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Romi Elnagar wrote:
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<div class="storydeckhead"><strong><font size="3">BLIGHTED HOMELAND</font></strong></div>
<h1>Oases in Navajo desert contained 'a witch's brew'</h1>
<div class="storysubhead">Rain-filled uranium pits provided
drinking water for people and animals. Then a mysterious wasting
illness emerged.</div>
<div class="storybyline">By Judy Pasternak, Times Staff Writer<br>
November 20, 2006 </div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div class="open_box"><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-112006-na-navajoneuropathy-g,0,1203018.graphic?coll=la-home-headlines"
target="win_26479496"><img moz-do-not-send="true" class="img_left"
alt="Navajo neuropathy"
src="http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/graphic/2006-11/26479496.gif"
border="0" height="80" width="140"></a>
<div class="relatedrailheader">Graphic</div>
<div class="headline10"><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-112006-na-navajoneuropathy-g,0,1203018.graphic?coll=la-home-headlines"
target="win_26479496">Navajo neuropathy</a></div>
<div class="content10"><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-112006-na-navajoneuropathy-g,0,1203018.graphic?coll=la-home-headlines"
target="win_26479496"><img moz-do-not-send="true"
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border="0" height="12" width="12"> click to enlarge</a></div>
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<td class="relatedstoryheader" colspan="2">Related Stories</td>
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<td class="headline11">-</td>
<td class="mostemaillink"><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo21nov21,0,6565476.story?coll=la-home-headlines">Navajos'
desert cleanup no more than a mirage</a></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td class="headline11">-</td>
<td class="mostemaillink"><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo19nov19,0,1645689.story?coll=la-home-headlines">A
peril that dwelt among the Navajos</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
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<td class="headline11">-</td>
<td class="mostemaillink"><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo-series,0,4515615.special?coll=la-home-headlines">Blighted
Homeland</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr class="blue" noshade="3"> </div>
Cameron, Ariz. -- In all her years of tending sheep in the western
reaches of the Navajo range, Lois Neztsosie had never seen anything so
odd.<br>
<br>
New lakes had appeared as if by magic in the arid scrublands. Instead
of hunting for puddles in the sandstone, she could lead her 100 animals
to drink their fill. She would quench her own thirst as well, parting
the film on the water's surface with her hands and leaning down to
swallow.<br>
<br>
Despite the abundant water, an unexpected blessing, her flock failed to
thrive. The birthrate dropped, and the few new lambs that did appear
had a hard time walking. Some were born without eyes.<br>
<br>
Lois' husband, David, wondered whether the sheepdogs were mating with
their charges. A medicine man, he also suspected witchcraft. He tried
to fight the spell by burning cedar and herbs and gathering the sheep
around the fire to inhale the healing smoke.<br>
<br>
The livestock were not his only worry. A mysterious sickness was
affecting the couple's two youngest daughters.<br>
<br>
Laura, born in 1970, had a weak right eye and was prone to stumbling.
Arlinda came along the following year and developed ulcers in her
corneas by age 5. A few years later, she was walking on the sides of
her feet.<br>
<br>
At the Indian Health Service hospital, doctors were mystified. Experts
concluded that both girls suffered from a rare genetic disorder.<br>
<br>
There was another possibility, but no one considered it until many
years later.<br>
<br>
No one connected the children and the sheep.<br>
<br>
<b>Tainted oases<br>
<br>
</b>In the mountains and mesas of the Navajo reservation, mining
companies drilled tunnels in the sides of cliffs to extract uranium for
the nation's nuclear weapons program during the Cold War. But in the
red and ocher sands around Cameron, where deposits were shallow, the
ore was blasted out of the plains, creating pits.<br>
<br>
As demand for uranium eased in the late 1950s, the U.S. government
allowed the companies to leave without filling in the craters. The pits
collected snowmelt in the winter and runoff from summer torrents. The
holes, some as deep as 130 feet, soon formed oases in the desert.<br>
<br>
Lois grew to depend on them as she ranged far from home, covering as
much as 10 miles in a day. At dusk, she often camped for the night. She
got in the habit of filling and refilling a small container with her
drinking supply as she moved from one "lake" to the next, watering her
herd.<br>
<br>
Every few weeks, the Neztsosies butchered one of the sheep. They ate
each one down to the bones, which they sucked around the fire. They
destroyed the lambs that could not walk.<br>
<br>
Deformed animals were showing up in other sections of Dine Bikeiyah,
Home of the People, as Navajos call their homeland. In areas around old
mines, lambs and cattle developed shaking limbs, yellow eyes and white
patches on internal organs that were discovered after slaughter.<br>
<br>
Word of these strange developments did not reach the Neztsosies. Navajo
families tend to live miles apart from one another. They prize their
privacy. Local officials heard occasional complaints about damaged
animals, but no one discerned a trend.<br>
<br>
<b>Baffled doctors<br>
<br>
</b>Arlinda, nicknamed Linnie, had that "funny walk," as her family
described it. At the Indian Health Service clinic in Tuba City, Ariz.,
doctors prescribed Vitamin A for her eyes and gave her goggles to wear.
Classmates teased her, so she stopped using them.<br>
<br>
When she stopped taking her supplements, her Vitamin A levels remained
normal — but her corneas did not improve.<br>
<br>
Laura had similar but milder symptoms and was small for her age. Her
mother took her to the clinic too. "Go home," Laura said she was told.
"There's nothing wrong with you."<br>
<br>
</div>
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</div>
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<div><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo20nov20,0,6106722.story?coll=la-home-headlines">http://www.latimes.<wbr>com/news/<wbr>nationworld/<wbr>nation/la-<wbr>na-navajo20nov20<wbr>,0,6106722.<wbr>story?coll=<wbr>la-home-headline<wbr>s</a></div>
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