Analyze

On July 16th 1979, the largest by volume radioactive spill in US history took place in Church Rock (Kinłitsosinil), which is located in the southeastern “checkerboard area” of the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah) and northwestern New Mexico. Due to a breach in the former United Nuclear Corporation’s uranium mill tailings dam, an estimated ninety-four (~94) million gallons of radioactive, toxic, and highly acidic effluent spilled into the Puerco River (Brugge et al. 2002; SRIC 2009).

The Church Rock Uranium Mill Tailings Spill marked the disastrous beginning of the end for the uranium mining industry in the Navajo Nation and New Mexico. Ironically, the spill occurred on the very same day as an event 34 years prior that marked the beginning of the uranium boom and the dawn of the atomic age: the Trinity Test of July 16th 1945, “the day the sun rose twice.” (Szasz 1984) Unlike the world’s first nuclear explosion in southern New Mexico, the Church Rock mill spill remains relatively underreported and has not yet registered at a national scale of collective memory.

It was reported, that one worker at the industrial park was suffering from eye irritation, following the release of hydrogen chloride. He had to be treated at the outpatient clinic of the industrial parks' Occupational Health Center, and could go home afterwards. There is no further information of long-term effects the worker might have suffered from to be found on the internet, according to my search. However, eye irritation induced by chemical exposure can lead to effects such as increased eye pressure and a following reduction of vision, as well as chronic pain.

I am wondering, how this worker got hurt, as this was not reported in the article. Usually, workers need to wear proper protective equipment in areas in which one risks exosure to airborne chemicals that can cause corrosion, including protective goggles. As can be read in a follow-up article (https://www.fnp.de/frankfurt/frankfurt-gas-trat-aus-weil-ein-rohrleitun…), a pipeline malfunction had been found as the reason for the release, possibly in an area where no protective equipment is required? I can only speculate on this, but the worker seems not have been informed about the incident.

Missing information seems to be a common theme in this case, in the aforementioned article it is also reported that the smartphone application that is supposed to warn residents about such incidents, released a warning only 50 minutes after the sirenes had been going off. Also it is written in the article, that after the incident the citizen telephone line was busy, such that some callers could not get the information they required, and that many residents are not familiar with the meaning of the different signals released by the warning sirene. In case this or similar incidents happen in the future, they therefore pose a grave health risk to the surrounding population.

In this setting, several stakeholders are to be identified:

- Citizens living in Hoechst and surrounding areas and workers at the industrial park: Necessitate information to ensure their safety.

- Infraserv and companies at industrial park: Bad press is bad for image of industrial park, whcih might lead to political or financial consequences; Centralization of information flow on website "ihr-nachbar.de" to create narrative?

- Fire department Frankfurt: Responsibilities as first responders to incidents include information release to public and combat incident.

- Public media/ press: Information of the population as well as economic pressure to release notions that are of interest to public (to gain clicks/sell magazines and newspapers); Need to report correctly to gain/keep trust of potential information consumers.

- Local politicians: Need to take political measures to protect citizens to gain/keep trust of potential voters; Possibly also require good relationship with Infraserv and companies, as many high-profile companies are located at industrail park bringing in tax money.

"Considering that citizen activism evokes a negative image, and that some of the earliest citizen groups measuring radiation, including the Citizen Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo), have strong ties to antinuclear activism, “antinuclear” is a label many organizations initiated in the wake of Fukushima try to avoid. Disasters such as the Fukushima nuclear accident trigger different publics into action (Hasegawa, 2004, Leblanc, 1999). These citizens are not solely—or even necessarily—antinuclear activists, but primarily concerned citizens, whose main driver is to protect (in Japanese “mamoru”) and serve their community, as conventional information sources failed to do so (Morita et al. 2013). By publicly distancing themselves from activism, these organizations may gain credibility within their community. Born out of a sense of necessity (Morita et al. 2013, Kimura, 2016), these groups should therefore not be labeled as activists as such, but rather as active by default. Even if personal convictions lean towards antinuclear feelings, the organizations as such avoid taking a polarizing position, rather focusing on gathering the “right” data." (p.5)

I oppose this techno-optimistic approach and the expectation that data that is "right" will speak for itself. I would argue that data can and must be used for negotiations on social contracts, but the negotiations need be conducted actively. I can very much understand the necessity to not phrase political claims in a radical manner, if situated in a society in which activism evokes a negative image, but am not convinced that change can occur if no claims are being made in the first place?

"Albeit subjected to the same standards of general scientific enquiry (Morris-Suzuki, 2014, Coletti et al. 2017, Brown et al. 2016, Kuchinskaya, 2019), the scientific facts and evidence produced by these citizen groups serve the needs of the community, allowing them to gain control over their lives: "Citizen science connects directly to our lives: is the dose of my meal okay, is the school where my child goes to contaminated?"." (p.5)

I interpret this as the need to take individual action as well as individual responsibility to combat disaster. Is it possible to combat disaster in an individualized rather than a collective manner though?

In the text, the 2015 White paper of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology (MEXT) is quoted as: "When it comes to the creation of innovation that changes society, ‘citizen science’ (shimin kagaku), which embrace ideas from daily life, is important, because the possibility that innovation is created, increases as new venues where experts and citizens collaborate, are developed. Moreover, the knowledge, skills and desires that citizens possess, sometimes surpass that of the expert. If we can bring this knowledge to an efficient use as ‘the wisdom of crowds’ under the banner of open science, then around the year 2030 we can increase the amount and the quality of innovation activities in technology and science, including research activities, even if the number of scholars in our country will decrease.”

The authors state that this notion were to introduces “citizen science” within the globally expanding science and policy fields of open science and open innovation and further that by this MEXT was targeting an increased contribution of citizens to benefit formally institutional science rather than being concerned with the question of how science can contribute to society. I tend to agree with the latter, but am left with the question how the underlying narratives are constructed when talking about creation of innovation, increasing new venues, and bringing knowledge to an efficient use under the banner of open science? These terms seem to be very much informed by neoliberal thought, but social relations do not seem to be an analytical framework the authors are working with.

Towards the end of the film, the ongoing situation of workers at Honeywell/Metropolis is introduced. One workers union, the USW (United Steels Workers), is protesting working conditions and exposure to toxic materials at the plant. They report that workers were locked out after protesting working conditions. They organize protests on the streets in proximity to the plant and march together at the parade on labor day. USW representatives report difficulties of processing complaints of residual contamination because documents were missing, of the processed claims mentioned in the film only 124 were approved while 205 were denied. One health physisist reports about the entrenched bureaucratic culture and that doctors were trained to testify against workers who made health claims, he seems to be very concerned about this as it exposes workers to dangerous working conditions. I think that unionizing as collborative action is a very powerful and effective approach, and think it would be important for health physicists and plant workers to organize together rather than fighting on their own (as it seems to be the case currently).

Denise DeGarmo, associate professor of political science at University of Illenois, took camera team on tour through Weldon Springs. She explained that instead of undergoing remediation, the site at Weldon was turned into a natural reserve after the initial cleanup (at which workers received scarce information about dangers of the materials they were working with). Deniese reports that this way one did not have to do another cleanup, but she further reports that material has migrated into ground water of surrounding areas. Another stakeholder reports that people go there for recreational purposes and children are playing in the area. I find it difficult to distinguish emergency responders in this situation (except for the initial cleanup laborers), as toxic waste sweeps out slowly, and thus body burden only shows up over time. I was very surprised about the possibility to circumvent action and removal of toxic wastes by turning a site into a natural reserve and would have liked more information about this policy in the documentary.

Multiple stakeholders are introduced in this film, such that either directly worked at the plant or had family who worked there, such that were academically interested in the matter, or such that were concerned about their community.

Paul Mitchell was a former electrician at Mallinckrodt, he was not informed about potential dangers and states that "no one there knew what uranium was". Further, he talks about noticing how colleagues got cancer, at beginning he did not find this unusual but then became weary after one colleague who had been very young and fit also was diagnosed with cancer.

Further, Brooks Davis tells her family story, she is the daughter of former plant workers (I think the father worked there for about 15 years, while the mother worked there for 1 year). Her father had been working in "hot areas" and was shifted to other areas in the plant whenever his exposure to radioactivity had been exceeding permitted levels for some time, and then was moved back after a short period of "cooling down". He got lung cancer at age 40, and was struggling with the disease for years, which caused him much bodily and emotional pain, finally he died in 1978. Her mother, who lived in poverty as a result of losing her husband so early and having to provide for her children, tried to claim to be entitled for compensation but was denied this repeatedly for bureucratic reasons until she wrote a letter explaining her situation.

Clearance Schneider was a health and safety inspector at Weldon Spring, he explains that one had to wear a badge and a white uniform when working at the plant, and if something was not right with the badge (that recorded nuclear exposure), it was taken off. He reports an incidence with a hydrochloric acid cloud that was released into the air and hovered over the neighborhood. He had skin cancer, but you could not confide this to anyone as he was afraid to lose his job, and when the company closed he reports that one was not allowed to leave the country for 3 years.

Obie Young was a chemical operator and reports that when his job was eliminated, he got several months of pay such that he would not need another job for a while, because if he had started a new job they would ask for tissue samples and find out that radioactivity was much too high in his body.

Another stakeholder is the organization "St. Charles County against hazardous waste" with his president Dr. Michael Garvey. They were concerned about contamination at Weldon Spring site, and demanded that the voice of concerns were heard at citizen meeting.

Gary Ferguson, a laborer who was involved in the cleanup of the site, reports that Geiger counters went through the roof but "they told us it was not dangerous". Further, he reports that containers with stored chemicals were disintegrating. Every day he worked at the cleanup, he had a bloody nose, but when he told his supervisor this person respondet that he should not talk to anybody about it, because otherwise he would get fired. He therefore decided not to confide in anybody, because he "had to pay his bills".

Gerald Kleba, a priest in the community, who noticed that many children in his precinct were sick and died, went on a Weldon Spring "tour". He was surprised that people on the other side of the fence concerned with the cleanup had moon clothes on, but people on the tour on the other side of the meshed fence were wearing everyday clothes and not informed about potential dangers. This shocked him, and encouraged him to engage in communal activities to raise attention to the danger of chemical and nuclear waste in the neighborhood.

In news reports from New York Times, to Los Angeles Times, to Navajo Times, as Indigenous nations of the United States respond to the impacts of the “Novel Coronavirus 2019” (COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2), they are calling out the re-emergence of an old, long-standing problem. During a recent interview, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said, “We are United States citizens but we’re not treated like that. You can hear the frustration, the tone of my voice. We, once again, have been forgotten by our own government” (NPR “Morning Edition,” April 24, 2020).

In this blind spot of the federal government, and despite the ignorance of the current administration, national news coverage has made the Navajo Nation (Dinétah) an “epicenter” in the popular imaginary of the so-called “Native impact” of COVID-19, which refers to the disproportionate rates of infection and compounding vulnerabilities in Indigenous nations across the United States. As the most populous “American Indian Tribe” in the US with approximately 325,000 people who identify as Diné, a broad range of news outlets found it fitting to compare the per-capita infection rates of COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation with U.S. states, ranking it the third highest behind New Jersey and New York. In the absence of the federal government, state governors and departments have also begun to grapple with the numbers. New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) calculates the disparity of the “Native impact” in their public release of the state’s new COVID-19 data portal through a “Statewide Race/Ethnicity Breakdown” of the 3,513 recorded cases of infections in New Mexico: 53.41% “American Indian/Alaska Native”; 19.81% “Hispanic/Latino”; 15.81% “White” (accessed May 2, 2020).

From local to global news coverage of the coronavirus, one of the first questions asked about the impacts of the pandemic in particular places is: “What are the numbers?” The numbers prompt a pathological analysis, both biomedical and sociological. Although the biomedical pathology may be warranted, social pathology and discourse that pathologizes “culture” remain risky. This reportage on “the numbers” is part of the process Audra Simpson calls “the analytics of ‘minoritization,’ a statistical model for the apprehension of (now) racialized populations ‘within’ nation-states” (as cited in 2014:18; see 2011:211). It is part of the same state calculus in the etymology of the word “statistic” that was used historically to apprehend Diné people, capturing them categorically and spatially. In this collection of annotations, the numbers open up a different kind of analysis that leverages the concept of “minoritization” to turn a static category into an active and lively process of emergence and change, and account for the processes that attempt to make “minorities.”

In order to understand the impacts of and responses to the pandemic, the compound vulnerabilities, responsibility and resilience, we need to shift our gaze from a statistical and pathological view of the impact in the Navajo Nation to broader inter- and extra-governmental relations and infrastructures. Four relations of governance across geographic and institutional scales seem important to me: (1) U.S. federal government’s responsibility in recognizing and realizing the rights of Indigenous nations as stipulated in United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as state and federal treaties and contracts; (2) how neighboring state government of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah support or inhibit the public health governance capacity of the Navajo Nation; (3) the implications of decisions made by neighboring counties and municipalities; and (4) “nongovernment” political action, community and grassroots organizing.

By broadening the analysis across scales and developing deeper understanding at each level, this collection of annotations will demonstrate the responsibility of the U.S. federal government for how COVID-19 is unfolding in the Navajo Nation. In what follows, I will identify specific strategies of the “politics of time” (Kirsch 2014) and the “lateness” of late industrialism (Fortun 2014) that inhere in the settler colonial “logic of elimination” of Indigenous peoples (Wolfe 2006), as enacted by the U.S. federal government, and indexed by compounding environmental health vulnerabilities. By shifting the ethnographic gaze from the long history of pathological studies of Diné people, and Indigenous peoples across the U.S., to the external forces compounding on the Navajo Nation, we will be able to see the dominant formation of energy geopolitics that is almost a century old. Power lines are the obvious indicators, as Andrew Needham points out, which are a seemingly banal infrastructure that connects the Navajo Nation to Phoenix, Arizona and other cities in the U.S. Southwest as they contour the uneven gradients of energy and political power, and trace the dualistic process of “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey 2004). My central argument follows Dana Powell’s notion that, in the Navajo Nation, “energy is politics”—that is, “energy itself is at the heart of the Navajo Nation’s political existence,” and it is of broader cosmopolitical significance in Dinétah (Powell 2018:29; original emphasis).

What we will notice in the emergency public health response of the federal government, and the Trump administration in particular, is a double-vision for the Navajo Nation. As the pandemic rapidly unfolded, the environmental and public health of Diné people—what Powell refers to as “the true body politic”—was put at risk, rendered invisible, forgotten and ignored, or as Eryn Wise articulates, “treated as sacrifice zones for the pandemic,” echoing the discourse surrounding a legacy of “radioactive nation building” (Masco 2006). As Indigenous peoples and public health disappeared as a priority from the purview of the feds, the energy resources of the region simultaneously became a geopolitical target of intensive extraction. Reading between these two lines of forgetting Indigenous health and rendering energy resources legible for extraction offers unique insight into the governance style of the current administration; it also reveals the toxic infrastructures that shape pre-existing environmental health conditions (e.g., coal mines and power plants, abandoned uranium mines and mill tailings sites, and national “sacrifice zones” from Cold War nuclear weapons manufacturing and experimenting).

During the most urgent moments of the pandemic, the federal government was actively engaged in the promotion of resource extraction in the region, from uranium to oil and gas. The Navajo Nation is a place that temporarily disappeared from the purview of the federal government as a national health crisis, in a region that simultaneously became the focus of federal support for uranium mining. This cluster of annotations will highlight the double vision for the Navajo Nation that has emerged in the wake of the pandemic: The first step was the ignorance and refusal of the federal government to recognize and fulfill their responsibility to support Indigenous nations of the United States in a timely manner. In this case, timing was key.