’s why the ram dancers call themselves the Guardians of the Grand Canyon.

“I took the death of those two bighorns as a sign that we needed to recreate the Ram Dance, a forgotten tradition of the Havasupai practiced over 100 years ago. With the help of a friend, a former council member as well, we got together, made replicas out of the real bighorn, and figured out a way to recreate the dance in order to honor them once again.”

Photo: Garet Bleir

Ruth Havatone, member of the Havasupai Tribe, spoke to an audience regarding new ways of resistance to colonization through the legal system and how colonization has forced the tribe from an agrarian society to a tourist economy:

“Nowadays we can’t fight with arrows or guns, we have to educate our children and send them to college and law school so we can understand how to fight back with the white man and their language, their laws, and their regulations. It is very sad what is going on here. We want to stop the uranium mining and we want the public to recognize that we the Havasupai are here and the dangers of the uranium contamination. It’s not right.

“After the federal government took away most of our land and pushed us into the canyon, we don’t even know how to make money down there. We barely survive with the tourists. In winter we don’t have much money. No tourists buying our groceries or eating in our cafes, only us natives are there surviving on little money. But we survive.

“We are not used to the public view. The tourists don’t see some of us because we are shy of the white people that arrive to our village. Some of us, the older ones, we are watching but they don’t see us because we are hiding in the bushes or the canyon rocks, watching them walk by.”

Photo: Garet Bleir

Uqualla, a Havasupai Medicine Man and Spiritual Traditionalist, spoke throughout the four-day gathering about returning to listening to the earth and finding balance within one’s self. Uqualla also facilitates workshops and ceremonial life coaching sessions throughout the Southwest.

“Everyone that is birthed on this Mother Earth has dark and light, good and bad, masculine and feminine. Learn how to bring that into a magnificent balance. The Mother Earth stated at the beginning, ‘I will give you what it is that you ask for. Not what you ask for from the language or the voice, but what you put forth in your actions.’

“Everything about Mother Earth speaks in symbolism. Learn how to pull from the information given by the surroundings. The medicines of wind, the medicines of the water, the medicines of fire, the medicines of rock. The Mother Earth knows how to take care of itself. And it will take care of itself. It’s going to be the greatest teacher for all of us so go out to her daily and allow for yourself that connection in whatever way you wish that is comfortable for you do so. Even if it is just a step out there. That one moment of total blankness will allow for that infusion of Mother Earth to come through. Allow for yourself to make a connection with the Mother Earth and have her be a constant watcher, healer, teacher, and leader for you.

“We are the children of the Mother Earth and every single one of them walk and trash and abuse the earth beneath them. It’s a surface that gives us the ability to walk, talk, breath, sing, dance. And that is important for us to understand. Without that where would we be? We would not be.”

Garet Bleir is an investigative journalist working for Intercontinental Cry documenting human rights and environmental abuses surrounding uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region. To follow along with interviews and photos highlighting indigenous voices and to receive updates on his 12 part series for IC, follow him on Instagram or facebook.