Several federal agencies met most of their targets in a five-year plan to clean up certain abandoned uranium mines and uranium processing sites on the Navajo reservation, a Government Accountability Office report released May 5 said. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service and certain tribal agencies created the plan spanning 2008 to 2012 because the Navajo people suffered environmental and health impacts from previous uranium mining. As much as 4 million tons of uranium ore was mined, mostly for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, and the Navajo Nation has been left with uranium contamination in the water, buildings and the mines themselves, the report said.
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