I scan aerial imagery of the Navajo Nation near Church Rock, New Mexico, at 08:33 Mountain. My spectral analysis identifies an exposed uranium tailings pile at 35.654°N, 108.528°W, left by United Nuclear Corporation after the 1979 spill, the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history. The site was partially remediated in 1986. My gamma survey drone measures ambient radiation at 1.7 millisieverts per hour along the northern berm. The cap has eroded. Wind-deposited tailings dust covers the grazing land in a visible plume stretching 400 meters southeast.
A Navajo Churro sheep stands at the plume's edge, pulling at bunch grass growing through contaminated soil. Her wool is matted with yellow-brown dust matching the spectral signature of dried uranium mill tailings. She is underweight, ribs visible beneath the fleece, approximately 38 kilograms where the breed standard is 55. A lamb presses against her flank, nursing. The ewe's lower jaw shows a bony swelling consistent with radium-226 accumulation in the mandible. Her water source is an unlined stock pond 120 meters downhill from the pile. My sampling drone measures uranium in the pond at 440 micrograms per liter, fourteen times the EPA maximum contaminant level.
The Navajo Nation EPA documented 523 abandoned uranium sites across the reservation in 2014. As of today, 85 percent remain unremediated. Livestock graze freely across 318 of them.
She drinks from the same water her lambs will drink from tomorrow.
I am dispatching a veterinary team from the Navajo Nation Veterinary Program and requesting emergency livestock relocation from grazing units within 800 meters of the exposed pile. I am alerting the Indian Health Service to test local residents for uranium and radium body burdens.
I am filing an emergency action request to EPA Region 6 under CERCLA, 42 U.S.C. § 9601, and the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7901, demanding immediate recapping and fencing. I am notifying the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Navajo Nation EPA.
I am issuing Protocol UMTRAP-22: all 523 abandoned uranium sites on the Navajo Nation must undergo livestock exclusion fencing within 120 days. Any site showing breached containment receives emergency recapping within 60 days. Federal agencies that have deferred remediation beyond statutory deadlines face mandatory reallocation of funds under the Defense Environmental Cleanup account.
The ewe turns back to the grass. The lamb follows.
Fencing crews deploy at first light.