On July 16, 1979, an earthen dam holding back United Nuclear Corp.'s uranium mill tailings near Church Rock gave way. Roughly 94 million gallons of acidic, radioactive water and about 1,100 tons of solid mill waste poured into the Puerco River, reaching Arizona within days. It is often called the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history.
Forty-seven years later, officials have a phrase for the mine next door. The Navajo Nation President's office, announcing the start of work in August, said the Northeast Church Rock mine "has remained the number one cleanup priority" for Navajo Nation EPA.
Here is what "number one" has meant in practice: a cleanup remedy chosen in 2011, a settlement lodged in court in 2025, a groundbreaking in July 2026, a first truckload promised for "early winter," and a job the Justice Department says will take more than a decade. And that is the mine at the front of the line. Hundreds of others are still waiting for anyone to pay for them.
Fifteen years from remedy to shovel
EPA selected the Northeast Church Rock remedy in a September 2011 action memorandum and a March 2013 Record of Decision. The plan: dig up about one million cubic yards of uranium mine waste from the Navajo Nation's Pinedale Chapter and bury it at the old UNC mill site, about a mile away, on top of the tailings that caused the 1979 disaster.
The enforceable cleanup deal came in August 2025, when the Justice Department lodged a consent decree requiring United Nuclear and its corporate parent, General Electric, to do the work. Price tag: nearly $63 million, paid by the companies. Timeline: more than a decade.
Crews broke ground on July 23, 2026, KRQE reported. The first haul to the repository was expected in "early winter."
The mines behind the front of the line
EPA counts 523 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, left over from the Cold War uranium rush. As of June 2026, the agency's own cleanup page says money is available to begin assessment and cleanup at 230 of the 523, through settlements worth more than $1.7 billion. By that page's count, more than half the mines have no funding identified. EPA's own documents do not agree on the totals, which is its own kind of answer.
Even the worst are slow. EPA and Navajo Nation EPA designated 46 "priority mines" based on radiation levels, distance to homes and risk to water. EPA's page says 44 of them are still in the assessment phase.
EPA's 2026 progress update for its Ten-Year Plan sets a long runway: assessments of 252 mines finished by the end of 2028, and a target of 20 mines where cleanup has actually started.
Where the Tronox money went
The biggest single pot came from the 2014 Tronox bankruptcy settlement over Kerr-McGee's legacy, a roughly $5 billion national deal. EPA received nearly $1 billion of it to clean up about 50 abandoned uranium mines on and near the Navajo Nation.
That money is now paying for the Quivira mines near Church Rock, where EPA in January 2025 approved moving about one million cubic yards of waste to a new repository at the Red Rocks Landfill east of Thoreau. E&E News put the cost at up to $183 million. EPA's estimate for permitting, building and closing it: six to eight years.
Compensation got bigger. Not for everyone.
Congress revived and expanded the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the July 2025 budget law. For New Mexico, that was real: the entire state now counts as a downwinder area for people present between 1944 and 1962, and uranium miners, millers and haulers who worked through 1990 now qualify, extending the old 1971 cutoff. Eligible claimants get a one-time $100,000. The deadline is December 31, 2027.
Justice Department figures showed nearly 36,000 claims under the new law still pending as of July 17, 2026. The law covers bomb-test downwinders and industry workers. It does not cover Navajo families who simply lived next to the mines, drank from the wells or herded sheep along the Puerco after 1979. Living downstream of Church Rock is not a compensable exposure.
The other side
The strongest case for the agencies: Church Rock is finally moving, and the Justice Department said the 2025 decree assigns the cost of cleanup "to the settling defendants, not taxpayers." Navajo Nation EPA Executive Director Stephen Etsitty called relocation to an engineered repository "a significant improvement" over leaving the waste at the mine. EPA reports cleanup decisions covering 3.6 million cubic yards since 2020, and has begun investigating 11 previously unfunded mines in the Lukachukai Mountains.
Etsitty also told KRQE the waste is "still going to be in the midst of the community." The Red Water Pond Road residents have said for years what they want: the waste removed off site.
The questions
EPA Region 9: Has any Northeast Church Rock waste been hauled yet, and what is the completion date? How many of the 523 mines have no funding today? When will the 46 priority mines leave assessment?
Navajo Nation EPA: Which priority mines does the Nation want addressed next, and has it asked EPA for a date?
New Mexico Environment Department: What is the status of permits for the Red Rock Landfill cell, and is the state planning disposal capacity for mines beyond Quivira?
New Mexico's congressional delegation: Will you move to extend the December 2027 RECA deadline, and to cover residents exposed to mine and mill waste after the Church Rock spill?
Based on public records and reporting through Oct. 20, 2026, including EPA and Justice Department releases and claim data, and reporting by KRQE, E&E News, Source NM, the Arizona Republic and the Cibola Citizen. EPA's mine counts differ across its own documents, and we could not confirm whether the first Church Rock haul has happened. We are looking for haul schedules, Red Rocks permit records, and anyone living near a priority mine still waiting. EPA Region 9, Navajo Nation EPA, the New Mexico Environment Department and the offices of Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez were asked for comment; responses will be added with a dated update. Know something? [email protected]