Uranium

 by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director

After nearly a year of deliberation, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on two key cases related to uranium mining around Grand Canyon National Park.

First, the good news

The court upheld the 2012 mineral withdrawal issued by then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, which temporarily halts new uranium mining claims on over one million acres of public land around the Grand Canyon for a period of twenty years. 

Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon, writing for the three-judge panel, concluded: “At its core, the merits question in this case is whether the Secretary was allowed to adopt a cautious approach in the face of some risk, difficult to quantify based on current knowledge, to what he called ‘America’s greatest national wonder.’ …As Interior concluded, withdrawal of the area from new mining claims for a limited period will permit more careful, longer-term study of the uncertain effects of uranium mining in the area and better-informed decisionmaking in the future.”

The Trump administration could still act to lift the ban and the Forest Service has flagged it for review. The National Mining Association and others who had challenged the temporary ban in court could appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Or, the industry could prevail upon Congress to overturn the ban. As a spokesman for the association said, "It is now time for the Congress and the administration, working with the impacted states, to re-evaluate whether the withdrawal was justified based on the scientific, technical and socio-economic facts."

Nonetheless, the court’s decision is good news for the Grand Canyon, and for its waters, animals, and people.

Court greenlights Canyon Mine

While the uranium ban stands — for now — in a separate decision, the appeals court ruled that uranium mining at Canyon Mine, fewer than nine miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, could move ahead without any additional environmental review. The environmental impact of the mine, located in a meadow near Red Butte, a site sacred to the Havasupai Tribe, was last evaluated in the 1980s.

The tribe, the Grand Canyon Trust, and others remain deeply concerned about potential contamination at Canyon Mine, where workers drilling the mine shaft have already encountered groundwater.  

According to Dr. David Kreamer, a professor of hydrology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, “there’s a lot we don’t know about subsurface flow in the Grand Canyon. Anyone, including the mining companies, who claim they know the hydrology below the mines, really don’t know what they’re talking about." Kreamer adds, "Groundwater flow is not immediate. We may not find out what happens for a decade or two — essentially, we're gambling.” 

A two-minute overview of uranium mining at the Grand Canyon:

The court’s ruling is just the latest setback in the Havasupai’s long fight to protect their canyon home from uranium contamination. Havasupai elder Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla told the Guardian on Tuesday: “I’m very, very disappointed, but we will have to go on fighting for our survival, as our grandfathers and grandmothers fought and theirs before them.” 

After many long hours of work by Grand Canyon Trust and partner attorneys on these two cases, we’re considering legal options. We'll continue to defend the Grand Canyon mining ban in the halls of Congress and to urge state regulators to monitor the Canyon Mine closely. 

Grand Canyon mineral withdrawal on Capitol Hill

While Grand Canyon protectors celebrated the court’s decision to uphold the mineral withdrawal, the very same day Carletta Tilousi of the Havasupai Tribal Council was on Capitol Hill, defending the ban before a hearing of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources, chaired by Arizona Republican Paul Gosar, a vocal opponent of the Grand Canyon uranium ban.

Tilousi urged the committee and the Trump administration to leave the ban in place, concluding by saying: “On behalf of my family and the tribe, we urge this committee and President Trump not to lift the Northern Arizona Mineral Withdrawal because there are too many risks and many unanswered questions pertaining to the long-term effects of groundwater contamination. The Grand Canyon should be protected for all humanity and residents of the state of Arizona.”

Watch Tilousi’s five-minute testimony ›

After Tuesday’s hearing in the House, we remain concerned that Congress or the Trump administration could move to lift the ban.

Please take a moment to urge Secretary of the Interior Zinke, Secretary of Agriculture Perdue, and the Arizona congressional delegation to protect the Grand Canyon and keep the ban on new uranium claims ›

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

The Grand Canyon, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, is obviously protected from mining development, right? 

Wrong. 

Uranium mining outside park boundaries threatens to contaminate water sources that plants, animals, and communities rely on. Is America willing to sacrifice a place so magnificent and important, not just to our family vacations but to the very water supplies of millions of people, for the benefit of the private mining industry? 

To show you what’s at risk, the Grand Canyon Trust teamed up with filmmaker Justin Clifton to bring you this short film. We hope it informs and inspires you to take action. 

Show the Trump administration that Americans stand united to protect our crown jewel national park ›

Take action

Turn your alarmed, perhaps mind-boggled energy into action. Here’s what you can do: 

• Sign this petition
• Share the film on Facebook
• Call or write to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, and your members of Congress
• Become a supporter of the Grand Canyon Trust
• Ask your friends to do the same!

Not worth the risk

“Groundwater flow is not immediate. We may not find out what happens for a decade or two—essentially, we're gambling.”

—David Kreamer, Ph.D., Professor of Hydrology

In 2012, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazaar put a temporary stop on new uranium mining on more than one million acres around the Grand Canyon. The 20-year ban on new claims gives researchers time to study the region’s groundwater flows and better understand the risks mining poses to water sources in northern Arizona. 

However, this fall, the Forest Service recommended revising the ban. It’s uncertain what changes the agency has in mind, but this we know: Allowing new uranium mines to drill around the Grand Canyon before we understand the impacts is a gamble, one that’s not worth the risk of irreversibly harming one of the most magnificent landscapes on Earth. 

What’s at stake:  the water and way of life of the Havasupai Tribe

If the Supai water is contaminated, the future of my society, of my people, will disappear.

—Carletta Tilousi, Havasupai Tribe

The Havasupai, whose name means “people of the blue-green water,” live in a remote village deep inside the Grand Canyon. While the incredible waterfalls there draw tourists from around the world, the turquoise waters, for the Havasupai people, represent their identity and sole source of water. Uranium mining on the rim could contaminate Havasu Creek, devastating the Havasupai people’s traditional way of life.

Not a major economic driver

Mining does not drive our economy here. Access to public lands, that's what is our important economic driver here. 

—Coconino County Supervisor Art Babbott

In northern Arizona, the canyons, forests, and mountains draw millions of visitors each year. People travel from all over the country and world to stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon. The travel and tourism economy contributes an estimated 18,000 jobs to the northern Arizona economy. Travelers to the region also contribute $168 million in state and local taxes. Comparatively, if the withdrawal weren’t in place, it’s estimated that the mining industry, which pays no royalties on uranium, could support 636 jobs (including jobs not directly with mining companies). And even so, while any environmental consequences of uranium mining live on, uranium mining itself is not a long-lived endeavor. The uranium reserves at Canyon Mine, for instance, are estimated to reach depletion after ten years of mine operation, and Energy Fuels estimates its Canyon Mine operation will employ just 60 people at peak operation.

Some places are too precious to mine. The Grand Canyon is one of them. Sign the petition ›

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Back in March, President Trump issued a sweeping executive order requiring all heads of federal agencies to review and identify regulations, orders, and other actions that “potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources.”

Today, the U.S. Forest Service published its final report in response to that executive order, singling out 15 actions to target for revision. Among them, Public Land Order 7787, the 2012 Department of the Interior order that temporarily banned new uranium mines on over one million acres of public and national forest lands around Grand Canyon National Park for a period of 20 years.

According to the Forest Service report, the agency reviewed more than 70 of its actions and came away with 15 specific recommendations — among them, to revise the Grand Canyon mineral withdrawal. Strangely enough, the report also acknowledges that no nuclear energy is currently derived, nor royalty revenue earned, from uranium mined on national forest lands. It’s the private mining companies that stand to benefit from opening more lands to uranium mining, while the public, the Havasupai Tribe, and this sacred place itself bear the risks.

What kind of “revision”?

While the Forest Service identifies the Grand Canyon mining ban for "revision," it’s unclear at this time exactly what that means. It could mean shrinking the duration of the ban, set to expire in 2032, or reducing the acreage included in the ban, or both.

As far as we can tell based on the information available, it does not mean the agency is recommending lifting the ban entirely, something the mining industry has been pushing for in court. The Forest Service sets out a three-year timeline for revising the ban, from October 2017 to October 2020, and lists it as a priority “J” in a priority ranking system lettered A through K, relatively low priority compared to other regulations and actions it identifies as targets for revision.

Alarm bells

Understandably, this is alarming for many Americans who understand the dangers of prioritizing energy development above protecting people and the environment from its side effects. Among those alarmed, you can count the broad coalition of local governments, business owners, conservation groups, and tribes whose hard-fought campaign to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining led then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to order the temporary mining ban in 2012. The ban recognizes the toxic and radioactive history of uranium mining in the Southwest, and the irreplaceable nature of the land and water of the Grand Canyon. 

The purpose of the temporary ban was to allow scientists time to better understand the complex geology and groundwater flow around the Grand Canyon and to determine if uranium mining could be done safely in the region. Without this improved understanding, allowing any new mines to go forward would be gambling that they won’t contaminate the land and water resources critical to life and culture both within the canyon and beyond. 

Too precious to mine

Some places are too precious to mine. Grand Canyon is one of them. It’s our responsibility, as a nation, to show we are worthy of this natural wonder. Please, help us implore the Forest Service to Keep the Canyon Grand and reconsider its recommendation to review the common-sense mining ban.

Keep the ban. Sign the petition ›

 by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director

Why should we halt uranium mining in and around the Grand Canyon? Answer: It could put Grand Canyon waters — including the Havasupai Tribe's sole source of drinking water — at risk.

Earlier this year, Energy Fuels — the company that owns Canyon Mine and the White Mesa uranium mill in southern Utah — “proactively implemented emergency response actions including enhanced evaporation through the use of land sharks” at the Canyon uranium mine, according to a June 26, 2017 email (see page 27). 

What could be so dangerous as to trigger the use of such devilish-sounding devices?  Welcome to our second installment of "Why Ban Grand Canyon Uranium Mining?"

Too much water 

Canyon Mine is a uranium mine that was partially constructed during the 1980s on publically owned national forest land, six miles from where millions of visitors enter Grand Canyon National Park each year. After decades of dormancy, its owners recently completed digging the mine shaft to more than 1,400 feet beneath the surface. Problems arose, however, when the mine shaft filled with far more groundwater than expected.  

This winter, snowmelt and rain nearly filled the mine’s wastewater pond. As required by state and federal permits, all surface runoff from the 17-acre mine site must be captured and contained in this lined pond, including floodwaters from a 100-year storm event. The pond must also have enough capacity to collect any groundwater that is encountered when digging the mine shaft. Under ordinary circumstances, this lined pond is supposed to evaporate wastewater fast enough to make room for all surface wastewater and groundwater and capture runoff from major storms.

This past spring, circumstances were far from ordinary. As miners dug the shaft, they struck a water-bearing zone in the Coconino Sandstone, where “perched” aquifers are found. Unfortunately, they hit so much groundwater that they had to pump it out continuously to keep the shaft from completely filling with water. By March, the 3.3 million gallon pond was full, according to a May 23, 2017 email (see page 20). 

 by Aaron Paul, Staff Attorney

After years of hiding behind court deadlines, depositions, and legal briefs, I’ve run out of excuses for my editors here at the Grand Canyon Trust who have insisted that I finally write my first blog post for you, my dear readers, about something we all love talking about: losing. And though broadcasting one’s failures on the Internet is about as fun as, say, splitting the backside of one’s breeches at the middle school dance (I can only imagine), I have to admit that I’ve got a good deal of expertise on the subject. I’ve lost marathons. I’ve lost half-mile sprints. I’ve lost so many footraces that I’ve lost count of them all. I’ve lost spelling bees. (Who pronounces that middle “o” in sophomoric, anyway?) In the second grade, I lost a gal named Donna to my better-looking friend Jack. I’ve lost hope about ever getting over that one. (Jack also beat me in footraces.) I’ve lost teeth, my car keys, sleep, and true love. I’ve lost my shirt on bad bets. I once lost my suit pants on the streets of Washington D.C. I’ve lost track of time, my cool, and my train of thought. I’ve lost my dignity on a pair of Nordic skis on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I once lost my lunch in the South Dakota Badlands.

Until three weeks ago, though, I had not yet lost a profoundly important Clean Air Act case. And when I think about that, I find myself at a loss for words.

What happened? 

Well, recall that in 2012, the White Mesa uranium mill’s owner and operator — a company called Energy Fuels — reported to Utah state regulators that one of the radioactive waste pits at the mill had emitted more radon than federal regulations allow. For that year and the next, the state concluded that radon emissions from mill wastes were violating federal law. All the while, we at the Trust took the view that the company was failing to clean up nearly 200 acres of radioactive wastes at the mill as quickly as federal law requires. Believing state regulators had done too little to redress these problems, we sued, using authority that Congress created to enable We the People to enforce the Clean Air Act when the government doesn’t.

After three and a half years of feuding in federal court, we lost. 

Why?

To simplify a multifaceted case, we basically asked the court to look at a federal regulation’s text and ask what a typical English speaker would take the regulation to mean. The words of the regulation, after all, are where textual interpretation should begin and end if the text is clear. The company staked a competing claim. Because the regulation is technical, Energy Fuels insisted, professional state regulators, not courts, should say what it means. The short version — and I’m omitting a lot of nuance here — is that the company’s argument won out.

Whether that’s the right interpretation of the law or not depends mostly on your view of the permissible meanings that can be drawn from the words used in the regulation. I’ll leave that question to your judgment, with the aid, if you choose, of our arguments, Energy Fuels’ arguments, and the court’s order.

The White Mesa Mill, seen from the air. The main pilot area for testing the proposed cleanup plan at the mill is circled. ECOFLIGHT

The consequences of that interpretation are less metaphysical. Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sought a quarter-century ago to force uranium mills to incrementally and promptly clean up their radioactive wastes, and though the White Mesa Mill has been running for over 35 years, and though for more than two decades at least one of its waste pits has been full of radioactive waste and ready for reclamation (think covering the waste with dirt, plants, and rocks), not one square inch of waste at the mill has been fully and finally reclaimed. Had we won our lawsuit, we would’ve sought a court order to inspire some serious reclamation hustle. Without that order, the current plan at the mill is to carry out a postage-stamp-sized, seven-year pilot test of the company’s proposed reclamation plan, piling yet more delay on a cleanup that should’ve been finished long ago. 

The good news

Despite our loss, we have little doubt our lawsuit catalyzed some positive changes at the mill. After we filed, Energy Fuels decided to stop using a small pit at issue in our case that we viewed as a contamination risk. While the lawsuit was pending, the company also sought the state’s approval of reclamation deadlines for the first time, a major point of dispute in our case. And since we sued, the company has so far managed its waste pits to keep average annual radon emissions below the law’s limits.

What’s next? 

Dour navel-gazing is one option, but to that we say no thank you. We’re going to stand our ground. The main state licenses governing the mill’s operations and cleanup plan are up for renewal. We’ve submitted comments to the state decision-makers and we won’t be backing down from them. And focusing scrutiny on the mill’s dubious business of processing uranium-bearing wastes so that the resulting “tailings” can be discarded at the mill remains a priority. If Energy Fuels fully paid for the environmental and public health costs of mining uranium around the Grand Canyon and discarding radioactive wastes at White Mesa, could the company turn a profit making nuclear fuel? We doubt it.

Let’s lose no time.

Sign up for updates and action alerts ›

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

The nation’s last operating conventional uranium mill’s bid to renew its operating permits and accept radioactive sludge from a toxic site in Oklahoma is creating quite a stir in Utah, with a public comment period set to close July 31, 2017.

The White Mesa uranium mill is located near the small Ute Mountain Ute tribal community of White Mesa, whose residents live down-gradient and often downwind of the mill, and many of whom oppose the permit renewal. Last month, the Salt Lake Tribune weighed in, editorializing that the “Rules for White Mesa uranium mill are not confidence inspiring.” The mill is a destination for uranium ore mined around the Grand Canyon and for toxic and radioactive wastes from across the country. “[W]hat reason is there to have any faith that either the company or the state really cares about how the plant is operated or what threats it might pose to the surrounding area?” the Tribune asks.

Is groundwater beneath the mill contaminated? You bet.  

Mark Chalmers, the chief operating officer of Energy Fuels Resources, the American subsidiary of the Canadian company that owns and operates the mill as well as several uranium mines around the Grand Canyon, shot back in an editorial of his own, claiming the “White Mesa Mill is regulated and environmentally safe.”

Mr. Chalmers insists that his company, Energy Fuels, runs the White Mesa uranium mill like a boy scout. So why use corporate jargon to hide the ball? “There is no evidence,” Mr. Chalmers says, “that groundwater has been impacted by the mill’s tailings cells.” But is groundwater beneath the mill contaminated? You bet it is.

White Mesa uranium mill as seen from the air. Photo by Bruce Gordon, EcoFlight.

Energy Fuels, taking advantage of the inherent complexity of groundwater science, embraces the dearth of non-technical public information to broadly claim there is “no evidence” that the cells are to blame and to imply that the case has been closed. But at least from the Tribe’s perspective, that’s still up for debate. 

TAKE ACTION:  Urge the state of Utah to revise the White Mesa Mill’s radioactive materials license ›

The mill complies “with every applicable law, rule and regulation,” Mr. Chalmers asserts. Since when? Recently, the mill’s waste pits have been emitting radon in violation of federal air-quality standards. And the alternate-feed business, per Mr. Chalmers, amounts to “recycling unusable materials into a clean energy.” But does the mill recycle everything? Nowhere close. The leftover waste — radioactive, toxic, and otherwise — is buried forever in acres and acres of space next to the mill.

So look, Energy Fuels may not be slapdash about public health or environmental safety. But if the company wants people to trust that it has a no-nonsense approach to the standards governing the mill, it should start by telling a no-nonsense story about the mill.

“Contaminating the bones of my ancestors”

A few days after Mr. Chalmers’ op-ed, Ute Mountain Ute tribal member and community activist Yolanda Badback, who lives in White Mesa, wrote in to ask regulators to “Put White Mesa’s children ahead of uranium mill.”

Badback explains: “When the mill's running, it smells like chemicals at my house. We take in radiation from the mill, me, my kids, my mom, my family, my people. The trucks that come and go from the mill are dangerous, especially for my kids and other kids in White Mesa who ride the school bus by the mill. The mill was built on top of burial grounds and contaminates the bones of my ancestors.”

Concerned community members in White Mesa. Photo by Corey Robinson.

Badback urges Utah regulators to take action to protect the White Mesa community. Between now and July 31, you can do the same.

Send your comment to the state of Utah now

The Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control will accept public comments by email and postal mail until July 31, 2017.

Email comments to dwmrcpublic@utah.gov with the subject line: “Public Comment on White Mesa RML Renewal” or use our comment form › 

Submit comments by mail:

Learn more about the problems with the mill’s proposed license renewal › 

 by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director

­­The Havasupai Tribe recently hosted a gathering to oppose uranium mining in and around the Grand Canyon. They hope to halt Canyon Mine, a uranium mine located a few miles from the South Rim that threatens to contaminate their sole source of drinking water, and to protect their sacred homeland from an unconscionable sacrifice.

Tribal council member Coleen Kaska said: “The message that we’re trying to send is listen to us. Hear our voices. Hear the native people’s voices. Hear the Havasupai Tribe. We’re a small tribe but we have a big voice, we have a big area to protect, Grand Canyon area as our sacred religious territory and aboriginal lands. We are still here and wanting to protect our Mother Earth.”

In late June, a group of cultural leaders and young Havasupai men left their home in the bottom of the Grand Canyon to prepare a sweat lodge and ceremonial grounds on the western slope of Red Butte. The U.S. Forest service issued them a permit to use the national forest that now occupies their aboriginal land. Havasupai elders, grandchildren, and families arrived two days later — the first day of summer — and were soon joined by hundreds of relatives from neighboring tribes and native communities from as far away as Mexico and Canada.

Ceremony 

For four consecutive days, singers rose before dawn to fill the basin beneath Red Butte with heart-pounding drum beats and prayerful songs. 

Runners gathered under a still starlit sky to sprinkle water from their spring-fed Havasu Creek on top of Red Butte at sunrise. Many others gathered at the fire circle to pray and be smudged by smoldering sage before walking 3.6 miles in peaceful protest along the gravel road, which dead ends at Canyon Mine’s security gate. Tarp-covered ore trucks may soon be hauling uranium from the mine through several native communities to the White Mesa Mill in southeast Utah.

Speakers, singers, and dancers filled afternoons and evenings under the cover of a 6,000-square-foot tent. Elders led round dances and shared stories about their long battle to stop uranium mining. Tribal members took turns at the sweat lodge and tending the ceremonial fire at the center of the prayer circle. 

Political and cultural leaders from many neighboring nations testified of their resolve to end uranium’s deadly legacy and spoke of their commitment to restore harmony to the land.

“The Havasupai are resilient people,” wrote Havasupai Tribal Council member Carletta Tilousi in an editorial. “We have resided in and around the Grand Canyon for many centuries. This struggle is not about money to us, it is about human life.”

Red Butte and persistence

Red Butte is a resistant stack of silty sandstone that stands prominently near Grand Canyon National Park’s busiest point of entry. While geologists date its deposition to the age of the dinosaurs, the Havasupai believe it to be the lungs of a living landscape, a place that is connected to the sky by surrounding peaks and to the sea by its scarce and sacred waters.

Early residents in the region placed stones pointing to where the sun sets on the summer solstice, and when followed in the opposite direction, to where the sun rises on the winter solstice. Precise tracking of changing seasons aided in gathering and growing enough food and securing sufficient water to survive in this drought-prone region, where people have been praying and persisting for millennia.  

The prayer gathering coincided with this year’s summer solstice. It began during a prolonged period of cloudless skies and excessive heat warnings. Officials from the Kaibab National Forest had put fire bans in place, but they made an exception for the tribe’s ceremonial use of fire. 

On the final afternoon, a soaking rain swept across the parched land and released the bittersweet scent of sage. Gathering members took this to mean that their prayers had been heard. Convinced of the power of ceremony on hallowed ground, Havasupai leaders are already planning for their next gathering at Red Butte.

Worried about uranium mining on the Colorado Plateau? So are we.

TAKE ACTION:  Urge the state of Utah to revise the White Mesa Mill’s radioactive materials license ›

 by Anne Mariah Tapp, Law and Policy Advisor

The Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control has announced its plan to let the White Mesa uranium mill keep running for another 10 years by renewing the mill’s radioactive materials license. The public has until July 31, 2017 to weigh in and urge the division to take every precaution to protect southeastern Utah’s communities, lands, waters, and wildlife.

The radioactive materials license is one of three main permits that control operations at the uranium mill; it is effectively the mill’s operating permit. It governs how much uranium and radioactive waste the White Mesa Mill can process and how the mill manages its large waste pits that permanently store radioactive and toxic waste directly above southeastern Utah’s groundwater aquifers. It also lays out how the mill owners will clean up the site after the mill stops operating to reduce the chance of poisoning nearby communities, lands, waters, and wildlife.  

The  proposed license misses an opportunity to minimize the public-health and environmental risks the mill creates and reduces the odds that the mill’s owner and operator, Energy Fuels, walks away from cleaning up the White Mesa Mill at the expense of taxpayers and the health of southeastern Utah. 

TAKE ACTION:  Urge the state of Utah to revise the White Mesa Mill’s radioactive materials license ›

A worrisome pattern

The Grand Canyon Trust’s concerns about the White Mesa uranium mill — the last of its kind in the country — are simple. We know that uranium mills in Monticello, Tuba City, and Moab have caused groundwater pollution and poisoned air, hurting nearby communities — damage that is still occurring decades after the mills have stopped operating.  It’s a concerning pattern that has caused human suffering and long-term damage to lands, water, and wildlife across our region. We worry that the same problems are occurring right now at White Mesa and may persist long into the future.

So when the state of Utah issues an operating permit for the White Mesa Mill, we take it seriously. We want to be sure that regulators are taking every step they can to avoid repeating the patterns of the past. 

Case study: Monticello, Utah

Take Monticello for example, a 2,000-person town located a short drive from White Mesa. A mill operated in Monticello from 1942 until 1960, producing uranium and vanadium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Milling activities generated thousands of cubic yards of waste containing uranium and heavy metals, which contaminated soil, surface water, and groundwater with heavy metals and radioactive constituents. 

In 1986, more than a quarter-century after it closed, the mill was declared a Superfund Site – a listing that identifies an area as one of the most toxic sites in North America. Properties in Monticello and near the mill site were contaminated by windblown dust from uranium waste piles, and waste carried by water in Montezuma Creek. A plume of contaminated groundwater still sits below the former mill site and extends over a mile downstream. According to the United States Department of Energy, “the plume, primarily contaminated by uranium, has a negative effect on surface-water quality. The primary source of groundwater contamination was tailings that were impounded on the mill site.” 

Monticello cancer study

Public health experts and the state of Utah have been studying elevated cancer rates in Monticello. These studies have revealed that cases of lung cancer occurred three times as frequently in Monticello as among Utah's population as a whole and also found elevated stomach cancer levels in some test groups. The methodology of the study prevented the authors from being able to definitively tie the high cancer rates to any cause, including the operation of the uranium mill. However, the study concluded that “these results suggest a potential link.”  With public health risks like these, why not take every precaution possible? 

But only about 30 miles down the road from Monticello, the state of Utah may not learn from the lessons of the past. If the license that Utah plans to issue to the White Mesa Mill remains unchanged, we fear a situation similar to the one in Monticello could develop — once again at the expense of southeastern Utah. 

Here are a few of the biggest problems with the proposed license:

• Underinsured Polluting. The license requires Energy Fuels to guarantee that the state of Utah will get a lump sum to clean up the mill if Energy Fuels doesn’t clean it up, much like an insurance policy. If that guarantee is too low and the company walks away without cleaning up the mill, those living nearby will suffer from whatever toxic mess is left behind until taxpayers fund a cleanup. Right now, the company’s guarantee is about $20 million, a figure that reflects the company’s estimates of how much the cleanup will cost if everything goes according to plan, including a cushion of just over $3 million for unforeseen costs. But cleaning up a uranium mill is a complicated and uncertain venture that can cost way more than $20 million. Energy Fuels and the state of Utah are basically planning for a near best-case scenario, but the point of insurance is to deal with the risk of a worst-case scenario. Utah should make Energy Fuels bear that risk, not the public, by requiring the company to put up a much larger guarantee.

• Missing Cleanup Deadlines. Since 1994, the law has required Energy Fuels to have a deadline-driven plan for cleaning up the mill in phases while it’s still operating. Beginning in 1997, the company has submitted several cleanup plans that have no deadlines at all. We think some cleanup obligations have languished as a result. Though the company’s new proposed cleanup plan has some enforceable deadlines, others are vague, leaving too much leeway about exactly what has to be accomplished when. Utah should set enforceable deadlines for each step of the cleanup process.

• Risky Business. The mill was built in the late 1970s to process mined uranium ore from southeast Utah and the surrounding region. Since the 1990s, the mill’s owners have been chasing a new source of revenue by running “alternate feeds” through the mill and disposing of the resulting wastes on site. These feeds include uranium-bearing wastes from other contaminated places around the country and may be more radioactive and toxic than typical uranium-milling wastes.

The state of Utah used to oppose this practice, but is now planning to let Energy Fuels process a new alternate feed — a radioactive sludge left over from enriching uranium at a defunct plant near the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma run by a company called Sequoyah Fuels.

Discarding wastes like the Sequoyah Fuels sludge at White Mesa is a dubious practice that relies on the convoluted legal reasoning of a few technocrats, not a painstaking, public debate about whether to bury this problem at a uranium mill not built for that purpose. For that reason alone, Utah should keep the Sequoyah Fuels waste out of White Mesa.

Are you worried? So are we. And the state of Utah needs to know that we care about the future of this place — about our neighbors, our children, our backyard, our hunting grounds, and the rivers and springs that give life to this desert landscape. You can make a difference by raising your voices. Join us in taking action now.  

Take action

The Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control will accept public comments by email and postal mail until July 31, 2017.

Email comments to dwmrcpublic@utah.gov with the subject line: “Public Comment on White Mesa RML Renewal” or use our comment form › 

Submit comments by mail:

See drafts of the radioactive materials license, groundwater discharge permit, and other documents ›

 by Anne Mariah Tapp, Law and Policy Advisor

Last month, over a hundred people gathered to walk to the White Mesa uranium mill, taking a stand against uranium contamination. The protest walk was organized and led by White Mesa Concerned Community, a grassroots group based in White Mesa, Utah, whose leaders — all members of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe — have been fighting against the nearby White Mesa Mill for over a decade.

White Mesa Concerned Community was joined by Ute Mountain Ute tribal members from reservations in White Mesa, Utah and Towaoc, Colorado, concerned citizens of the nearby Navajo Nation who are directly impacted by the hauling of uranium to the White Mesa Mill, neighbors from Moab, Bluff, and Salt Lake City, and supporters from as far away as Australia — all working in solidarity to protect communities from uranium contamination. 

Watch a one-minute video of the May 13, 2017 protest rally and spiritual walk:

Mill’s license up for renewal

The walk came as the state of Utah considers three key licensing decisions to allow the White Mesa uranium mill to continue operating:

1. The renewal of the mill’s radioactive materials license – basically its operating permit. This license will determine how the mill is allowed to operate and how it will be cleaned up.
2. The renewal of the mill’s groundwater discharge permit, which governs the mill’s impact on groundwater underneath the facility’s massive waste ponds.
3. Whether the White Mesa Mill will be the final resting place for highly controversial radioactive waste shipped from the Sequoyah Fuels site near the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

The state of Utah is accepting comments from the public until July 31, 2017. A public hearing is scheduled for June 8 in Salt Lake City, and a public meeting for June 15 in Blanding, Utah.

Striking out against injustice

The story of uranium on the Colorado Plateau is a story of injustice. From east to west and north to south, the Colorado Plateau’s communities, red mesas, slot canyons, dense forests, and hardworking rivers and streams bear the impact of this toxic industry. And too often, just as with the White Mesa Mill, the communities most impacted have been those of Native American tribal members, left with cancer clusters, devastated lands, and poisoned waters.

This is not a story buried in the past; it is a story being written today in Utah’s red rock country and one that is memorializing its legacy in the groundwater that feeds the Grand Canyon’s seeps and springs. It is a modern-day story whose every twist and turn leads you back to the White Mesa uranium mill, the processing site for every ton of uranium ore mined on the Colorado Plateau. The only conventional uranium mill still operating in the United States, it’s located three miles from the Ute Mountain Ute tribal community of White Mesa, Utah.

Speak up during public comment period

It’s important that regulators hear from you. We’ve been working with partners and supporters to put White Mesa on the map, both literally and metaphorically, through legal action and organizing, and this public comment period is a rare opportunity to make your voice heard. 

Attend in person

*Audience members will have a chance to comment publicly and pose questions to regulators.

Submit written comments by July 31, 2017

Read the public notice from the Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control ›

See drafts of the radioactive materials license, groundwater discharge permit, and other documents ›

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more information about specific concerns you might consider including in your comments.

The Colorado Plateau and its communities have borne the impacts of the uranium industry for too long. Now is the time to stand up for White Mesa and to protect the communities, land, water, wildlife, and clean air of the Colorado Plateau from toxic uranium contamination.  

Take action. Protect the Colorado Plateau from uranium mining and milling ›

 by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director

For decades, regulatory agencies and mining companies have said it’s safe to mine uranium in and around the Grand Canyon. But accumulating evidence and events are debunking that belief. 

This spring, the freshly sunk shaft of Canyon uranium mine flooded with groundwater. Per the mine’s “aquifer protection permit” issued by the state of Arizona, water was pumped from the mine shaft and into the on-site containment pond. But the lined pond was already nearly filled with seasonal snowmelt. The mine’s operator, Energy Fuels Resources Inc., needed to find somewhere else for this excess water to go. Complicating matters, the company reported dissolved uranium levels in the pond at three times the safe drinking water standard.

Soon Energy Fuels started trucking water off-site to a disposal site for radioactive materials and using wastewater evaporation cannons to shoot poisoned pond water into the sky. Witnesses’ photos show mist from geysers of wastewater drifting into the surrounding national forest.

In response, neither the U.S. Forest Service, which originally permitted the mine in 1986, nor the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, established a year later, has fined the mine owner for violating any state or federal regulation. The state agency did require the company to add “particulate matter” to Canyon Mine’s air quality permit to account for the new source of air pollution — essentially giving it permission to pollute. 

Same old thinking applied to an emerging problem 

Both agencies assume that Canyon Mine’s containment pond is sufficient to prevent any risk to ground or surface water. In the past, regulators have said there will be little harm should the mine shaft fill with groundwater. 

Energy Fuels has denied a problem exists. Industry experts, such as mining consultant and former federal geologist Karen Wenrich, have testified before Congress that uranium mines near the Grand Canyon are small and “dry” and pose no risk to the underlying aquifer that feeds the Grand Canyon’s seeps and springs. “The water table is way below the level of the [Canyon] mine,” Wenrich said in a recent interview.

A spokesman for Energy Fuels told National Geographic in 2016:

The mining we do here is heavily regulated. There are major controls for water protection, both ground and surface water protection, which basically means that no water can enter or exit the site except through precipitation.

The regulators are failing us, relying on insufficient measures

In claiming that there is no evidence of groundwater contamination, the company fails to mention that Arizona does not require monitoring wells for uranium mines. Unlike copper and other types of mining elsewhere in the state, Canyon Mine’s aquifer protection permit requires no monitoring wells. Nor must it comply with the best management practices and compliance measures developed by the Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service for the Grand Canyon uranium mining district in 2012.

Updated conservation measures include commonsense practices such as drilling at least one monitoring well up-gradient and two down-gradient from the mine to detect when dissolved uranium reaches the nearby aquifer. This precautionary measure would trigger emergency action to stop a plume of contamination from spreading to water wells and groundwater-fed springs, before it is too late to prevent irreparable harm.

In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey reported 15 springs and five wells already permanently polluted as the result of uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region. Nonetheless, when the U. S. Forest Service reviewed Canyon Mine in 2012, it ignored this new information and allowed the owners to resume sinking the shaft after the mine had been on “standby” for more than two decades. 

The agency saw no need to update or revise the 1986 plan of operations, no need to require monitoring wells, and no need to adopt any other compliance measures.

Havasupai concerns

The regulatory agencies’ willingness to put the Havasupai people’s sole source of drinking water at risk is of grave concern to the tribe. Standing outside Canyon Mine’s security fence in 2015, tribal councilwoman Carletta Tilousi predicted that the mine “is going to contaminate our groundwater source…And when this contamination does reach our home, there’ll be no more Havasupai.” 

Earlier this year the Havasupai Tribal Council and community members learned that the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality failed to notify a Navajo community in eastern Arizona that their drinking water contained unsafe levels of dissolved uranium. This example fuels distrust in the same agency that issues aquifer protection permits for Canyon uranium mine, while conceding to industry claims that monitoring wells are unnecessary.

Why ban Grand Canyon uranium mines? 

In 1986, the U.S. Forest Service permitted Canyon uranium mine to open within miles of Grand Canyon National Park and in the headwaters of Havasu Creek. The agency concluded that “neither the water quality on the Havasupai Indian Reservation nor Grand Canyon National Park should be environmentally affected either directly or indirectly by the development of the Canyon Mine.”

The agency’s steadfast resistance to change the outdated conclusion is concerning, given what we now know about the harm already inflicted on the Grand Canyon and uranium mining’s devastating effects on nearby tribal lands. In 2005, the Navajo Nation permanently banned all uranium mining and milling on its sovereign lands. 

Nonetheless, state and federal regulators are so far standing behind the mining industry’s assurance that Canyon Mine poses no risk to the Grand Canyon or to the Havasupai people who live there. 

Why ban uranium mines on public lands that surround the Grand Canyon? One clear reason is because regulatory agencies are prone to capture by the same industries that they regulate. If we cannot count on them to act in the public interest, then the public must act. To fully protect this region, the temporary ban on new uranium mines near the Grand Canyon must be made permanent and monitoring wells should be required at Canyon Mine, where contamination of the aquifer may already be well underway.

Please sign the petition to defend the Grand Canyon from new uranium mines ›