Death and Desire by P.H. Turner

Author:P.H. Turner [Turner, P.H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2015-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Louis was so sleepy from his huge, greasy Galaxy lunch that he begged me to let him nap on the way to interview with Dr. Hebron. He slouched down in the seat and pulled his ball cap over his eyes. Flag’s not that big, so his nap was cut short. I parked in the visitor’s lot and nudged his arm to waken him. “Time to go to work.”

He unloaded his gear: camera and tripod, light umbrella, light kit, and a field mixer. We schlepped it into the elevator and out on the second floor. Dr. Hebron’s office was large and dark, crammed with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of dusty tomes and reams of papers and journals.

Louis read his light meter. “Gonna be best to turn off the fluorescents and set up a key light and two fills. Just take a minute.” When he was finished setting the lighting, Hebron’s office looked like a cozy book-lined den. Louis helped Hebron mike up and I wired the microphones into the field mixer and out to the camera.

Louis checked our audio levels on the meter and gave us the thumbs-up. Hebron agreed to be interviewed on camera. When I finished with the obligatory chitchat establishing he was an expert in the field, Dr. Hebron expounded ad nauseam about the importance of his grant. I pounced when he stopped for a breath and asked him about the environmental effects of leach-pit mining.

“Well . . .” He puffed out his chest and looked directly into the camera, though we had explained to him the camera in this interview acted as a fly on the wall, and he should address me when he talked. “The science of water and air pollution is very complex and extremely difficult to explain in layman’s terms.”

“Let’s start with how they get the uranium out of the ore. What is leach-pit mining?”

He crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward. “Leach-pit mining involves removing huge amounts of rock, crushing it, and leaching the uranium from the rock with chemicals. Some mines average ninety tons of waste tailings for every one ton of uranium they extract.

“Do those tailings pollute the environment?”

“Absolutely.” He tapped his fingertips together. “The mountain of mine tailings leaks the acid that was used to separate the uranium from the crushed rock. The chemical leaching process also leaves cyanide, hydrocarbons, and sulfur in the tailings. All of which seep into the groundwater.”

“Have these chemicals been found in the wells on the Navajo reservation?”

“Of course. Plus, when rainwater sluices through the tailings, the runoff pollutes streams and reservoirs miles downstream.”

“Is there any air pollution from the mine waste?”

“Certainly,” he spoke definitively. “The rock tailings are leaking radon gas because most of the radioactive material ends up in the tailings.”

“Is the radon gas dispersed by the wind?”

“Over miles of the desert. Radon is not the only air pollutant. Dust from the mine’s earth moving equipment, particulate matter from planted explosives in the mine, and exhaust from all those diesel machines create a slurry of air pollution.

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