Grand Canyon Issues
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Write comments to support Secretary Salazar’s proposed ban on new uranium claims within Grand Canyon watersheds and call your congressional representatives and ask them to support the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act.
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“There should be some places that you just do not mine. Uranium is a special concern because it is both a toxic heavy metal and a source of radiation. I worry about uranium escaping into the local water, and about its effect on fish in the Colorado River at the bottom of the gorge, and on the bald eagles, California condors and bighorn sheep that depend on the Canyon's seeps and springs. More than a third of the Canyon's species would be affected if water quality suffered.”
— Steve Martin, former Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent
Radioactive residues have been accumulating in and around Grand Canyon for more than five decades.
Permanently polluted land and water are a direct result of federal programs that encouraged uranium prospecting on public lands beginning in the 1950s. That mining and milling boom in the Four Corners area lasted for about three decades before going bust. When the bottom dropped out of the uranium market, the industry went belly-up, leaving behind thousands of poisonous surface sites and deadly groundwater plumes.
Impacts of nearby uranium exploration
In 1979, an earthen dam breached, releasing 1,100 tons of radioactive mill wastes and 90 million gallons of contaminated water into a tributary of the Little Colorado River. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledges that many additional toxic tailings have been washed into our region’s waterways. Collectively, these events correlate with documented risks and harm to people’s health.
The first wave of uranium development resulted in dozens of claims and mines to be located in and around the Grand Canyon. In 1984, a flash flood washed tons of high-grade uranium ore from Hack Canyon Mine into a tributary of Kanab Creek, which drains into Grand Canyon. Located within the Park’s south rim, the Orphan Mine continues to contaminate creeks, prompting the National Park Service to warn backpackers along the Tonto Trail not to use water from two drainages.
Beginning in 2006, the price for uranium began to rise. Thousands of new claims have been filed within watersheds that drain directly into Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River. A Canadian-owned company reopened the White Mesa Mill in Blanding, Utah, and began processing uranium for powering nuclear reactors in South Korea and France. Without requiring any revisions to outdated environmental assessments, the BLM automatically allowed the same company to begin opening mines that were abandoned by its previous owners in the 1980s.
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Today, the NPS advises against “drinking and bathing” in the Little Colorado River, Kanab Creek, and other Grand Canyon waters where “excessive radionuclides” have been found. Although it is difficult to attribute this contamination to any specific activity, there can be little doubt that the cumulative effects of mining, milling, and transporting radioactive materials are causing long-term, adverse effects on people, water and other resource values in the Grand Canyon region.
Proposed mining withdrawal
On July 20, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced his decision to “segregate” nearly 1 million acres of federal lands designated for withdrawal in the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act for 2 years while the Department evaluates whether to withdraw these lands from new mining claims for an additional 20 years. “I am calling a 2-year ‘time-out’… because we have a responsibility to ensure we are developing our nation’s resources in a way that protects local communities, treasured landscapes, and our watersheds,” said Secretary Salazar.
Secretary Salazar’s decision is a significant victory in the Trust’s campaign to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining. Under the segregation order, no new mining claims can be located and exploratory drilling can no longer occur on existing claims within three major watersheds that drain directly into the Canyon.
Havasupai and other native nations, municipal water interests, the Park Servic, wildlife agencies and advocates, county supervisors and city councils, Navajo and Hopi governments, and national conservation organizations are also working with us to support this 20-year moratorium on mining as well as to enact a more permanent prohibition under the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act.
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