Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, and Ethnic Cleansing
America's Secret Chernobyl - Custer National Forest
The photo above was never made available during the mishandled and inappropriate Sioux Ranger District Oil and Gas Leasing Environmental Impact Statement(Sioux EIS 2004). There were other major documents missing from the Sioux EIS, mostly on the chemical characteristics and water solubility of uraniferous lignite ash that would have substantially altered the direction that the Sioux EIS took in the coverup: the Hunkpapa and Harding County folks drank the radioactive water. For some yet unexplained reason, most likely racist as Hell, the USEPA was never the lead agency in the deliberately mischaracterized Riley Pass uranium milling although these Riley Pass uranium mining complex are the most highly radioactive zones in the USA (uraniferous lignite is naturally high in uranium, and is relatively benign if left alone), mostly because Kerr-McGee as KERMAC was roasting the lignite containing the uranium at high temperatures and releasing all kinds of exotic radionuclides into the Grand River. Local area residents and downstream communities are experiencing health crises but are ignored by the government. The rotary kilns roasted the uraniferous lignite at high temperature, turning the lignite coal to ash to be processed by acid to further increase purity, basically making nearly pure uranium (this highly pure form of uranium was also used at Chernobyl where they also noted the peculiar effects that high temperatures has on uranium). The uraniferous lignite ash is totally water-soluble and does concentrate in the body, causing diabetes, cancer, cirrhosis, and brain tumors (the uranium concentrates in the kidney, liver and brain as well as reeking DNA havoc). In comparison, North Dakota once discovering that the citizens were telling them their health concerns such as their sheep having a blue haze and families developing bronze colored skin, they reclaimed their two uranium milling sites under UMTCRA [The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) of 1978 (Public Law 95-604)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_Mill_Tailings_Radiation_Control_Act) and DoE Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act Sites (https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/10/f19/UMTRCA.pdf)
The US Forest Service has deliberately misled and mischaracterized the uranium mining complex on the Custer National Forest on purpose.
The obvious truth is the Hunkpapa are suffering genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The inadequate, and purposely skewed, health studies never include the Hunkpapa and Homesteaders as a combined population, this misinformation is meant to keep nuclear energy as being labeled as safe. Nor have they addressed the health concerns of the affected population as a whole, sacrificing both population for nuclear energy. When they have an accident, such as Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl, science fails, poisoned land, water and air results, a nuclear desertification of the world begins, the "salting the world" continues as progress. And comparison of the adverse health effects suffered at those nuclear catastrophes shows the Hunkpapa and Harding County folks are being sacrificed to ignorance and idiocy.
The Custer Scout Buckskin Republic aka Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is fully aware of the Riley Pass uranium mining reclamation project, very odd that they don't say one word about the petroglyphs, which was the reason for the 1994(?) US Forest Service Picnic Springs consultation with the local tribes, mostly in North Dakota and Montana, only Standing Rock and Grey Eagle Society were in attendance (funny in itself as the mine is on treaty land, stolen in 1877). The Defenders of the Black Hills held several uranium summits to address the health concerns and were ignored by the local community because of racism within the US Forest Service, the USFS was not expecting to have their cake sliced up in ways they can no longer control.
Currently, major reclamation is happening upstream on the Grand River at the Riley Pass uranium mining and milling complex, and not one THPO officer is present, monitoring the exposures of the petroglyphs, which are being uncovered by removal of the overburden that mining were pushed over the cliffs and buried. For more information on the Riley Pass Uranium Mine Clean-up, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/custergallatin/landmanagement/resourcemanagement/?cid=stelprd3833606
I call this environmental injustice: "genocide, crime against humanity, ethnic cleansing by the Federal government, tribal governments and people that hate the Hunkpapa." As the affected community is at odds with each other, the Tronox Settlement is at risk of being mishandled by the Federal government as usual. We need a complete accounting of the Tronox Settlement from the US Forest Service.
The Riley Pass uranium mining complex was called the America's Secret Chernobyl (https://www.defendblackhills.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=113:americas-secret-chernobyl&catid=16:uranium&Itemid=27) by Charmaine White Face seemingly ages ago. At Chernobyl, they accidentally ignited the uranium, causing the catastrophic explosion, at the Cavehills Riley Pass uraniferous lignite uranium milling rotary kiln, they were roasted uraniferous lignite, same poisons result. They never examined the chemical and physical properties of the uraniferous ash, they are too focused on Navajo uranium mining, resorting to racism judgment to justify their misinformation. The truth is that the nickname does apply; the Grand River was contaminated on the same scale as the Chernobyl nuclear wastes. there are certain temperatures that uranium does odd things, like shatter into globs of molten radioactivity as well as become uranium gas but then most of this information is still classified under weapons research. The Chernobyl nuclear plant used the same uranium from their lignite coal beds in Ukraine and Kazakhstan; it is cheaper than refining the uranium with fluoride to make a safer fuel pellet that doesn't accidentally shatter at certain temperatures.
Upstream at the Riley Pass, the reason they were actually roasting the lignite to ash it for easier separation of the uranium by washing it with acid (it required two acid washes, and losing the acids from the first wash, most of the second acid, they couldn't reuse the acid for uranium processing as they did in Navajo country as they did with carnotite, basically crushed sandstone, where the uranium was water-insoluble, requiring acid to separate it from crushed sandstone). The resulting uranium ash was over 90% uranium by volume, we can safely speculate that at certain quantities, the uranium ash would go critical, and start the fission process, as the ash itself provided moderation to slow down the neutrons. The same thing as at Chernobyl but they were able to shatter the uranium to where it actually caught on fire. When they piled up the rotary kiln uraniferous lignite ash, they were making an atomic pile. To try to make uranium seem safe, they had the TV Show Lucille Ball episode "Lucy Hunts Uranium"(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0637531/) have kinds of humorous scenes including running into the Navajo...
My purpose is to bring RECA to the downstream affected communities, Rock Creek and Running Antelope. Radiation Exposure and Compensation Action gives direct cash payments for those contaminated by nuclear wastes. In 2016, as shown above attending USFS meetup with Navajo, I demanded recreation centers with swimming pools and basketball court be built by the US Forest Service in the nuclear contaminated Hunkpapa communities (Rock Creek and Running Antelope) to be paid by the Tronox Settlement.
Since the USEPA failed in its trust responsibilities to the Hunkpapa, they, however, set the precedence in their uranium recovery efforts, we also deserve $5 billion in uranium recovery (Federal aid) mostly for health services and educational opportunities as well as $200 million in uranium contamination studies(Tronox Settlement) on the entire basin, including further construction of radiological containment dams as well as road to follow the Grand River to making monitoring easier as well as increase the property values within the Grand River valley. No federal agency including tribal government is watching the water, with the State of South Dakota bungling up science in effort to maintain frontier colonialism.
Once we improve Grand River water quality we can use it for irrigation as originally planned and increase other municipal, industrial and recreational purposes.
And all the time I have to counter government propaganda, and make them prove it. They are dividing the affected population into two classes, making a racist situation, and is really dangerous to Harding county folks, sacrificing them although we have tort claims against the Settlement and against the Federal government, they are trying to avoid that issue of compensation for damages against private mining companies, the most notable being Kerr-McGee, they are covering up the Potentially Responsible Parties PRP and their estates being held liable for tort damages. The use of the ratio of 100,000 people is incorrect and is a crime against humanity and genocide when you have living bodies as an identifiable, countable population that are directly affected by the uranium poisoning: those thugs are basing their opinions on research papers and not the people. Point samples on a longitudinal trend of developing sickness caused by uranium poisoning is incorrect. They are attempting to cover up all the deaths caused by toxic uranium mining and milling of uraniferous lignite. The moment they roasted the uraniferous lignite to radioactive ash, that is the moment of the existence of a tort claim against the USA, Tronox was held accountable for its part in this nuclear issue, the USA has yet to pay its share.
We have been sacrificed as a forgotten medical experiment on the long-term exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation. For the Hunkpapa, this is Custer's Revenge.
