Overview 

"In the early morning hours of July 16, 1979, fourteen weeks after the accident at Three Mile Island, all of that changed. The dam at Church Rock burst sending eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid pouring toward Arizona." Church Rock dam burst, spilling more than 1,100 tons of radioactive mill waste and 90 million gallons of contaminated liquid--the worst uranium accident in U.S. history. No one ever told the families living there about the contamination (Johnson and Kaye, 2007}. "the largest peacetime accidental release of radioactive contaminated materials in the history of the United States" occurred when 94 million gallons of acidic water poured into the north fork of the Rio Puerco after an earthen uranium tailings dam failed.

References

Johnson, Natasha Kaye and Diné Bureau. "Shirley Tours Toxic Site". Gallop Independent.

Navajos mark 30th anniversary of uranium spill by SUE MAJOR HOLMES (AP)

External Links

• Uranium Milling and the Church Rock Disaster