Today in 1979 at 5:30am, at Church Rock, New Mexico, a 50-foot earthen dam containing the radioactive and toxic byproducts of a United Nuclear Corporation uranium mine failed, resulting in the largest single accidental release of radioactive materials in the United States. 
The breach released 1,100 tons of uranium waste and 94 million gallons of radioactive and highly acidic water into the Rio Puerco and across Navajo lands as far as 50 miles downstream. Radioactivity levels near the breach were 7,000 times the allowable US drinking water standard.
As journalist Judy Pasternak wrote in her acclaimed 2010 exposé, "Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajos," the contaminated river water "burned the feet of a little boy who went wading. Sheep keeled over and died, and crops curdled along the banks."
Although the spill contaminated the groundwater and rendered the Rio Puerco unusable for drinking, irrigation, and watering livestock, Governor Bruce King refused requests by the Navajo Nation to declare the site a federal disaster area, sharply limiting help for those affected.
For more, including the lingering effects of the spill, see: vice.com/en/article/ne8…
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