Spring 2025
It’s 1954, years into the Cold War when the demand for uranium erupts across the country. Twin brothers, Jim and John LeBret, are exploring their Spokane Reservation land when they make a rousing discovery: uranium–and a lot of it–in their homeland. Excitement bubbles through the community as signed paychecks go home to hard-working miners, many of them Spokane tribal members, digging through 350 acres of land (Kramer 2011). The mine site is named the Midnite Mine. Newmont Corporation seizes the opportunity for profit and joins Midnite Mines Inc. to create Dawn Mining Company (51% ownership under Newmont) to operate the mine (Apple, n.d.).
For decades, the Midnite Mine was like “midnight” to Indigenous workers and families, a blanket of silence and darkness where no one was warned of the dangers of radiation or the chemicals eroding their waters. Well-intentioned fathers brought home “pretty green rocks” as toys for their children (Kramer 2011). The children grew up, and too many have died, or are dying, of cancers and illnesses they link to long-term exposure. For 24 years (1954-1978), toxic runoff from the Midnite Mine leaked into nearby lakes and creeks without any containment or treatment (McDermott 2021).
The Midnite Mine ceased operations in 1981, leaving open pits of radioactive waste and contaminated groundwater (Kramer 2011). The mine’s aftermath continues to damage homelands, expose corporate negligence and regulatory failures, and highlight the resilience of Indigenous communities whose lands and bodies have been exploited.
Fights for justice were tedious and often disappointing. In 1991, Newmont tried to claim bankruptcy to avoid cleanup costs and even proposed converting the mine into a uranium dump site. The Spokane Tribe resisted this proposal, an assault on their sovereignty and lands, and state officials rejected it. However, in 1995, a judge licensed Dawn Mining to operate a radioactive waste dump at Ford, Washington (which borders the Spokane Reservation), requiring only $1 million upfront for the $20 million project (Robinson 1997). The Spokane Tribe’s land and water restoration failed to be addressed.
In 1980, growing public concern over the health and environmental risks of toxic waste dumps pushed the government to establish the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), a.k.a. the Superfund law. This legislation enables the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address contaminated sites by requiring responsible parties to either perform the cleanup or reimburse the government for doing so (EPA October 8, 2025).
Finally, in 2000, the EPA designated the Midnite Mine as a Superfund site, acknowledging the over 33 million tons of waste rock and low-grade ore strewn across the reservation (ATSDR 2010). Open pits filled with toxic water, contaminated soils, and polluted groundwater had transformed parts of the reservation into a radioactive wasteland. The EPA could now hold Newmont Corporation and Dawn Mining accountable for the cleanup (EPA May 28, 2025).
Uranium levels in some seeps and drainages near the mine are up to 700 times higher than the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level (ATSDR 2010, 29). Spokane tribal members can no longer harvest plants or hunt animals inhabiting lands near the open pits (Kramer 2011; ATSDR 2010, 1-2), which disrupts generations of traditional foodways. The contaminants spread to the fish in the Blue Creek, especially damaging as the Spokane Tribe of Indians has historically depended on salmon and other fish for sustenance (Harper et al. 2002, 513-516). Their daily sweat lodge ceremonies, which involve steaming water from nearby streams for vapor, have been displaced as that vapor is laced with radioactive particles and harmful metals (ATSDR 2010, 1). Culture and identity are intertwined with land, traditional foods, and religious practices. The environmental racism of encouraging uranium mining on Indigenous lands and then refusing effective clean-up efforts is yet another assault on tribal sovereignty and well-being, disrupting the Indigenous communities and their relationships with their lands.
The Spokane Tribe of Indians persevered and advocated for their rights and health. The SHAWL Society (Sovereignty, Health, Air, Water, and Land) was organized from the rubble by their founder and activist, Deb Abrahamson, who was born the year uranium was discovered in her homeland. For years, she advocated for worker safety and environmental justice. SHAWL has documented health issues among former mine workers, educated the community about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), and helped secure grants for health screening and environmental education. SHAWL’s grassroots leadership has been strong in pushing for transparency, federal accountability, and a voice for the Spokane people in decisions about cleanup and land restoration (UW Superfund Research Program 2014; McDermott 2019).
When she passed away from cancer in 2016, Chairwoman of the Spokane Tribal Business Council Carol Evans remembered Abrahamson’s activism and strength: “She was a servant for the environment, speaking out for the water, air, and land because they could not speak, speaking out for the animals, because they can’t speak the way we speak” (Trau 2021). Today, Abrahamson’s daughter, Twa-le Abrahamson-Swan, continues the legacy of advocacy and resilience.
Abrahamson-Swan emphasizes the importance of Indigenous voices in making decisions about Indigenous lives. She advocates for more collaboration during the clean-up processes: “Because when you don’t have the impacted community in the room at all levels, these […] are the people that are going to have to live with this decision for our entire lives” (Crowe 2020).
The EPA and the Spokane Tribe of Indians continue to keep Newmont accountable for the clean-up. In July 2019, the EPA denied Newmont’s request to change the level of surface materials/background concentrations, requiring them to comply with standards (EPA May 28, 2025).
With many clean-up jobs assigned in 2024, mostly to citizens of the Spokane Tribe of Indians (Lake Roosevelt Forum 2024), SHAWL has been pushing for the safety of cleanup workers and ensuring that workers have proper protective gear while being fully aware of the risks (Kramer 2011 “Spokane”)—the risks hidden from their grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts under a midnight veil of American superiority and systematic racism.
The Midnite Mine and its history hold painful scars of when Indigenous voices and lives were silenced. But for many years, on this midnight canvas of environmental racism, death, and corruption, the stars shine with the unwavering strength of Indigenous activism and the hope of a renewed land, awaiting a slowly approaching sunrise.
“And that’s probably been the biggest effort, just to get our voices at the table, the decision-making tables” (McDermott 2019).
Works Cited
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Public Health Assessment: Midnite Mine Site, Wellpinit, Stevens County, Washington. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, May 19, 2010.
Apple, Charles. “Midnite: A spent uranium mine.” The Spokesman-Review, Accessed June 3, 2025.
Crowe, Michael. “‘A deadly, toxic slime’: Spokane Tribe battles environmental fallout of shuttered uranium mine.” King5, November 9, 2020.
Harper, Barbara L., Bonnie Flett, Shannon Harris, Conrad Abeyta, and Fred Kirschner. “The Spokane Tribe’s Multipathway Subsistence Exposure Scenario and Screening Level RME.” Risk Analysis 22, no. 3, 2002.
Kramer, Becky. “Radioactivity on the Spokane Reservation.” The Spokesman-Review, June 5, 2011.
Kramer, Becky. “Spokane Tribe members worked gladly in uranium mines.” The Spokesman-Review, June 5, 2011.
Lake Roosevelt Forum. “Midnite Mine Superfund Cleanup Progress.” Last modified July 3, 2024.
McDermott, Ted. “Deb Abrahamson blames mining pollution for her cancer, keeps fighting toxic legacy on Spokane reservation.” The Spokesman-Review, December 1, 2019.
McDermott, Ted. “New Pipeline Will Deposit Treated Water from Ex-Uranium Mine Directly into Lake Roosevelt.” The Spokesman-Review, September 15, 2021.
Robinson, Danyelle. “Dawn Mining Allowed to Dump Near Spokane: Radioactive Waste Pit Borders Northwest Reservation.” Indian Country Today, March 31, 1997.
Trau, Morgan. “Deb Abrahamson, environmental activist on Spokane Reservation, dies at 66.” Krem2, January 4, 2021.
University of Washington Superfund Research Program. “Community Profile: The SHAWL Society.” Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Fall 2014.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Superfund: CERCLA Overview.” Last updated October 8, 2025.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Superfund Site: MIDNITE MINE WELLPINIT, WA Cleanup Activities.” Last modified May 28, 2025.
