July 16th Commemoration of 1979 Church Rock , N.M,.Uranium Tailings Spill

When the earthen tailings dam at the UNC mill failed, 1,100 tons of radioactive mill waste and an estimated 95 million gallons of mine process effluent flowed down Pipeline Arroyo and into the north fork of the Puerco River – more radiation than was released in the Three Mile Island reactor accident four months earlier.

The spill ranks second only to the 1986 Chernobyl reactor meltdown in the amount of radiation released.

“After that we lost like half a dozen cattle, half a dozen horses, sheep” that drank from the arroyo. He said they noticed the cattle and sheep “were having a lot of saliva coming out of their mouths and they were having a hard time breathing.”

When the animals were butchered, he said, the meat “was kind of like yellowish. It was all over the meat inside, the intestines.”


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