Church Rock: America’s Forgotten Nuclear Disaster

In July 1979, just months after a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island gripped the nation, the largest radioactive spill in U.S. history quietly unfolded on a Navajo reservation in Church Rock, New Mexico — and almost no one noticed. A dam at a uranium mine tailings pond burst, causing 94 million gallons of toxic waste to flood a nearby river, poisoning the water, livestock, and people. Through the eyes of an activist who worked at the mine, we reveal how decades of corporate cover-ups and government indifference turned the ‘yellow dirt’ on America's largest Native reservation into something dangerous.

Featured in this episode:

Larry King

Sources:

Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed by Judy Pasternak

The River that Harms documentary

Marley Shebala’s Navajo Times article “Poison in the earth” https://navajotimes.com/news/2009/0709/072309uranium.php

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.