Navajo plans to test limit of tribal law restricting the transportation of uranium on its land

Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — The Navajo Nation plans to test the limits of a tribal law that sets conditions for companies to haul radioactive material on its land. Tribal President Buu Nygren on Tuesday ordered Navajo police to set up roadblocks on federal highways and turn back any trucks carrying uranium. But before tribal police could do that, the semi-trucks had left the reservation. The 2012 tribal law doesn’t apply to highways that Energy Fuels Inc. designated as hauling routes between the Pinyon Plain Mine outside Grand Canyon National Park and a processing site in Blanding, Utah. Still, Nygren Believes the tribe’s plan is legally sound. Energy Fuels says it had informed federal, state, county and tribal officials earlier this month that the shipping of uranium ore was imminent.