A resurgence of interest in building nuclear power plants, touted as a nonpolluting alternative to carbon-fueled plants, has sparked a uranium rush. Since 2007 the NRC has received seventeen license applications for twenty-six new reactors, causing a flurry of applications for uranium mining permits across the Four Corners region, where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet. In February Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that the Energy Department would expedite the approval process for $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for utilities that are building nuclear plants. The guarantees, along with other Bush-era incentives, are meant to spur construction of new plants.

The anticipated rise in demand for uranium has led the industry back to the very places it deserted three decades ago when it abandoned hundreds of mines, seven polluted uranium mills, billions of gallons of contaminated groundwater and mountains of radioactive waste. Congress is only now beginning to press agencies to clean up the mess, an undertaking that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Plenty of people in this economically distressed corner of New Mexico are thrilled about the 8,000 new jobs and $1 billion in economic benefits the uranium industry promises. They point to claims made by industry lobbyists in a concerted PR campaign that new technology will make mining safer and that cast doubt on the connection between uranium mining and the illnesses that plague people who worked in mines and mills or lived near them.

Many others, especially American Indians like Capitan, remain unconvinced. They are afraid the companies will leave behind another trail of environmental destruction, illness and death like that of thirty years ago.

This story is a must-read for anyone to comprehend how the uranium industry operated 30-50 years ago in the West. Perhaps you will walk away with a taste of why some people are so adamant against uranium mining now, especially for those who have been affected by this industry's past.

Perhaps you'll get a glimmer of what happens to uranium-miners (no matter the ethnicity) and the destruction caused by uranium mining. Perhaps, too, you'll envision what happens to a uranium-mining town when it's abandoned. It's frozen in time. It never grows. At least, not until the next uranium-mining boom...

...but this is the first boom since the Three-Mile Island incident. What in this story makes anyone think that the technology has changed for uranium mining? What about this story makes anyone believe that the indifference to health and environment has changed? How can uranium industries think that they can ply the same lies they did a half century ago and get away with it this time?

Do you know?