Community asthma program on Navajo Nation increases care-seeking for children with asthma

National Jewish Health

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DENVER - A multiyear community asthma program on the Navajo Nation increased asthma-related care and awareness among families, even as the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted health care and school systems. The findings come from a new study led by researchers at National Jewish Health and collaborators at the University of Arizona and several partner institutions, in close partnership with Navajo Nation leaders, schools and health systems.

The Navajo Community Asthma Program (CAP) was designed to reduce asthma exacerbations among Diné (Navajo) children living on the 27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation, which spans Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Asthma rates among American Indian and Alaska Native children are among the highest in the United States, and a 2020 assessment found that about 21% of Diné adolescents on the Navajo Nation had been told by a health care provider they have asthma.

“Families on the Navajo Nation face a unique combination of environmental exposures, economic hardship and limited access to specialty care that can make asthma especially difficult to manage,” said Bruce Bender, PhD, neuropsychologist at National Jewish Health and lead author of the study. “CAP was designed with Navajo partners to build capacity in local communities, so children can get timely, culturally respectful asthma care where they live and go to school.”

After a year of community engagement meetings, CAP launched a seven-year, stepped-wedge study in three communities, each anchored by its own Indian Health Service (IHS) medical center and school system: Tuba City, Chinle and Ft. Defiance/Window Rock.

The program trained 439 health care and school staff, including 176 health care providers (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists and others) and 263 school staff and community health representatives (CHRs).

Key components of CAP included:

• Provider training in pediatric asthma diagnosis and management, aligned with National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) guidelines, including spirometry, inhaler technique, trigger avoidance and communication tools to support self-management.
• School-based training using the American Lung Association’s Asthma 101® and Open Airways for Schools®, equipping school administrators, teachers, nurses, aides and CHRs to recognize and respond to asthma symptoms.
• Stock inhaler programs in schools in Tuba City and Chinle, with standing orders and albuterol inhalers available for any student experiencing respiratory distress.
• Development of the Navajo Asthma Action Plan (NAAP) and low-literacy family education materials created in collaboration with Diné leaders.
• Community education via chapter house meetings, advisory committees and radio programs on Diné stations focused on childhood asthma.

“From the beginning, this work was guided by Navajo leaders, families and local staff,” Dr. Bender said. “Our goal was not to bring in a temporary team, but to help strengthen the skills, tools and infrastructure already present in these communities.”

National Jewish Health is the leading respiratory hospital in the nation delivering excellence in multispecialty care and world class research. Founded in 1899 as a nonprofit hospital, National Jewish Health today is the only facility in the world dedicated exclusively to groundbreaking medical research and treatment of children and adults with respiratory, cardiac, immune and related disorders. Patients and families come to National Jewish Health from around the world to receive cutting-edge, comprehensive, coordinated care. To learn more, visit njhealth.org or the media resources page.

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Journal

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

DOI

10.1016/j.jacig.2025.100593 

Article Publication Date

5-Jan-2026

Op-Ed

The Right Wants to Write Indigenous People Out of US History. We Won’t Let Them.


The Trump administration is reviving the visual language of manifest destiny and weaponizing the US’s founding myths.

By Johnnie Jae , 

Truthout

November 27, 2025

Indigenous demonstrators gather to protest an anti-immigration law signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2023.

CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty 

A new vision for the United States is being forced into place — one rooted not in liberty or justice, but in subjugation and the quiet normalization and acceptance of fascism. You can see it in the memes, the slogans, and the curated nostalgia flooding social media accounts aligned with the Trump administration. You can see it in the way frontier and 1950s iconographies have returned not as history but as aspiration. And you can see it in the current administration’s campaign to control what young people learn about history, colonization, slavery, genocide, and the violent foundations of this country.

This revival is not about remembering the past or indulging in a trendy, nostalgic aesthetic. It’s about promoting and embracing a version of “America” built on authoritarianism and white supremacy. It’s a version that elevates conquest, cruelty, and dominance as virtue and heritage over liberty and justice. It’s a digital-age rebranding of Manifest Destiny — the idea that the United States was ordained to expand across the North American continent, seizing land, displacing and eradicating Indigenous people in the name of progress — now crafted to make subjugation look like patriotism and to turn historical distortion into accepted truth.

That is why an incident like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s defense of the Medals of Honor awarded to the soldiers who carried out the Wounded Knee Massacre is dangerous. And that incident was far from an isolated example of the Trump administration actively embracing and defending the violent legacy of Manifest Destiny and the belief systems that justified genocide and land theft.

Indeed the official social media account of the Department of Homeland Security posted the painting American Progress by John Gast on X — a scene that portrays westward expansion as a noble mission, with a floating white woman carrying “civilization” toward the frontier, while settlers, soldiers, trains, and telegraph lines push Indigenous people and buffalo into darkness and out of the frame — alongside the text, “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” Examples like these are evidence of a larger project that uses nostalgia as a political weapon and mythmaking as a tool to justify violence.

This narrative shapes policy, fuels immigration enforcement, and drives efforts to suppress education about Thanksgiving and the realities of colonization. It transforms federal agencies, social media, and public institutions into extensions of a worldview that treats Indigenous people as obstacles, the “Indian Problem” that the U.S. must still eradicate.

With Wounded Knee Medals, Trump Admin Suggests There’s Valor in Genocide
The call to rescind those medals is not about erasing history, but about refusing to let lies and conquest define it. By Johnnie Jae , Truthout September 30, 2025

Across campaign-aligned pages, far right networks, and the administration’s own digital channels, westward expansion has been recast as an aspirational identity. The genocide, land theft, forced removals, and destruction of Indigenous nations that built the frontier are erased, and what remains is a cinematic mythology built for political use.

Federal agencies have circulated frontier-themed memes meant to promote everything from joining ICE to pro-natalism.

This reframing is not limited to fringe accounts. Federal agencies have circulated frontier-themed memes meant to promote everything from joining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pro-natalism. When institutions tied to national security adopt the language of “restoring the frontier” and “taking back the country,” they lay the groundwork for violent policies that demand reclaiming and recreating an imagined past at any cost.

The nostalgia is intentional because it shapes how people feel before they decide what to believe. Once that groundwork is laid, the defense of injustice and violent authoritarianism, like Hegseth’s insistence that Wounded Knee soldiers “deserved” their medals or violent ICE raids at daycare centers and workplaces, no longer shocks. It becomes an extension of the myth of American Exceptionalism wrapped in patriotism. As it becomes more normalized, injustice becomes inevitable, and inevitability becomes destiny.

The administration’s modern Manifest Destiny stretches into the operations of federal agencies tasked with policing borders and communities. ICE has become one of the most powerful tools in this new frontier project, targeting Indigenous people under the guise of national restoration.

Navajo and Tohono O’odham leaders said the recent detentions mirror older federal efforts to control Indigenous movement and identity. They pointed to cases where Navajo citizens carrying state IDs and Certificates of Indian Blood were still detained or questioned by ICE, and where Tohono O’odham citizens were told that their ties to their own homelands did not matter because officials only recognized the border. These incidents reflect a long-standing pattern of dismissing tribal documents, Indigenous mobility, and Indigenous identity as invalid. In Iowa, a member of the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community was nearly turned over to federal immigration agents after the Polk County Jail issued an ICE detainer meant for someone else. As Iowa Public Radio reported, police told the 24-year-old woman’s family that she would be removed to a country she had never lived in. She avoided deportation only because the jail finally acknowledged the detainer was filed in error.

These cases reveal a pattern rather than isolated mistakes. The American Immigration Council recently warned that the Supreme Court’s refusal to limit racial profiling in immigration enforcement has given officers even more room to target people based on appearance alone. This puts Indigenous people at particular risk, since tribal identification, Native languages, and even clear proof of citizenship are often ignored or treated as suspect by federal agents. The result is a system where Indigenous identity itself becomes grounds for questioning, detention, or removal, no matter how much documentation a person carries.

The Indian Law Resource Center has also sounded the alarm, noting that many of those targeted for removal are Indigenous migrants whose nations long predate the borders being used against them. The center points to the planned deportation of more than 600 Guatemalan children, at least 90 percent of whom are Maya, stressing that these children are Indigenous people with rights under both U.S. and international law.

These cases reveal a deeper reality. The same systems that once worked to erase Indigenous nations within the United States are now being used to remove Indigenous children and families from beyond its borders. It reflects the same thinking that once justified westward expansion. The ideology did not disappear; it simply learned to present itself in new ways.

The administration’s revival of Manifest Destiny builds on this ongoing pattern of targeting Indigenous peoples, shifting it into the realm of imagery and narrative using a nostalgic blend of frontier myth and mid-century Americana to normalize subjugation and erase accountability. When that narrative takes root, it becomes easier to dismiss harm, ignore injustice, and discredit those who speak against it. This same narrative machinery is at work to shape how people in the U.S. understand Thanksgiving.

For many households, the holiday is a time to gather with loved ones, share a meal, watch football, and express gratitude. Many Native people celebrate in these ways too, because feasting is Indigenous, and we also enjoy good food and football. Yet the holiday carries a heavier weight for our communities. It marks the beginning of a violent era of colonization set in motion when European settlers arrived on these lands.

For generations, Thanksgiving has been offered as a simple tale of peace between settlers and Native peoples, a comforting story that reassures the country of its own goodness. This “friendly” version of Thanksgiving serves the broader strategies of historical revisionism used to justify settler colonialism by distorting, minimizing, or erasing the violence, exploitation, and resistance at the heart of this nation’s formation. These myths reinforce settler identity and national pride, encouraging people to avoid uncomfortable truths and discouraging any critical engagement with our shared, complicated history.

Even so, Native communities have never stopped pushing back against the sanitized Thanksgiving narrative.

In Plymouth, the National Day of Mourning has gathered hundreds of participants each year since 1970 to confront the Thanksgiving myth at its origin point. On Alcatraz Island, the Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Gathering honors resistance, survival, and sovereignty. Across Native nations, youth-led teach-ins, community fasts, and cultural events counter the national narrative with history, presence, and truth.

These gatherings do more than disrupt the myth. They expose the fragility of American exceptionalism and the power of Indigenous memory, survival, and resistance.


The struggle over history, from Wounded Knee to Thanksgiving to ICE detentions, is not a debate about the past. It is a struggle over who defines America and whose humanity matters.

The struggle over history, from Wounded Knee to Thanksgiving to ICE detentions, is not a debate about the past. It is a struggle over who defines America and whose humanity matters. A nation that cannot face its own history cannot repair its present. A country that denies genocide cannot claim justice. A society that clings to myth will repeat the violence it refuses to see.

Telling the truth about the United States, the beauty and the brutality, the promises kept and the promises broken, is not destroying the country. Insisting on telling the truth asserts that we are capable of more than myth and refuse to accept a future shaped by denial, distortion, and the quiet normalization of authoritarianism. Honesty is the path that lets us reconcile with our complicated histories, repair the harm that continues, and choose a different way forward.

When we confront our history with honesty instead of lies, we create the possibility of a country where life, liberty, and justice are not privileges for the few but shared, inalienable rights for all. That is the measure of a nation brave enough to face itself. That is the only way the United States can ever live up to its own reputation as the land of the free, not as a slogan, but as a lived reality.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Johnnie Jae

Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw) is a writer, speaker, and founder of Red POP! News and the late A Tribe Called Geek. Known for her journalism, mental health advocacy, and digital activism, she is dedicated to amplifying Native voices through storytelling, media, and art. You can find her in the Bluesky and Instagram.

 

US approves first cleanup of abandoned, contaminated uranium mines

Amanda Stutt | October 31, 2025 |

DISA Genbravo deployed in the field in Utah. Image: DISA Technologies.

The environmental legacy impacts of Project Manhattan – a US-led World War II program to develop nuclear energy capabilities before foreign adversaries could – are still felt across the United States.

For decades, thousands of sites associated with abandoned uranium mine waste have remained contaminated — hundreds on or near Navajo and tribal lands — with no clear regulatory pathway for cleanup.

On September 30, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a license to Wyoming-based DISA Technologies, authorizing the company to clean up abandoned uranium mine sites across the West and recycle the uranium for domestic energy use — the first license of its kind ever granted by the NRC.

Uranium is a crucial source of reliable baseload power as nuclear energy, and the US requires an estimated 32 million pounds of uranium annually for its current nuclear reactors.

In 2024, the US purchased 50 million pounds of uranium, but only produced 677,000 pounds, according to the Energy Information Administration. Russia supplies a quarter of the enriched uranium needed by America’s fleet of 94 nuclear reactors, which generate about a fifth of US electricity.

Last month, when US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US should look to boost its strategic uranium reserve to buffer against dependence on Russian supplies and increase confidence in the long-term prospects of nuclear power generation, it signalled a call to Project Manhattan 2.0. That’s according to the CEO of the company controlling the largest mineable uranium deposit in the US.

The 2.0 path forward

DISA said its new license can unlock hundreds of millions of pounds of uranium-bearing material stranded in legacy waste piles— resources that could be recovered safely, under federal oversight, while eliminating environmental hazards that have persisted since the Cold War.

Its technology – the only validated technology for uranium treatment of these abandoned uranium mines  – is high-pressure slurry ablation (HPSA), DISA Technologies CEO Greyson Buckingham told MINING.COM in an interview.

“The US EPA estimates there’s 15,000 sites associated with abandoned uranium mine waste throughout the West,” Buckingham said. “This was really largely the responsibility of the US government, which was the Atomic Energy Commission, which is now the Department of Energy.

“And during the Cold War, we said we needed to get as much uranium as possible, so the US government was just incentivizing uranium mine production,” he said.

“There were a lot of smaller mom-and-pop shops that came to be. And there were really no regulations until the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and then other regulations with 1983 that the EPA promulgated. So none of these sites were even bonded.”

 Buckingham said a mining rush of sorts ensued on small mines.

“They’d take the economic ore to a uranium mill. The uneconomic material, they would leave on site. And then when the bust happened, all those companies went bankrupt, and there were no bonds there. So those waste piles of that uneconomic material just became abandoned and discarded,” he said.

“And it wasn’t until about two decades ago, studies through the NIH and other studies that we realized the longer we leave this material sit on site, the more it degrades.”

Buckingham said the uranium oxidizes leach into the water, dust particles blow into population centers, and noted there are 523 Superfund sites that are abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.

“For our abandoned uranium mine treatment, we’re going to be building 50 and 110 per hour units. On average, the sites that we’re looking at are around 30,000 tons of material.”

“We’ve been working with the Navajo Nation for over five years now. We have a contract in place with the to remediate the first site on the Navajo Nation. We did a treatability study on the Navajo Nation on three different sites in 2022 that was sponsored by the US EPA.”

Buckingham said billions of dollars were sitting in a fund for over 10 years to clean up these sites and no cleanups have happened because, until now, the only options were to bury everything or to haul it all off site.

“Navajo don’t want the material buried on site because they want these contaminants off their land. And to haul it off site is prohibitively expensive,” he said.

Buckingham said the plan is to recycle the uranium and put it to productive use.

Wyoming Senator support

The DISA cleanup initiative and NRC approval is supported by Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.

“An expedited approval process demonstrates what’s possible when innovative companies are empowered by federal regulators to establish clear, first-of-its-kind frameworks that prioritize both safety and efficiency, and I am so excited that through DISA, Wyoming is leading the way,” Senator Lummis said in an emailed statement to MINING.COM.

“Abandoned mines continue to threaten the health of our families and land in western states and on tribal land,” Lummis said.

“This license is a critical step in allowing DISA to move forward with its critical remediation and not only address these health and safety concerns but recover valuable materials in the process.”

The Navajo perspective

Mining companies blasted nearly 4 million tons of uranium out of Navajo land between 1944 and 1986, and the legacy impacts remain. It was a period that saw Navajo people working in the mines under conditions where the health risks of radiation were not fully understood.

Navajo Country, which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, is surrounded by hundreds of abandoned uranium mines that powered America’s nuclear arms race with the USSR and spewed toxic waste into the land.

The Navajo Nation has put a lot of effort into finding a solution, over four decades and through two congressional hearings, Stephen B. Etsitty, executive director at the Navajo Nation and the Environmental Protection Agency, told MINING.COM in an interview.

Etsitty, who was a witness in the 2007 congressional hearing, confirmed the Navajo’s support of the initiative. He has worked for years with the NRC on licensing of emerging technologies for remediation of mine waste.

Etsitty hopes abandoned uranium sites can be reclassified as brownfields; areas where contamination can be mitigated and land restored.

“We’ve spent the last 40 years looking for technology for the abandoned sites on Navajo lands, and we haven’t turned a shovel of dirt,” Etsitty said.

Etsitty said the aim is to separate heavy metals from host rocks into two waste streams – and manage those streams effectively.

A recent bench-level report confirmed new technology shows promise, but it must now be tested and regulated at commercial scale.

“We have been in the mode for a while to integrate this technology. We are looking forward to the results – we are excited to see what can be done. Some of this we’re hoping to recycle. With this technology we’re hoping to be able to do that,” he said.

Etsitty said the focus now is to start testing DISA’s technology on larger volumes – tonnes of waste instead of pounds.

The Navajo Nation is also calling for a dedicated low-level waste repository near their communities, in a location that makes transport economically feasible.

“We need a low-level waste repository far enough away,  but not 500 miles away…and a transport highway risk analysis,” Etsitty said.

“Our communities want this waste material removed – taken away – we want this communicated to Secretary [of the Interior] Doug Burgum and we’re hoping the federal government can help.”

America’s Energy Policy Is Running on Empty

By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles - Oct 20, 2025

• The U.S. lacks a coherent, forward-looking energy policy, as recent actions show inconsistency between market realities and political rhetoric.
• 
  
• Federal decisions—including rejecting near-worthless coal bids, pausing a nearly complete offshore wind farm, and promoting costly small modular reactors—reflect contradictory priorities.
• 
  
• The Trump Administration's energy agenda favors outdated technologies and resists innovation, creating policy confusion and investor uncertainty.

Don’t get us wrong. We favor a coherent, forward looking national energy policy. One that limits our dependence on foreign resources for reasons of national security, encourages economical use of affordable energy, and helps build a financially strong energy industry that can compete in world markets. Let’s concentrate on these adjectives: “coherent,” “forward looking”and “financially strong” because they go together. Investors want a consistent and forward looking policy. They do not want to tie up money in assets that are uncompetitive or subject to contract revisions at the whim of the government. So, let’s consider four news items that say a lot about current energy policy.

1. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) launched possibly the biggest coal sale in decades, a lease on a Montana property containing 167 million tons of coal. In October, the BLM rejected the one bid it received, $187,000 from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co., which had a mine adjacent to the property. We didn’t misplace any zeroes. It works out to 1.1 cents per ton. (The previous accepted bid was $1.10 back in 2012.) The BLM rejected the bid, as it did for two other Western coal auctions. Bids didn't reflect “market value.” The government blamed the low bid on “the lingering impact”of the Obama-Biden “war on coal.” (As an aside, the volume of coal used for electric generation grew 0.6% per annum in the George W. Bush years, declined 5.5% per year in the Obama era, declined 9.5% per year in the first Trump administration and 3.5% per year in Biden’s  ) The last coal fired plant went into service over a decade ago in Texas, and no new ones have been ordered. The main question nowadays is more like, “When will coal plant owners retire their units?” rather than “When will they  build new ones?” Coal simply can no longer compete with other energy sources like natural gas. Did the BLM really expect enthusiastic bidding for the property? Do they really believe in the war on coal? If publicly solicited bids don’t represent market value, what does?

Related: Republicans Declare ‘Coal Week’ as Fossil-Fuel Agenda Goes into Overdrive

2. The administration halted work on the Revolution offshore wind project in September on “security” grounds. The project, being built by Danish company Oersted, is about 80% complete. (The administration halted another project on the grounds that the paperwork was “deficient”.) Oersted went to court, stayed the order, and will complete Revolution, after which who knows what will happen (maybe swap Greenland for Revolution?). There is more at stake than the project, though, because offshore wind requires service vessels, manufacturing facilities and shipyards which are industrial activities that would further the administration’s desire to revive the U.S. maritime industry. Was there a strategic purpose in closing down a project that will produce much needed energy that overrides the damage done to our reputation as a safe place to invest?

3. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal government agency that is the nation’s largest power company, in September announced it would buy electricity from 6 GW of small modular reactors (SMRs) built by NuScale, with the press release emphasizing that TVA will not take any construction risk. Southern Company said the same thing when they started building Plant Vogtle and Westinghouse went bankrupt as a result. ( Do the parties taking the risk have the resources to bear it?) We should note that the few SMRs built to date have come in wildly over budget, including NuScale’s previous effort. In short, we doubt that the SMRs will produce power at a cost less than conventional or renewable resources, but the deal does provide a test ground for a new type of reactor which might provide needed power if electricity demand rises as expected. And the builders get a form of government support that does not require explicit approval of Congress.

4. The price of oil in October dropped to $62 (Brent) and $58 (WTI). Trump’s energy policy is emphasizing the supply side: open up to leasing, drill baby, drill, but more supply without more demand means lower prices, and prices have dropped to a level that may preclude profitable drilling, in part due to weak demand and in part because our friends in the Middle East have kept up their production in order to protect market share. The administration cannot boost demand for oil or gas any more than it can boost demand for steam coal but could it exercise some muscle to persuade our friends in the Middle East to let up (“Listen MBS you want our fighter planes, then stop selling cheap oil”) but that would raise gasoline prices and push up inflation, so forget that idea.

Peter Drucker, the legendary management consultant, advised firms to direct their resources to their winning lines of business rather than to shoring up the losers. The energy business, we would argue, is in the midst of a wave of creative destruction, as new energy technologies supplant old ones. Trump’s energy policy seems to be a combination of determined opposition to new ideas and ineffective support for the old. We asked a Washington insider to explain what theme dominates the administration’s energy policy. He was puzzled, then said, “Possibly a visceral hatred of renewable energy except for geothermal.” Is that the basis for an investable energy policy?

By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for Oilprice.com

Native Survival Depends on Protecting Both Tribal and US Citizenship Rights

Trump’s attacks on Native sovereignty and citizenship are a deliberate effort to undermine the rights of tribal nations.

By Johnnie Jae , 

Truthout

October 13, 2025

Native American protesters march at the front of a "No Kings Day" demonstration in a city that has been the focus of protests against Trump's immigration raids on June 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

LONG READ

Indigenous Peoples’ Day has always been an act of celebration, resistance, and truth. When we gather and organize for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we affirm that we are still here. It is a reminder that our stories did not begin with Columbus, and they do not end with the myth of American exceptionalism and conquest. But today, it carries an urgency we can’t ignore. In the current political climate, that affirmation takes on new meaning as questions about the legitimacy of our U.S. citizenship are raised in efforts to end birthright citizenship and erase the political existence of Native nations.

On October 9, 2025, Trump issued the 2025 Columbus Day Proclamation, declaring Christopher Columbus “a visionary who paved the way for the founding of our great Nation.” He urged Americans to honor “the values of courage, faith, and discovery that built Western civilization.”

In the proclamation, Trump made no mention of Indigenous people, unless you count the mention of a “vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage.” The wording of Trump’s phrase echoes a similar line in the Declaration of Independence, which accuses King George III of acting against the colonists who opposed British rule by colluding with “the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.” Instead of taking the opportunity to acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Trump doubled down on a myth of discovery that glorifies genocide and rebrands colonization as destiny.

This same worldview underpins Trump’s renewed effort to end birthright citizenship, a move that threatens not only immigrants but also the very foundation of Native existence. In one of the administration’s own legal arguments, officials claimed, “The United States’ connection with the children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors is weaker than its connection with members of Indian tribes. If the latter link is insufficient for birthright citizenship, the former certainly is.”

This suggests that tribal citizenship, the political relationship that predates the United States itself, is somehow incompatible with being American. It echoes the logic used to justify centuries of termination policies, removal, and forced dependency.

Related Story

With Wounded Knee Medals, Trump Admin Suggests There’s Valor in Genocide
The call to rescind those medals is not about erasing history, but about refusing to let lies and conquest define it. By Johnnie Jae , Truthout September 30, 2025

The Trump administration’s attacks on birthright citizenship do not just threaten immigrant communities. They strike at the very heart of Indigenous sovereignty. They threaten to bring back an era of termination and removal, creating the conditions for Native people to once again be treated as wards of the state, stripped of rights, and relocated to lands or countries we have never set foot in.

Recent reports from the Oregon Capital Chronicle describe how Navajo citizens were detained in immigration sweeps across border states, raising alarm among tribal leaders who warn that racial profiling and the refusal to recognize tribal identification put Indigenous people in the same danger as undocumented immigrants.


Indigenous Peoples’ Day has never been just a celebration. It is a call to action against the ongoing assault on our sovereignty and existence

The American Immigration Council has also warned that the Supreme Court’s refusal to restrict racial profiling in immigration raids has encouraged law enforcement to target anyone who looks “foreign,” a pattern that puts Indigenous people at particular risk because our identities and documents are not consistently recognized or treated as valid government documents.

Tribal Nations have alerted their citizens to this threat, suggesting they carry their tribal IDs, Certificate of Indian Blood (CIB), passports, and other photo IDs to help reduce the risk of detainment in the event of ICE raids.

The Indian Law Resource Center also reminds us that many of those being deported are Indigenous people themselves. The center has raised concern over the planned deportation of more than 600 Guatemalan children, at least 90 percent of whom are Maya, stressing that these children are Indigenous and have rights under both U.S. and international law.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day has never been just a celebration. It is a call to action against the ongoing assault on our sovereignty and existence — and an assertion that, despite these threats, we will not be erased, silenced, or eradicated.
Sovereignty and Citizenship

Indigenous Peoples’ Day stands in defiance of a nation that has always treated Native sovereignty as an obstacle to overcome in upholding the myth of Manifest Destiny. In 1871, the Indian Appropriations Act ended the recognition of tribes as sovereign nations. With that single act, Congress declared that no tribe would be acknowledged as an independent power capable of making treaties. Our nations were reduced to wards of the state, entirely dependent on the same government that had stolen our lands.

The Dawes Act of 1887 went further. It divided tribal lands into individual allotments and stripped millions of acres from Native control. It was designed to assimilate Natives into mainstream society and dismantle tribal sovereignty, breaking apart communities and leaving many Natives impoverished and landless. The act also tied land allotments to U.S. citizenship, granting it to those who accepted allotments, severed their tribal affiliations, and left reservations, making citizenship a tool of assimilation rather than recognition of rights.

With the 1934 passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, also known as the Wheeler-Howard Act, tribes regained a measure of sovereignty. The Indian Reorganization Act allowed tribes to re-establish governments and manage their own lands, but the recognition came with heavy federal oversight. Yet even within those restrictions, our nations rebuilt and strengthened the scope and boundaries of our sovereignty.
Dual Citizenship

As Native peoples, we are citizens of the United States, but we are also citizens of our tribal nations. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 extended U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans without requiring them to sever their tribal affiliations, as was previously necessary. The Act created a dual framework, where we not only have the right to self-determination but also hold rights and responsibilities in two nations simultaneously.

This reality is fragile, and not all Native nations share the same protection. As Teen Vogue reported, nearly 400 tribes in the United States lack federal recognition, which means they do not share the same nation-to-nation relationship that federally recognized tribes have with the U.S. government. This also leaves their people without the legal rights, resources, or protections guaranteed to federally recognized tribes. For these communities, the lack of recognition means they exist in a legal limbo when federal policy turns hostile.

As Dina Gilio-Whitaker, author and professor of American Indian studies and lecturer at the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center, explained to Truthout:


Tribal sovereignty as a legal principle and self-determination as tribal autonomy has always been what’s at stake for tribal nations. Throughout U.S. history it has never been unassailable in U.S. law because of underlying logics of Euro-Christian superiority; that is what the doctrine of discovery is.

History has shown that while our sovereignty is an organic, inalienable right, it is not a fixed or guaranteed right in relation to the U.S. government. Indigenous nations must continually nurture the nation-to-nation relationship that we have and defend our sovereignty against political systems designed to limit or erase it.

If tribal sovereignty were ever dissolved as it was in 1871 with the Indian Appropriations Act, recognition of our tribal citizenship would disappear with it. If our U.S. citizenship were also revoked, we would be left stateless in our own homelands. That is the depth of what is at stake when sovereignty is undermined. Native identity, rights, and futures are tied to the recognition of both forms of citizenship, to the survival of our nations as sovereign powers, and to the protection of the land and water that sustain us.
Contemporary Threats to Citizenship and Sovereignty

The Trump administration’s attacks on Native sovereignty and citizenship are not isolated incidents. They are part of a consistent effort to undermine the rights of tribal nations and the people who belong to them. Treaty obligations are dismissed whenever they conflict with corporate interests. Sacred lands such as Bears Ears and Oak Flat are stripped of federal protection and opened to mining and drilling. Pipelines are forced through Native territories without consultation or consent. Federal funding for housing, health care, and education — already limited in many communities — is repeatedly threatened, further weakening the foundations of Native life.

Native children face a direct threat to their connection to their nations through attacks on the Indian Child Welfare Act, which has been challenged in multiple cases in state and federal courts. Native tribes and organizations successfully defended and even expanded this law.

Passed in 1978 to stop the mass removal of Native children from their families and communities, the Indian Child Welfare Act protects the right of children to remain with their families, in their communities, and connected to their cultures.


The survival of our nations, our families, and our children hinges on protecting both our tribal and U.S. citizenship.

Despite ongoing challenges, the law remains one of the most important protections for tribal sovereignty and Native families. In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act’s constitutionality in a 7–2 decision in Haaland v. Brackeen, rejecting all challenges to the law.

More recently, in August 2024, the California Supreme Court strengthened the Indian Child Welfare Act by requiring child welfare agencies to investigate a child’s potential Native ancestry before separating families. But around the same time, the rejection of the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act denied survivors of cultural genocide a path to justice. The proposed commission would have investigated the legacy of Indian boarding schools and given survivors a chance to tell their stories and seek accountability.

Attacks on the Indian Child Welfare Act, birthright citizenship, and tribal sovereignty are interconnected. Each is a threat to the dual citizenship Native people hold. Undermining either form of citizenship puts Native people at risk of legal limbo, statelessness, and social and economic marginalization. The survival of our nations, our families, and our children hinges on protecting both our tribal and U.S. citizenship.
Refusing to Surrender

Despite continued threats to our sovereignty, Native nations, communities, and organizations use every means available, from the courts to direct action, to defend our rights and existence. The victories won and even the losses show that even in the face of systemic erasure and violence, Native people refuse to disappear, refuse to surrender.

The fight to protect Oak Flat in Arizona is a current example of this. Oak Flat, a sacred Apache site, is threatened by a copper mine authorized through a congressional land swap pushed by the Trump administration. Tribal leaders, activists, and allies organized to defend Oak Flat, arguing in court and mobilizing to ensure that sacred land is not exchanged and destroyed for foreign private profit.

As of October 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear further appeals, supporting lower court rulings that allow the transfer to proceed. However, a federal appeals court issued an emergency injunction blocking the transfer and delaying the mine’s advance while legal challenges are considered.

At Standing Rock, hundreds of tribes and tens of thousands of allies gathered and occupied land near the Cannonball River in North Dakota to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline to protect treaty lands and water. Although the pipeline was completed, the resistance led to widespread awareness of Indigenous rights and environmental justice.

Standing Rock sparked solidarity actions around the world, inspired divestment campaigns targeting banks that financed the pipeline, and brought issues such as broken treaties, environmental racism, and missing and murdered Indigenous women into global conversations. It also resulted in ongoing legal challenges and inspired a new generation of Native activists who understand that sovereignty is not negotiable.

These interventions, whether through the courts or activism, are not symbolic but the literal defense of rights that are supposed to be guaranteed under tribal and U.S. law. It is the refusal to accept marginalization, neglect, erasure, and defeat. Indigenous Peoples’ Day is both a reflection of these struggles and a call to continue the fight.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day as Resistance

In this political landscape, Indigenous Peoples’ Day reminds the public that the survival of Native nations is inseparable from Native sovereignty. When birthright citizenship is questioned, when sacred lands are desecrated, when funding for essential programs is threatened, and when cultural institutions are ignored or attacked, the very survival of our communities is at stake.

In an interview with Truthout, Dina Gilio-Whitaker explained:

Tribes will always be a threat to a certain segment of the American population (currently coded as Republican) because the doctrine of tribal sovereignty erects a system of guardrails to protect the rights that hundreds of treaties guaranteed, and the small amount of land that tribes still control. Those lands hold coveted resources that tribes have the power to choose to develop or keep in the ground.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day calls on everyone to honor our survival and acknowledge the ongoing struggle against colonization and genocide. Our struggles are not isolated; they echo in other parts of the world, from the defense of our homelands here to the fight for survival in Gaza, where people continue to resist displacement and violence. It is a reminder that what happens to Native nations today is a glimpse of what can happen to any community when power goes unchecked and rights are violated. Indigenous Peoples’ Day reminds us that defending our sovereignty is defending justice for all.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw) is a writer, speaker, and founder of Red POP! News and the late A Tribe Called Geek. Known for her journalism, mental health advocacy, and digital activism, she is dedicated to amplifying Native voices through storytelling, media, and art. You can find her in the Bluesky and Instagram.

  Nuclear News

Nuclear startup Hadron Energy to go public in $1.2B deal 

Amanda Stutt | October 10, 2025 | 

Image: Hadron Energy.

Nuclear startup Hadron Energy has announced it will go public on the Nasdaq via a $1.2 billion business combination with GigCapital7 Corp, a Private-to-Public Equity firm. 

The deal will provide approximately $200 million in net proceeds, which will be used to accelerate product development and commercial deployment of Hadron’s technology, it said. The deal is expected to close in Q1 2026. 

The Redwood City, California-based company said it has designed a micro modular reactor (MMR) built on light water reactor technology with an operationally efficient 10-year fueling cycle.

MMRs are miniaturized nuclear power plants being increasingly used in AI data center infrastructure, and can power mining operations by providing a low-carbon source of electricity and heat, replacing diesel generators and reducing emissions. MMRs produce between 1 and 20 megawatts of electric power per 1 module. 

“We’re at a $1.2 billion dollar valuation. We’re excited about the opportunity to service not only data center customers, but also more remote  industrial applications,” Sam Gibson, founder and CEO of Hadron Energy, told MINING.com in an interview. “In the mining industry, there is a lot of interest and very high demand for our product.”

There are currently 94 nuclear reactors operating in the United States across 54 power plants at full scale, variations of light water designs. 

Gibson said the company’s focus is miniaturizing reactors in a mass manufacturable package that can then be distributed to remote applications or data centers.

“We don’t have to have an external water supply,” Gibson said. “And ultimately, we have demand ranging anywhere from 10 megawatts, which is one unit, all the way up to even gigawatt scale deployments, which is 1,000 megawatts plus.”

Hadron’s MMR design. Image supplied.

“Plenty of uranium supply”

Uranium is a crucial source of reliable baseload power as nuclear energy, and the US requires an estimated 32 million pounds of uranium annually for its current nuclear reactors. Energy Fuels’ White Mesa Mill in Utah is the only producing mill in the US.

In 2024, the US purchased 50 million pounds of uranium, but only produced 677,000 pounds, according to the Energy Information Administration.

But Gibson said uranium supply is not currently an issue for the company.

“One of our uranium suppliers has about 1.7 million pounds of uranium ore right now. So the supply is there.” 

Gibson said it comes down to the energy density of uranium and the enrichment, pointing out that typically 5% enriched and below is what’s used in the commercial industry today.

“Our reactor is using slightly higher enrichment, which enables us to have a smaller core. We are primarily focused on reactor development.” 

Hadron is working on the engineering and licensing side to begin producing the reactors at scale, and Gibson said what puts Hadron at the forefront is that there’s still not a licensed microreactor on the market today.

“When it came to incorporating, we had a lot of the groundwork already worked out. So that’s why we’ve been able to make such rapid progress on the regulatory side, on the engineering design side,” he said. 

“Historically, you’ll have reactors that have fueling cycles of about two years, but since we’re using a higher enrichment, that gives our core life a longer life and it enables us to have even a more compact design. Those are really the key innovations we’re working on here. That’s the entire goal – a 24-7 energy producing source.”

Holtec cancels plans for New Mexico interim storage facility

Friday, 10 October 2025

World Nuclear News

Holtec International has announced that plans to build a consolidated interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in New Mexico have been cancelled.
 

How the CSIF might have looked (Image: Holtec)

"After discussions with our longtime partner in the HI-STORE project, the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, and due to the untenable path forward for used fuel storage in New Mexico, we mutually agreed upon cancelling the agreement. This allows for ELEA to work to redevelop the property in a manner that fits their needs and allows Holtec to work with other states who are amenable to used fuel storage based on the recent DOE work on public education and outreach," Holtec said in a statement.

Holtec and the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) - which includes the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad as well as Eddy County and Lea County - signed a memorandum of agreement in 2015 covering the design, licensing, construction and operation of a facility modelled on Holtec's HI-STORM UMAX dry storage system. Known as the HI-STORE CISF (for Consolidated Interim Storage Facility), the proposed facility was to have been built at a site located between Carlsbad and Hobbs in Lea County on land owned by ELEA and would provide an option for storing used nuclear fuel from US power reactors until a permanent repository should become available. Used fuel was to be transported by rail to the CSIF.

The initial application for the HI-STORE facility included storage of up to 8,680 tonnes tons of uranium in commercial used fuel with future amendments for up to 10,000 storage canisters, according to Holtec information.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a final licence to Holtec to build and operate HI-STORE in 2023. But in March 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals published a decision to "vacate" the licence following a similar ruling against another Interim Storage Partners' licence to provide interim storage in Texas. In June this year, the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs in the Texas case did not have standing to challenge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to provide a permit to Interim Storage Partners.

Holtec, together with the NRC and the federal government, had filed Supreme Court petitions asking for the licence to be reinstated.

Technology licensing is landmark for US uranium remediation

Thursday, 9 October 2025

Regulatory approval means Disa Technologies Inc's High-Pressure Slurry Ablation technology can be used to remediate abandoned uranium mine waste at inactive mine sites while opening the possibility of recycling uranium recovered from the waste.

Disa Chief Regulatory Affairs Officer Stephen Cohen, NRC Commissioner Bradley Crowell, NRC Chairman David Wright, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, Greyson Buckingham, NRC Commissioner Matthew Marzano, Disa Board Member Jeff Merrifield and Navajo Nation Washington Office Deputy Executive Director DeWayne Crank mark the approval of the licence (Image: Disa Technologies)

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) accepted Disa's application for a licence to use its technology to remediate abandoned mine waste at inactive mine sites in April, when the regulator set a schedule for a detailed technical review and developed and deployed a clear, first-of-its-kind regulatory framework which saw the licensing approval process completed in six months - much quicker than the 18-24 months it might have taken previously.

Disa's patented High-Pressure Slurry Ablation (HPSA) technology is a mechanical process leveraging collisions between particles. It exploits the difference in Mohs hardness - a scale for measuring the relative hardness of minerals - between a base mineral and target mineral to selectively liberate the target mineral. The process can be used to upgrade critical minerals from both mined ore and legacy waste.

There are more than 15,000 sites associated with abandoned uranium mine waste - or AUM waste - waste across the western USA, largely from Cold War-era mining activities. Many of these sites are located on or near tribal lands. But options to safely treat or contain the contaminated material have up to now been limited and costly, according to Disa.

High-Pressure Slurry Ablation technology offers the first scalable method to remediate this waste safely and economically, the company said, separating and cleaning the material at the source, and making it possible to recycle uranium while dramatically reducing the volume of material requiring long-term disposal.

The NRC licence allows Disa to deploy its High-Pressure Slurry Ablation systems under federal oversight to treat abandoned uranium mine waste across multiple states. It builds on years of collaboration among federal and tribal partners, including the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (NNEPA). Disa also said it had received strong support and engagement throughout the licensing process from a diverse coalition of environmental, nuclear energy, and community stakeholders, including the Navajo Nation and other tribal leaders, ClearPath Action, Good Energy Collective, Third Way, Nuclear Innovation Alliance, Breakthrough Institute, Native Nuclear (formerly the Tribal Consent-Based Coalition), Generation Atomic, academic leaders from several US universities, and numerous bipartisan Members of Congress from both chambers.

Disa CEO, president, and co-founder Greyson Buckingham expressed his gratitude to key stakeholders including the NRC's Chairman and Commissioners, the senators of Arizona and Wyoming, and Navajo Nation leadership, for their support, saying the licence is "a turning point" in tackling legacy uranium contamination. "For decades, AUM sites have been viewed as a burden too complex and costly to clean up. Today, we have a clear, regulated pathway to do it faster, safer, and at lower cost - while recycling valuable resources that support our nation's energy future," he said.

"The Navajo Nation is proud to help with this critical breakthrough," said Buu Nygren, President of the Navajo Nation. "By combining innovative technology with regulatory leadership, we have a new path to remediate legacy uranium sites to restore our lands to safe, productive use and to protect our precious groundwater resources … I encourage continued discussions at the federal level to ensure a safe legacy cleanup is performed in a timely manner."

Uranium has momentum amid policy tailwinds, fundamentals: Sprott

Staff Writer | October 9, 2025 | MINING. COM

Stock image.

The uranium market has momentum on its side as it looks to end 2025 on a strong note, with several catalysts lined up to fuel a sector seen as critical for the future of energy, says Sprott.

In a report released on Thursday, the firm listed three key developments that could lift uranium even further, namely the US government’s critical minerals policy, accelerating demand for the nuclear fuel, and concerns surrounding supply.

In the first case, Sprott analysts led by Jacob White pointed to the Trump administration’s intent to stockpile more uranium to alleviate the persistent supply gap for US utilities and the country’s heavy reliance on foreign supply, in particular that of Russia. The plan, if enacted, could result in billions of dollars in funding towards building a secure uranium supply and the required nuclear technologies, reinforcing a bullish outlook for the sector, Sprott said.

Secondly, Sprott said it is increasingly confident in uranium’s long-term fundamentals, especially after the World Nuclear Association’s (WNA) September symposium. It pointed to a WNA report that outlined lofty demand expectations, from the current 175 million lb. of U3O8 equivalent annually to 391 million lb. by 2040, representing a 124% growth.

Importantly, the WNA forecast was more than double its previous, highlighting a surge in optimism over nuclear fuel use, especially with a “new class” of demand from hyperscalers such as Microsoft.

Lastly, Sprott’s bullish sentiment is reinforced by a structurally tight supply amid expectations of declining output from the world’s top producers such as Kazatomprom and Cameco, as well as execution risks across the development pipeline. Also, it stated that the WNA report had missed some of the key production cuts, meaning the uranium market could be even tighter than headline figures suggest.

Bullish outlook intact

Sprott said these factors will be critical in driving the momentum in uranium as the current cycle progresses. In September, market sentiment turned sharply positive as fresh capital flowed in and supply tightened, leading to an 8% rise in uranium prices during the month and a rebound to $82/lb., it wrote.

The rebound followed months of dislocation, which saw uranium prices reach a maximum spread of $17/lb. This, as Sprott said, was not “sustainable” for a market that is in a structural deficit position.

Doubling down on its bullish outlook, the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for USD; U.UN for CAD) has continued to buy up uranium and now holds over 72 million lb. — maintaining its position as the world’s largest physical uranium holder. Year to date, the Trust has gained about 8.7%, with a market capitalization exceeding $6 billion.

Meanwhile, uranium equities have delivered impressive performances, with the Sprott Uranium Miners ETF rising by over 50% this year. Over the past five years, uranium and related equities have significantly outperformed other asset classes, according to Sprott.

World Nuclear News

Advanced fuel material samples ready for irradiation testing

Friday, 10 October 2025

Capsules containing Lightbridge Fuel material samples of enriched uranium‑zirconium alloy have been loaded into an experimental assembly ready for irradiation testing, Lightbridge Corporation has announced.
 

One of the capsules is being handed to the operator for loading into an experimental assembly (Image: Lightbridge)

The material samples, which were manufactured at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), are now ready to be inserted into the lab's Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) for irradiation testing, which is expected to begin later this year.

The enriched uranium-zirconium alloy coupon samples match the composition intended for Lightbridge's future commercial Lightbridge Fuel product, and were manufactured and loaded into capsules under stringent quality control and process validation protocols, the company said. The experiment assembly will be placed in the reactor core for irradiation testing.

Fuel is loaded into rodlet holders (Image: Lightbridge)

The irradiation testing programme and post-irradiation examination activities aim to generate critical irradiation performance data which will support the company's regulatory licensing and commercialisation efforts for deployment of Lightbridge Fuel.

"We are proud to collaborate with Lightbridge on the assembly of this irradiation experiment," said Jess Gehin, Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear Science & Technology at Idaho National Laboratory. "This is an important step in testing and validating the performance of Lightbridge's advanced fuel in a test reactor environment."

"We are pleased to complete this final step in preparation of the experiment assembly for irradiation testing," Lightbridge Vice President of Engineering Scott Holcombe said, describing it as a pivotal milestone for Lightbridge Fuel development. "This achievement brings us closer to obtaining the rigorous irradiation testing data required for regulatory approval and eventual commercialisation of Lightbridge Fuel."

Capsules containing Lightbridge Fuel material samples ready before loading into the assembly (Image: Lightbridge)

Lightbridge Fuel is described by the company as a proprietary next-generation nuclear fuel technology for existing light water reactors and pressurised heavy water reactors which it says significantly enhances reactor safety, economics, and proliferation resistance. It is also developing Lightbridge Fuel for new small modular reactors.

ATR is a pressurised water reactor which produces neutrons, rather than heat, and is used to perform irradiation testing of many nuclear materials and fuels. The irradition testing is being carried out under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between Lightbridge and INL.

INL has shared further images of the process to load the capsules into the experimental assembly.

Grossi says progress made on restoring Zaporizhzhia power

Friday, 10 October 2025

The two sides in the war have "engaged in a constructive way" with the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose director general says "a process has been set in motion" to help restore external power to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
 

The IAEA has had experts at the plant since September 2022 (Image: IAEA)

Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said: "Following intensive consultations, the process leading to the re-establishment of off-site power - through the Dniprovska and Ferosplavna-1 lines - has started. While it will still take some time before the grid connection of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has been restored, the two sides have engaged with us in a constructive way to achieve this important objective for the sake of nuclear safety and security. No one stands to gain from a further deterioration in this regard."

External power was lost by the plant - which is on the frontline of Ukrainian and Russian troops - on 23 September, and it has since been relying on its fleet of emergency diesel generators for the power required for essential safety functions, including powering cooling pumps.

Before the war, there were 10 different external power lines to the plant, but that number has fallen since the start of the war in February 2022. Five months ago its last 330 kV backup power line was disconnected, leaving no supply when the sole operational 750 kV power line source was cut.

Both sides blame the damage on military activities and have said that the military situation has stopped them from being able to repair the damage. Grossi has had frequent contact with both sides as part of efforts to find a way forward.

The IAEA's latest update says: "The focus has been on creating the necessary security conditions for repairs to be carried out on the damaged sections of the 750 kV Dniprovska and the 330 kV Ferosplavna-1 power lines, located on opposite sides of the frontline near the ZNPP."

It is the tenth time that the plant has lost external power, although on previous occasions it was for a matter of hours rather than the current case of weeks. Seven emergency diesel generators are operating, with 13 on standby.

The IAEA team at the plant report that there has been no temperature increase within the coolant in the reactors or the used fuel pools and radiation levels at the site remain normal. They do continue to hear military action, including on Tuesday evening when they heard "five explosions one after the other, occurring close to the site and shaking windows in their building".

The six-unit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. All its units are shut down.

Excavation works begin for Uzbekistan small modular reactor

Friday, 10 October 2025

About 1.5 million cubic metres of soil will be excavated during the digging of a pit 13 metres deep for the RITM-200N small modular reactor being built in Uzbekistan.
 

This will be the location for one of the world's first SMRs (Image: Rosatom)

The first cubic metres of soil were excavated in a ceremony attended by Pavel Bezrukov, vice president and director of the construction project at Atomstroyexport JSC, Abdujamil Kalmuratov, Head of the Directorate for the Construction of a Nuclear Power Plant State Enterprise, and Ulugbek Mustafoyev, Governor of the Jizzakh region.

Alexei Likhachev, director general of Rosatom, said during the event: "Today marks the beginning of a new phase in the implementation of the nuclear power generation project in Uzbekistan. As with all our international projects, the construction is designed with a high degree of localisation. The work is being carried out by Uzbek subcontractors. Rosatom will build the plant, which will have a service life of at least 60 years, and will provide all necessary support during its operation. We look forward to many decades of fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation."

Rosatom's director general took part in the event via video-link (Image: Rosatom)

Uzbekistan's Uzatom said that 27 test and research boreholes have been drilled, with engineering surveys and design and preparatory works under way and a plan for design documentaton to be submitted for review by the end of the year, with first concrete for the first SMR unit expected to be poured in March 2026.

Rosatom began manufacturing reactor equipment in May, with a 205-tonne ingot of special alloy steel cast which will form the reactor vessel.

And an agreement was signed at the end of September during World Atomic Week in Moscow which multiplied the capacity of the proposed project to include two large units - VVER-1000s - in addition to two 55 MW RITM-200N SMRs. Originally the plan had been for up to six SMRs.

The RITM-200N is a water-cooled reactor adapted from nuclear-powered icebreakers' technology, with power of 190 MWt or 55 MWe and with an intended service life of 60 years. The first unit is scheduled to go critical in late 2029.

It is the first export order for Russia's SMR. The first land-based version is currently being built in Yakut, Russia, with the launch of the first unit scheduled for 2027. Rosatom says that its combination of active and passive safety systems means the SMR plants will achieve the highest possible safety standards.

Meanwhile, according to Russia's Tass news agency, negotiations are under way targeting a spring 2026 scheduled signing of a contract for the GW-scale units, with one of the issues being agreement that there would be at least 70% localisation of workers on the project.

Long-term safety at Armenian plant assessed

Friday, 10 October 2025

The operator of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant at Metsamor has made progress in taking measures to ensure safe long-term operation, an International Atomic Energy Agency team of experts has concluded.
 

The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (Image: ANPP)

The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP) comprises two Russian-built 376 MWe VVER reactors which started operating in 1976 and 1980, respectively. Both units were taken offline in 1988 due to safety concerns regarding seismic vulnerability, although they both continued to operate and had not sustained any damage in a major earthquake in the region earlier that year. Unit 2 was restarted in 1995, and is subject to ongoing safety improvements. Unit 1 is now being decommissioned.

In October 2021, the Armenian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ANRA) issued a permit to the operator to continue operating unit 2 until September 2026. This is beyond the originally granted licence, which was until the end of 2021. The operator has requested permission from ANRA to operate the unit for an additional 10 years, until September 2036.

A Safety Aspects of Long-Term Operation (SALTO) peer review is a comprehensive safety review addressing strategy and key elements for the safe long-term operation (LTO) of nuclear power plants. SALTO missions complement IAEA Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) missions which are designed as a review of programmes and activities essential to operational safety. SALTO peer reviews can be carried out at any time during the lifetime of a nuclear power plant, though according to the IAEA the most suitable time lies within the last 10 years of the plant's originally foreseen operating period. SALTO and OSART reviews are carried out at the request of the IAEA Member State in which the review is to take place.

An IAEA team completed a ten-day SALTO mission to the Armenian plant on 9 October, which built upon a previous SALTO mission in 2018 and a follow-up mission held in 2021. The ten-person team included experts from Argentina, the Netherlands, Romania, Ukraine, the UK and the USA, as well as two IAEA staff members and two observers from Hungary and the World Association of Nuclear Operators.

"The plant has clearly made progress since previous missions and has done a lot to address the previous SALTO findings," said team leader and IAEA Nuclear Safety Officer Bryce Lehman, who noted that many ageing management and LTO activities were in alignment with IAEA safety standards. "We encourage the plant to continue implementing the remaining activities for LTO and to address the review findings."

The team identified good performances that will be shared with the nuclear industry globally, including: continuously improving organisational practices, adopting international best practices and experience from the first LTO period to improve the approach and documentation for the upcoming second LTO period; conducting periodic reviews of the seismic qualification programme, considering the latest knowledge and international operating experience; and implementing a comprehensive modernisation process performed by the staff of the plant.

The team also provided suggestions and recommendations to further improve safe LTO, for example, the plant should: update the existing plant programmes to fully address ageing management for the upcoming second LTO period; complete the qualification programme for equipment in harsh environments and fully implement it for LTO; and effectively implement the ageing management programmes for civil structures.

"We appreciate the IAEA's support in ageing management and preparation for our second LTO period," said ANPP Chief Engineer Artur Grigoryan. "It is very important for us to get an external review of our ageing management activities. The competencies and experience of the IAEA team will help us identify areas for improvement. The results of this mission will help us improve our activities for safe LTO and further align our activities with IAEA safety standards."

A draft report has been provided to plant management and ANRA. They have the opportunity to make factual comments on the draft, with the final report to be submitted to them and the Armenian government within three months.

Dismantling of Hamaoka 1 reactor under way

Friday, 10 October 2025

Japanese utility Chubu Electric Power Company announced it has removed the upper lid of the pressure vessel of unit 1 at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant as it begins to dismantle the reactor. Dismantling of the reactor of unit 2 at the plant began earlier this year.
 

The removal of the reactor pressure vessel lid of Hamaoka 1 (Image: Chubu)

Hamaoka 1 and 2 are both boiling water reactors, starting up in 1973 and 1978, respectively. Unit 1 had a capacity of 540 MWe while unit 2's capacity was 840 MWe. Chubu decided to close both units in January 2009 as they required expensive modifications to meet seismic standards imposed after the July 2007 Niigata Chuetsu offshore earthquake.

The utility submitted a decommissioning plan for Hamaoka 1 and 2 in June 2009, which was subsequently revised in September of that year. The overall plan divided the decommissioning of the two units into four stages. The first stage is for preparations for dismantling work at the units, while the second stage covers the dismantling and removal of equipment surrounding the reactors. The third stage is for the dismantling of the reactors themselves, while the fourth covers the demolition of buildings at both units.

The plan was approved by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in November 2009, when Chubu began stage 1 of the decommissioning programme.

Having completed stage two work at both units, on 18 December last year the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved Chubu's application to move to the third stage of decommissioning at the units.

Chubu announced on 17 March that it had removed the upper lid of the pressure vessel of unit 2, marking the start of the dismantling of the reactor itself. As well as the reactor pressure vessel, the reactor internals and radiation shielding surrounding the vessel will be dismantled.

Hamaoka 1 and 2 are the first two commercial nuclear power reactors in Japan to enter the reactor dismantling phase.

Chubu plans to dismantle units 1 and 2 over a period of about 12 years, starting with the reactor of unit 2 first. The decommissioning of the two reactors is expected to be completed in fiscal 2042 after the reactor buildings are demolished.