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Book Review
| Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West. By Michael A. Amundson. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002. xxiv + 204 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $24.95.Uranium Frenzy: Saga of the Nuclear West. By Raye Carleson Ringholz. Revised and expanded edition. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2002. xiii + 344 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. Paper $19.95.
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| The uranium mining experiences of the 1950s through the 1990s remain an unexplored aspect of America's obsession with nuclear weapons and energy. Raye Ringholz and Michael Amundson not only offer insights into this topic, but demonstrate how rich the research possibilities are in this long ignored field. |
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In Uranium Frenzy, Ringholz revises her earlier 1989 work. She provides new material on the Nevada nuclear bomb tests and their consequences for military personnel and those living downwind from the site. Ringholz focuses attention on the health and environmental ramifications for Native Americans involved in the uranium mining industry. She looks at the perplexing issue of nuclear waste disposal in her new edition. These added topics enlarge the scope of Ringholz's examination and make it more challenging for her to keep these subjects woven together in a coherent manner. |
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Ringholz incorporates four themes into her book. First, she presents the stories of Charlie Steen and prospectors who initiated the industry boom in the 1950s. Using oral histories, Ringholz shows the wide array of individuals attracted to the uranium mining industry, their successes and failures, and how these achievements mirrored the boom/bust culture of western mining. Second, Ringholz looks at the increasing panic of regional public health officials as they initiated investigations into the work conditions of the mines shortly after the bonanza began in 1949. Mounting evidence indicated that miners were being exposed to high levels of radiation. Government and state health officers initially failed to alter industrial practices, install needed ventilation equipment, and convince miners and owners of the dangers. Not until miners started dying from cancer did the full magnitude of the unfolding health disaster become apparent. Only then were workers, owners, state, and government officials able to agree on exposure standards. |
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Third, Ringholz recounts the meteoritic rise of uranium stocks and the reverberations when the bubble burst in 1956. Just as the discoveries of significant uranium deposits triggered frantic mining activity and phenomenal population growth in the region, it likewise set off a penny stock boom in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ringholz explores the rapid inflation of uranium stocks and the characters responsible for promoting rather questionable stocks. This market not only attracted local interests, but also that of Wall Street and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Finally, Ringholz analyzes the health and environmental consequences generated by the repeated bomb testing at the Nevada Test Site during the Cold War era. She pays particular attention to the plight of downwinders living in close proximity to the test range and the variety of malaises suffered by many. |
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The four themes Ringholz tries to weave together in her book prove too much for her to fully interconnect. Her efforts to share these tales all at once make it difficult to follow key events through the book. The most valuable chapters relate to the uranium mining and the stock booms. The experiences presented by Ringholz provide insight into what drove these people and the costs they incurred. The least significant chapters deal with the Nevada Test Site. Ringholz offers little new information about the health and environmental hazards associated with the test range. |
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