In the 1950's the Federal Government built diversion dams, ditches and domestic wells on the reservation to help the Navajo. Fifty years later much of these structures are no longer in working order. This picture shows Cove Wash, which flows on the north side of the Chuska Mountains. A concrete dam diverted water from Cove Wash into lined ditches and laterals for irrigation of fields. The dam was breached and destroyed during spring flooding years ago and never rebuilt. The reason the dam was never rebuilt was that by the time it was breached the Navajo realized that the water coming off the mountains was polluted from Uranium mining. Water flowing from the Chuskas is no longer used for domestic purposes or irrigation. This picture was taken on 4 November 2003, Sig... In the 1940's Uranium mining began on the reservation and continued until the late 1970's. Because times were hard for the Navajo, most families were thankful when mining started on the reservation because they were given employment. Unfortunately, the people who operated the mines did not tell the Navajo of the danger that was associated with uranium mining. The miners and their families were forced to figure out the danger on their own, from experiencing the illnesses themselves (Brugge 2000). When mining ceased in the late 1070's, mining companies walked away from the mines without sealing the tunnel openings, filling the gaping pits, sometimes hundreds of feet deep, or removing the piles of radioactive uranium ore and mine waste. Over 1,000 of these unsealed tunnels, unsealed pits and radioactive waste piles still remain on the Navajo Reservation today, with Navajo families living within a hundred feet of the mine sites. The Navajo graze their livestock here, and have used radioactive mine tailings to build their homes. Navajo children play in the mines, and uranium mine tailings have turned up in school playgrounds (103rd Congress, 1994). In 2008 the US Congress authorized a five-year, multi-agency cleanup of uranium contamination on the Navajo Reservation (Wikipedia). The Navajo have erected a memorial adjacent to the Cove Chapter House honoring their fallen soldiers and victims of uranium contamination (picture uploaded 14 May 2009).