A/HRC/36/46/Add.1 48. When resources are extracted from indigenous territories, the people living in those territories experience attendant health impacts. In the 1900s, private companies employing Navajo workers ignored or failed to communicate the known health risks of exposure to uranium. Workers, women and children living near the mines still suffer from high rates of lung disease and cancer. In January 2017, the United States and the Navajo Nation entered into an historic settlement agreement to clean up 94 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. Under the settlement, which was valued at over $600 million, FreeportMcMoRan’s subsidiaries would perform the work and the United States would contribute approximately half the cost. In total, $1.7 billion is now available to begin the Superfund clean-up process at over 200 of the 523 abandoned uranium mines on or near the Navajo Nation. Health impacts were also addressed with the adoption in 2008 of a five-year plan to clean up uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation. 23 In addition to uranium mining, oil development can also impose health impacts on human populations. Mounting evidence of the negative effects of oil development on health includes a study by the Colorado School of Public Health, which found that babies born of women living in the area with the highest density of wells were twice as likely to have neural tube defects and a 38-per-cent increased risk of congenital heart defects.24 49. Despite the known environmental and health risks associated with active and abandoned uranium mines with remediation lifetimes of 200 to 1,000 years, with regard to control for disposal sites and uranium tailings sites, respectively,25 permits have been issued for new uranium projects near the Grand Canyon. In addition to the risks of environmental degradation, the mine poses environmental risks to the Navajo owing to the inevitable transport of uranium across Navajo lands. Despite the 2005 Navajo Nation ban on uranium mining and milling, under United States law the tribe cannot legally prevent the transportation of this hazardous material through their reservation. Areas such as the Diné community (Navajo) of Cameron continue to face high rates of cancer and poisoned drinking water from abandoned mines. 50. San Ildefonso Pueblo faces risks of water contamination from the bordering Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. For nearly two decades in the 1900s, the facility flushed contaminated water into the nearby Sandia Canyon. The runoff has created a mile-long flow of contaminated groundwater extending downward and outward from a specific source and migrating towards the reservation, threatening a major aquifer that is the tribe’s main water supply. The project has already caused environmental damage to sacred places outside of present-day reservation boundaries. 51. Environmental impacts on Indian tribes are not restricted to extractive energy projects. Initiatives to increase the production of hydroelectric power have also had irreversible consequences for tribes. One of the most destructive impacts was the 1944 Pick-Sloan project to construct and operate several dams to control flooding. The dams constructed on the Missouri River submerged over 356,000 acres of Indian lands and devastated precious resources. Displaced indigenous peoples relocated to barren lands as their fertile soils, timber supplies and abundant wildlife were destroyed by the flooding. 52. Lake Oahe, one of the reservoirs created by the Pick-Sloan project, has been prominent in the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy. A portion of the pipeline route passes approximately 100 feet beneath the bottom of Lake Oahe, which is a major source of drinking water for residents of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. They claim that they and other affected tribes were not properly consulted about the environmental impacts of a potential spill. 23 24 25 United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Health and environmental impacts of uranium contamination in the Navajo Nation”, Five-year plan, 2008. See http://naturalsociety.com/proximity-natural-gas-wells-ups-risk-birth-defects-saysstudy/#ixzz43O4VYskH. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Technical Report on Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials from Uranium Mining, Vol. 1: Mining and reclamation background, 2008. Available at https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-05/documents/402-r08-005-v1.pdf. 11