The U.S. wants to quadruple nuclear power generation. Is less than two years of nuclear fuel worth sacrificing the Grand Canyon region when past uranium booms have already contaminated lands and waters and still sicken many across the Southwest?
As the U.S. push for more nuclear power accelerates, uranium proponents have touted the Grand Canyon region as an important source of domestic uranium.
But a closer look at the numbers reveals that peppering the Grand Canyon region with mines would contribute little to U.S. uranium independence. There’s simply not enough minable uranium in the ground here.
And the region’s one operating uranium mine is a cautionary tale.
Contaminant problem plagues Grand Canyon uranium mine
There’s currently one uranium mine operating in the Grand Canyon region: Pinyon Plain Mine inside Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, south of Grand Canyon National Park. Mining began there in 2023.
Back in 2016, long before ore extraction began at the mine, Pinyon Plain Mine’s owner struck groundwater while digging the mine’s main shaft. When groundwater encounters oxygen and mineralized rock, like in a mine shaft, uranium and other minerals like arsenic and lead can dissolve into the water.
The result? The company now has to manage millions of gallons of contaminated water on an ongoing basis and for however long there is water flowing into the mine. If it doesn’t — a particular risk after the mine is closed — water with high levels of uranium, lead, and arsenic could potentially leach into adjacent and underlying groundwater aquifers.
See a timeline of problems at Pinyon Plain Mine
Since 2016, the mine has taken on nearly 74 million gallons of water and counting. In this arid landscape, this could mean eventual groundwater contamination or groundwater depletion. The Havasupai Tribe worries the mine could contaminate groundwater, seeps, and springs within the Grand Canyon, including the water supply for the tribe’s remote village of Supai.
Contamination from the last uranium boom still hasn’t been cleaned up
Communities and tribes in the region are also concerned that uranium ore is once again being hauled across lands and through communities already forced to manage the ongoing contamination from the previous uranium mining bonanza in the 1950s and ‘60s. More than 500 abandoned uranium mines across the Navajo Nation still haven’t been cleaned up.
Community members from within the Navajo Nation, Hopi and Havasupai tribes, and the towns of White Mesa and Bluff, Utah and Tusayan and Flagstaff, Arizona and others remain concerned about possible trucking accidents and risks of further radioactive contamination.
The uranium industry’s history of contamination and the generational trauma and health issues that that contamination has caused are being minimized amid a national narrative that says the United States needs more uranium to fuel current and future nuclear power generation.
How is U.S. policy helping uranium companies?
Since taking office for the second time, President Trump and members of his administration have issued many orders intended to open the doors wide for mineral extraction, including uranium.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued Secretarial Order 3418, which calls for the review of land protections, including national monuments, to make way for mining and energy development.
President Trump has issued executive orders to expedite mining reviews and call for the overhaul of public land management plans that don’t already consider mining to be the primary land use. The president’s executive orders also carve out paths for more accessible financing for uranium companies.
In May 2025, President Trump mandated that the U.S. quadruple its nuclear power generation over the next 25 years from 100 GW to 400 GW. This is a mind-boggling expansion considering the only new reactors to be built in the U.S. in the past 30 years generate just over 2 GW. And they took 15 years and over $30 billion to build.
The Grand Canyon region doesn’t have enough uranium to scale up nuclear power
As it stands today, U.S. nuclear power plants currently consume about 46 million pounds of yellowcake equivalent in fuel each year. That’s the average over the past decade according to U.S. Energy Information Administration uranium marketing reports.
To quadruple nuclear generation capacity, the U.S. will need significantly more uranium. At face value, you might see why some decision-makers might simply say, “Mine, baby, mine!” But a responsible approach demands that we look at the bank account before we start hastily making withdrawals.
The U.S. holds a mere 1% of global unmined uranium reserves. The Grand Canyon region is often touted as holding the best reserves in the country, at least by those who continue to argue against the current bans on new mining in the region. But according to a government analysis, the entire Grand Canyon region is known to hold only 30.3 million pounds of mineable uranium (yellowcake equivalent) at a uranium price of $100 per pound.
It’s possible that there could be an additional 49 million pounds minable at that price if undiscovered quantities are confirmed. For reference, the average long-term price of uranium in 2025, which was high (uranium prices tend to fluctuate), was about $81 per pound.
In total, if uranium continues to get more expensive and if hard-won land protections, including Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni national monument, were removed to allow more mines to be developed in the region (approximately a dozen or more), best estimates suggest that around 79 million pounds could be had from the Grand Canyon region.
But where would all that mining get us? Even if 79 million pounds could be mined, that would only cover our existing annual nuclear fuel demand for fewer than two years. And if more nuclear comes online, that portion only shrinks. When nuclear reactors operate for 30 to 80 years, all the minable uranium in the Grand Canyon region simply does not add up to much.
Dangerous implications for the Grand Canyon
When leaders make decisions that promote more government support for domestic uranium mining in anticipation of a nuclear renaissance without taking measure of what they’re getting and the price to be paid, the implications are very real and very dangerous for the Grand Canyon region and those who live here.
We owe it to communities on the front lines of the nuclear fuel cycle to be realistic. Rushing to mine uranium and bulldozing community concerns with fast-tracked reviews and less public input in the process in the name of U.S. nuclear independence that is currently technologically and geologically impossible is foolhardy.
Before irreplaceable landscapes and critical water supplies are put at risk or irreparably harmed in the name of more nuclear power, we must understand the tradeoffs. Regardless of the future of nuclear in the U.S. energy mix, sacrificing the Grand Canyon region is not the answer.
How can you help protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining?
Sign the petition to oppose Canyon Mine, also known as Pinyon Plain Mine, which is mining uranium inside Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni national monument.
