| Book Review | Environmental History, 9.1

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.
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.	1
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.	2
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.	3
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.	4
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.	5
Ringholz claims that in this revised edition she intended to examine the plight of Native Americans in the industry. However, she rarely mentions them in her text. She includes Native Americans toward the end of the book and only marginally adds to the existing literature on the topic. Likewise, her treatment of the uranium waste disposal issue lacks substance. Her analysis materializes in the last chapter and fails to use primary documents, instead relying upon news reports and interviews. Ringholz relies a great deal upon oral interviews, some conducted thirty years ago, for her information. While there certainly is nothing wrong with using these sources, Ringholz uses little documentation from federal archives to substantiate her assertions. Her text includes gems of information, but the reliance upon oral histories and somewhat confusing notes make it difficult to trace the origins of the material.	6
While Ringholz employs a broad perspective, Michael Amundson focuses on just the mining industry and its relationships with several communities. He selected four communities, Moab, Utah, Grants, New Mexico, Jeffrey City, Wyoming, and Uravan, Colorado, as case studies to explore the development and consequences of the uranium mining industry. Two were company towns, Jeffrey City and Uravan, while Moab and Grants were not. All four existed and operated during the forty years of the industry's lifetime. In fact, three of the towns pre-dated the 1949 government-sponsored boom period. The location of each settlement in a different state permits Amundson the opportunity for a comparative analysis of governmental policies and community reaction.	7
Through his case studies, Amundson explains how the actions of the federal government influenced the explosive growth and subsequent decline of the industry. He uses the four case studies to illustrate common experiences and the strategies these yellowcake communities implemented to survive or not during economic downswings.	8
Amundson outlines the phases of the germination, growth, and death of the uranium mining industry. He explains the role of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in initiating and subsidizing the first boom period. A time of retrenchment followed in which the emphasis shifted from government monopoly to commercialization. When commercial prosperity developed, global free market competition intruded shortly, ending the last period of success for the industry. Each of these policy and economic shifts dramatically affected Amundson's four towns.	9
Besides explaining its primary developmental phases, Amundson places the uranium industry into the larger pattern of corporate and governmental colonialism that characterized the West. The constant cycles of boom and bust, dependency upon outside agents for employment, and the exploitation of natural resources by external organizations form the core of Amundson's colonialism motif. Although these are not new concepts, Amundson ably supports his assertions with documented evidence.	10
Despite the well-recorded sources used in his text, Amundson lacks the intriguing details provided by Ringholz. His study offers both a broad sweeping perspective on the key policy issues and a narrow focus concerning the mining industry. He looks briefly at the remediation politics of the 1990s and their effects, if any, on his four case studies. According to Amundson, the results of remediation varied from each town and local environment.	11
Although Amundson locates the experiences of his four case studies in the larger context of colonization, he only marginally fits the expansion and contraction of the industry into Cold War politics. In addition, Amundson repeatedly confuses the Hanford Engineering Works with the nearby town of Richland, Washington. While a minor error, its repetition was rather distracting. Overall, Yellowcake Towns offers an important research starting point on the human and environmental consequences of uranium mining.	12
Regretfully, these two books cannot be combined into one text. Both offer critical analysis into the uranium mining industry that must be remembered and discussed. These books would serve historians well while researching not only the nuclear weapons complex, but also the environment, mining, and the modern American West too.	13
Jason N. Krupar, assistant professor of history, College of Applied Science, University of Cincinnati, currently is revising his dissertation on the leadership and organizational culture of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s.

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