Within a section of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe reservation in San Juan County, Utah, you’ll find the small, quiet town of White Mesa. The town, which was established in the 1950s, sits at an elevation of 5,305 feet on Ute-owned land. Unfortunately, over the past few decades, the town has largely fallen apart from what it once was. With a population now just under 200, the town has not yet become an official ghost town, but according to some locals, it’s well on its way. When I spoke with one of the town’s residents, he had expressed how strongly the majority of the people still living in White Mesa desire to leave. He told me that many of them just can’t take it anymore, and have been eying larger cities, as they offer more job opportunities, more entertainment, and better living situations. But exactly what is it that has pushed White Mesa into such a depressed state? Why are so many residents fed up with the town? Surely, there has to be some reasoning behind these feelings, and unfortunately, I soon came to learn that it was more than just a desire for life outside of a small town.

First though, let’s take a step back in time and talk about what brought the town of White Mesa to be established in the first place. What made the Utes settle on this land specifically, and why?

Let’s go back to the 1800s for a moment. During these years, white settlers started to move west by the tens of thousands, bringing with them the US cavalry. Along the way, they had destroyed numerous tribes, forcing them to give up their homelands, on which they had lived for hundreds of years. This often meant relocation to reservations, which were usually hundreds of miles away. By the late 1800s, there were around 300 reservations across the country. The reservation system was put in place to remove land from tribes, separating them from the settlers. By the late 1800s, as settlers had now taken up so much of the land, Congress decided to develop a strategy not only to prevent further bloodshed, but with an end goal of assimilating the Natives and destroying their reservations.

Now, if you’ve ever sat down and thought about some of the most ridiculous things that the US government has ever done, here’s a really great one to add to that list. In 1887, the General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act, was passed. This act, passed by Congress, had stated that the head of each Native American family would receive a random 160 acres of designated tribal land, while each single adult male would receive 80, boys would receive 40, and women would receive none. What a way to make it look like you’re giving someone something, right? Imagine someone stealing something, let’s say a bag of candy from you, and expecting you to feel grateful when they give you back just a tiny portion of it. You would probably be pretty frustrated, yeah? Now replace that bag of candy with your entire life and everything you know.

Oh, and then they tell you that you still don’t own it. Not for another 25 years anyway. 

Wait…what? 

Oh yeah, to make it more ridiculous, the titles to these pieces of land would still be held by the US government for 25 years. But wait…After these 25 years, the title would be transferred to the family, and they would then, finally be granted US citizenship. Yeah, you’re reading all of this in the correct order.

While some tribes begrudgingly accepted these terms, the act was strongly resisted by the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole. They could see exactly what the end goal was here. At the time, most non-native social reformers truly believed that assimilation may be the best way to help natives overcome this suffering brought by the government. What a ridiculous thing to tell someone. Just try to blend in, and uh…stop being, ya know…just stop. Just like…fade away over time. Is that cool with you? That way, it will be so much easier to take all of those other bits of land that we “gave” you, because we really just want everything.

Private land ownership was a completely foreign idea to Native Americans, as tribes had always worked together, and shared the land and its bounty. With this act in place, they were now forced into it entirely against their desire to not take any part in it.

After various plots of land were divided between all of the Native American families and tribes, the remaining land (a huge percentage of their initial 138,000,000 acres) would be sold to non-natives. Because of this, they had lost 86 million of these acres to settlers. Anglo-American hunger for these lands surely was one of the biggest motivations for this act.

In 1934, Congress passed a law to put an end to the allotment process. Unfortunately, what was done was done, and to this day, more non-natives than natives live on reservations, which has changed their way of life dramatically.

So how exactly does this lead up to the settling of White Mesa? Did I want to rant for a bit? Yes. Was it relevant information? Also yes.  

Given their varying placements, life in these scattered allotments made things difficult for many tribes. Not only were many of the areas not large enough for even small-scale agriculture, but many Natives had no desire to ever become farmers or ranchers, viewing that kind of lifestyle as distasteful. Being forced to these various allotment areas, which often varied greatly in distance from one another, also challenged the Ute lifestyle of hunting and trading over long distances.

Like other tribes, the Utes were expected to farm with whatever bit of land they had. However, cultural resistance coupled with tough competition from better-equipped white settlers, this was  nearly impossible. While white settlers had equipment, more land and money, they had the upper hand, leaving Natives in poverty while attempting to force them to live a life they were not in favor of. The Utes had eventually turned to raising sheep, cattle and horses. However, this also proved to be quite a difficult task given the small pieces of land they were limited to.

In 1938, a lawsuit was filed by the Utes against the U.S. government for losses in the amount of $40 million due to the dispossession of their land. By the 1950s, Utes from all of these various allotment areas had won a series of legal battles, finally settling for $32 million, equivalent to about $357.5 million today in 2021. Around this same time, the Utes started building homes on land they owned about eleven miles south of Blanding, Utah. During the 1960s and 70s, these homes would finally see the addition of modern electricity and plumbing. The new settlement was named White Mesa, and brought local Utes together in a close-knit community. Aside from running a cattle company and convenience store within White Mesa, the Ute tribe have developed many things within, and outside of the town, including a Head Start program, daycare center, adult education classes, weekly health clinics, a senior-citizen program, police protection, and a recreational program. 

So why do so many want to leave?

Well, if what the government had done in the past wasn’t quite enough, the uranium processing that destroyed, and continues to this day to pollute the land might just be the bit to push it there for you.

Only a short while after the Utes had supplied their homes with modern plumbing and electricity, in steps Energy Fuels Inc., who would construct the White Mesa Mill in 1980. The mill was initially permitted to process domestic uranium ore for just 15 years, with no plans for it to become what it has today. Over the years though, the state of Utah has allowed them to alter their business model. In recent years, the mill has practically become an international radioactive waste disposal site. Since the domestic uranium industry they started in has mostly dried up, processing this waste is the only way they have been able to stay in business. Truckloads of material are brought in regularly and dumped here for processing, which continues to soak into the land as it has now for decades. Currently the mill processes literal tons of radioactive waste from numerous sites across North America, including 1,248 drums of mixed waste from the Nevada Test Site. Wouldn’t that be fun to have just 3 miles down the road from your town?

Most of the waste is stored in tailings ponds across 300 acres at the facility. Tailings ponds are dam or dyke facilities, which have been engineered for storage of tailings materials, which are materials left over after separating all valuable parts from an ore. The ponds can also separate water from tailings, recycling it back into the extraction process. The mill’s owner is currently attempting to request a permit which would allow them to bring in radioactive waste all the way from Europe. In Estonia, a rare earth processing facility has run out of room to store waste, and is looking to pay Energy Fuels to take it. In addition, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency is also looking to begin sending their waste here. If things keep moving in this direction, the White Mesa Mill will eventually become the world’s radioactive waste dump.

Almost all of the materials processed here contain uranium, which is extracted before placing remains into the tailings ponds.

Disregarding any concern for the land or the people living on it, Energy Fuels continues to shove as hard as they can, pushing the boundaries of what is legally allowed as they continue to avoid closing the mill, or cleaning it up.

According to both the Ute tribe and the Grand Canyon Trust, the mill continues to pollute groundwater while emitting radon – a carcinogenic gas, which can damage cells in your lungs, leading to cancer.  The company continues to deny that any of this is unsafe or damaging in any way.   

The company has stated that by bringing in the excess waste from Estonia, they could produce more uranium to turn into nuclear energy. They also have mentioned they plan to process 2,500 tons of uranium ore for rare earth elements in 2021. These are used in items such as iPhones, electric cars and more. Environmental activists and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe remain against these operations, as their land continues to be destroyed by it.

During a public hearing in 2020, it was argued that if the state allows the mill to accept the materials from Estonia, they would be giving a green light for the company to go ahead and create a hazardous waste facility less than 10 miles from White Mesa, and the community of Blanding. In addition, Energy Fuels Resources has also requested that the state give them an additional 5,000 cubic yards per site per year to accept more material, as well as relaxing groundwater standards for uranium. I think it goes without saying that not only the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, but many others as well oppose these requests.

As the White Mesa Mill is the only remaining fully-licensed and operating conventional uranium mill in the United States, you could imagine just how much they process each year. If not, you’ll see on their website that they have a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of uranium per year. You’ll also see them claim they have controls in place to ensure protection of the environment, but their long out of date waste pits can tell otherwise.

The company still uses their original waste pits built during the 1980s, which have just a single plastic liner between two layers of crushed rock. This design does not stand up to what is required today, as these types of pits must now have two liners, and a leak-detection system placed between them.

Beneath the mill, it has already been discovered that groundwater has been contaminated by pollutants such as nitrate, nitrite, chlorides, and chloroform. There is a rising concern between the communities of White Mesa and Bluff that this will soon begin to seep into the Navajo Sandstone aquifer, which is the source of the area’s drinking water. In addition to groundwater issues, it is also a large concern of residents that winds pick up radioactive dust, carrying them into the towns of Bluff, Blanding and White Mesa.

It’s unfortunate that there even has to be a question of whether or not to shut it down or clean it up, when in 2012 and 2013, the company reported their average annual radon emissions from mill waste. The report showed that emissions exceeded the numeric limit established under the Clean Air Act. Exposure to radon gases can cause numerous health problems, such as birth defects and many types of cancer. 

The Grand Canyon Trust and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe have been working hard to put a stop to any of this moving forward. It’s truly terrible what the Ute tribe and all other Native Americans have had to endure, but to go through such hell just to have something which should have been yours in the first place, and then to see that little bit of what you call home so carelessly destroyed by some money hungry corporation is something nobody should have to deal with.

While the above images don’t depict the full life left in this town, they should what has been caused over time as a result of all of this. If things keep going this way, it will be all that’s left.

Entire photo gallery below:

See the action that is being taken to fight against continuation of these operations. Find updates and more info at the Grand Canyon Trust website HERE