Here at Navajo council Resources & Development Committee’s Subcommi ttee on a Proposed agreement between the Navajo Nation and URI/Uranium Resources Inc. of Texas for URI to conduct a demonstration project involving In-Situ Uranium Mining near Church Rock, N.M. Before I go any further, please excuse all typos and grammar errors and misspelling because I’m typing as fast as I can from this meeting at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Ariz. Subcommittee member are Chairperson Leonard Tsosie and Vice Chairperson Leonard Pete.

URI PREZ/CEO CHRISTOPHER JONES
Wat r alternatives of clenup? how protect safety and health of land, peole, environment? Navajo Nation has eery right to expect health not effected negatively.

Ask Subcommittee wat health standards shud be? rather than standard be “overly clean” or “temporary” cuz moves problem from official to official and doesn’t solve issue.

FREDA WHITE
Wat do u mean by remediation and reclamation?

URI CHRISTOPHER JONES
reclamation same standard as remediation.

NEPA
when talking risk and helath of pple is reclamation. remediation is coverup and over time erosion get to it.

URI CHRISTOPHER JONES
but can agree on one standard which is health and safety of Navajo people and complying with law.

NAVAJO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
We have to redo work with remediation so support reclamation. Navajo pple use all of environment, it doesn’t matter where they live.

LARRY KING
Section 8 is private land and so no royalties to Navajo Nation and only 30-40 jobs and mostly like 33 percent technical professional jobs and since shut down office in Texas then those workers will come over here. And what is stopping URI from cleanup of Section 17.

URI CHRISTOPHER JONES
Wat is stopping us is there is no standard for clenup. yes some jobs technical, skilled and unskilled. but my personal history is we hve obligated ourselves to tranin and get up to speed. We tranined Cree in Northern Alberta and to point where cud not train Cree.

We are not proposing standard but process. It might be current standard but that standard will stop cleanup around nation. It won’t change. But rather than standard, wat about talking performance which is protecting health and safety of land, pple. Something that is doable not for this site but all the sites. We have shot at setting precedence. Is this standard the best we can do to protect human life? Or is a lower standard better for cleanup of more sites becuase less cost.