Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Uranium has been mined on the Navajo Nation since the 1940s. The Four Corners area of the Southwest, and the Colorado Plateau held massive supplies of the mineral that the U.S. government wanted. The U.S. government ensured uranium production by giving the mining companies large financial incentives, by knowingly allowing miners to work in unsafe conditions, and by keeping them uninformed about the dangers of exposure to uranium. When the mining companies departed, they left many open mines and piles of uranium tailings which still blow in the wind to this day. Many of the miners in the early days of uranium production died within a short period of time, and today there is an increase of cancer rates among Navajo people, especially the youth. These increased cancer rates may be directly related to the fallout of uranium mining. I have combined my research with scientific studies conducted at NAU which explore the effects of uranium reacting with DNA and the resulting harms.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Lacking the drama of the desert tests, the sand turned to an emerald green glass or an exploding mushroom cloud, the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee rarely appears in the national or global nuclear imagination. The memory of the town’s role as a key production site of fissionable materials for the Manhattan Project was not burned into the consciousness of those coming into the atomic age the way Los Alamos, Nagasaki, or Hiroshima have been. Even though Oak Ridge’s role in the Manhattan Project is often forgotten in the larger global and national context, locally it retains celebrity status. Paradoxically, Oak Ridge is a town that owes its existence to a national wartime project, but whose memory of that role has grown increasingly local. This paper will explore how the tensions between the national agenda, local knowledge, patriotism, and elitism are played out in the space of the American Museum of Science and Energy located in Oak Ridge.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Communication about recent energy policy initiatives include discussions about the perceptions of the health risks that the energy technologies pose to nearby communities. Risk is a judgment that is often understood from different risk perception frames which are based on different epistemological foundations of rationality and knowledge. This study examines the public health narratives about the siting of a uranium mine as represented in media accounts. It combines narrative theory and problematic integration theory to move the field of public health risk communication beyond merely categorizing risk perceptions and helps understand how communication contributes to the formation, representation, and integration of these risk perceptions. In particular, this case study demonstrates how communication of the public health narratives privilege the community members’ more social risk perceptions for making sense of the likelihood of experiencing the health hazards associated with uranium mining.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The use of depleted uranium (DU) shells in conflicts in Yugoslavia and Iraq raises questions relating to the legality of such weapons. While not specifically banned by international convention, the application of traditional jus in bello principles provides guidelines for determining the legal status of DU weapons. This paper examines the evolution and use of depleted uranium shells on the battlefield. It reviews the applicable legal principles that regulate military conduct and provides a legal analysis of the status of depleted uranium shells.