As I stated in an earlier article, the Navajo Nation is challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a Federal appeals court, over proposed in situ leach uranium mining on tribal lands. It’s the first time in history that the NRC will be challenged in court for its approval of a source materials license for an in situ leach uranium mine.

The Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock are represented by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC), Eastern Navajo Dine against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) and Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC). They are demanding that a New Mexico mining company, Hydro Resources, Inc., stay off tribal lands.

Eric Jantz, a lawyer with the NMELC, spent some time with me, explaining the lawsuit and that organization’s role in other uranium related issues. I asked him for a briefing on the litigation.

Image: World Nuclear Association

The afternoon and evening hearings are set for Tuesday, March 4, in Middletown, Pennsylvania.

Three Mile Island’s operators are asking for a 20-year extension for reactor 1, whose existing 40-year license is set to expire on April 19, 2014. Such extensions have so far been fairly easy to come by, with the NRC having OKd 48 extensions so far for the U.S.’s 104 operating nuclear plants.

NRC officials say reactor 1 has operated safely throughout its history. Unlike the no-longer-functioning reactor 2, which became the source of the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history on March 28, 1979.

The accident occurred when the reactor’s water-cooling system failed, leading to a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The incident caused some release of radioactive material into the atmosphere, but subsequent studies have not found any evidence of health problems in the area surrounding the facility near Harrisburg.

A study from the Keystone Center concluded the average radiation exposure to people in the vicinity of Three Mile Island was small, about one-sixth the amount provided by a full set of chest x-rays.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that a nuclear plant worker in Vermont was suspended after testing positive for drugs; the worker blamed the test results on brownies served at a party that he didn’t know were laced with marijuana.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons