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Welcome to the website of the
Bluewater Valley Downstream Alliance.
The Bluewater
Valley Downstream Alliance is a group of citizens from neighboring communities
near
Grants and
north of Milan, New Mexico, whose underground water resources have been
contaminated
by uranium
mining and milling activities that began in the 1950s.
As a result, our rural way of life has
been
decimated and we have organized to fight against Homestake/Barrick Gold and the
other rich
and powerful
mining companies that polluted our community and left with their profits, but
without
provisions for
cleaning up the massive underground water contamination that was the legacy of
their
uranium mining
activities, particularly in the Ambrosia Lake area, and also at the
Anaconda/Atlantic
Richfield
Company millsite only a few miles away.
For over 25
years, and in spite of designation as a Superfund site, our community has
battled with
Homestake/Barrick
Gold, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission
(NRC), and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to try to
restore
our underground
aquifers. Only lately has the NMED, under Governor Richardson’s leadership,
begun
to take our
concerns seriously. Senator Jeff Bingaman’s office has also come to our aid
recently and
we look forward
to more help from the Senator in the future.
Living next to
Homestake/Barrick Gold’s uranium mill tailings Superfund site has taken a toll
on our community.
In years past,
we watched windblown tailings scatter across our horizon.
Today we watch as mist from the
company’s
evaporation ponds drifts out into the surrounding communities, and we often
suffer from the stench
of the
evaporation ponds. We do not know
how our physical health has been impacted, but the strain from lost
water
resources, lost property values, damaged homes, and the constant battle with
corporate giants and
regulators has
taken a toll on our mental health.
In short, we
are a small organization of working class citizens fighting for environmental
justice against the
Goliaths of the
uranium industry and often against the very U.S. government regulators who
should have
protected our
health and environment in the first place.
BVDA recent
News:
October 24,
2008, Grants, NM. US Congressional candidate Harry Teague met with
BVDA members today
during which time he was apprised of the situation of the lack of clean-up from
past mining in the Grants
area. Candidate Teague is the only candidate to express any interest
in our situation and the only one to
meet with us. Mr. Teague indicated that with the nuclear energy industry
receiving so much federal
subsidies, he believes that moneys should also be available for
clean-up.
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