by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director
Christmas came early for Grand Canyon uranium mines. The secret Santas at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) gift wrapped air pollution permits for three uranium mines. All three uranium mines are located within a few miles of the Grand Canyon State’s most popular national park.
Canyon Mine has been the center of controversy since the early 1980s, when Havasupai people first objected to drilling for uranium near their sole source of drinking water, within their sacred Red Butte cultural area, located near the entrance to the park’s south rim.
On the North Rim, Pinenut uranium mine is mined out, but still in need of a permit renewal because its stockpiled uranium ore is spewing radioactive dust into the Grand Canyon.
And while the so-called “EZ” mine is a mere twinkle in some investor’s eye, the secret Santas at the ADEQ knew that one day it too would need a pollution permit.
Five years ago, the ADEQ convened contentious public hearings before issuing air and water permits for the same three uranium mines. Town and tribal councils, county supervisors, business owners, and residents living along the routes where uranium ore is being hauled turned out in droves to question the wisdom of enveloping the Grand Canyon with dusty roads, power lines, and fenced-off industrial sites, closed to hunting, camping, and recreating on public lands near the park. Plus these land-grabbing developments put virtually nothing back into local economies, while sticking taxpayers with a big lump of coal: the cost of decontaminating the mess after investors have pocketed their profits and shell companies have dissolved into bankruptcy.
As it turns out, the ADEQ elves decided to avoid all the public fuss this time around. The deadline for commenting on the air pollution permit renewals is less than three weeks away. And, thank goodness, no public hearings to snuff our festive spirits.
Perhaps because it’s all been said before, the ADEQ dusted off the old permits, changed little, and quietly snuck them under our trees for comment by January 4, 2016. All three permits are virtually identical. And, as tradition would have it, they consistently ignore all of the substantive issues raised in permits past.
The ADEQ did review the applications for renewal. However, while cutting and pasting its generic text, someone forgot to delete the location listed for the previous mine permit. Hence, readers are misinformed that the EZ mine is “located on the Coconino Plateau in Coconino County, Arizona approximately 6.5 miles southeast of Tusayan” where, in fact, the Canyon Mine is located. If the EZ Mine is ever permitted to occupy public land, it will be located in another county and the other side of the Grand Canyon.
In response to the ADEQ’s notice of permit renewals, Grand Canyon Trust and allies have submitted comments. We’ve listed all of the concerns and deficiencies that the ADEQ should have addressed in comments that we submitted in 2011. Plus, we’ve added a few more and made two requests.
We're asking the ADEQ to:
Please join us in repeating these requests—with resounding joy.
To review the draft AIR QUALITY CLASS II SYNTHETIC MINOR PERMITS for Canyon Mine (permit #62877), EZ Mine (permit #62878), and Pinenut Mine (permit #62876), please see:
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