Less than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, a trip by the Canyon Mine might warrant a detour on your journey to one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Especially if you’re curious to see how the newly revived uranium mine, with its out-of-date environmental review, is progressing toward eventually producing uranium ore on land you, as an American citizen, own in the Kaibab National Forest.
If you’ve taken that detour over the past couple of weeks, you were likely greeted with a rather big surprise: large volumes of water being pumped out of the mine's shaft into a pond and misted into the air over the pond using "land sharks"—water cannons meant to speed up evaporation.
on
February 22 2017
Tim Peterson
by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director
Bears Ears National Monument is not yet two months old — hardly enough time to settle into its new protected status. Yet a now idle uranium mine — the Daneros Mine — threatens to truck more than 500,000 tons of radioactive rock through the new monument, one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering allowing the Daneros uranium mine to expand to 10 times its current footprint. Located less than three miles from monument boundaries, the enlarged mine would significantly impact the monument and continue southeast Utah’s sorry history of radioactive contamination resulting from unsafe, uneconomic, and unnecessary uranium mining and milling.
The backstory
In July 2016, the mine operator announced its intent to expand and prolong the life of Daneros Mine:
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January 26 2017
Blake McCord
by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director
On January 17, 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its rule meant to curb toxic air pollution from radioactive uranium-milling wastes like those generated by the White Mesa uranium mill in southeast Utah. This was the first update to the rule since 1989.
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA regulates emissions of hazardous air pollutants, which are known to cause cancer and other serious illnesses. One of the 187 contaminants currently listed by the EPA as a hazardous air pollutant is radon, a gas produced by the radioactive decay of uranium. Radon is emitted from the waste tailings generated by uranium mills and other uranium-recovery facilities. Those emissions are regulated by a rule called “Subpart W.”
In 2014, the Trust and many of our members commented on the EPA’s proposed revisions to Subpart W. Thanks to public comments, the EPA made some positive changes to the proposed rule. Most important, an existing numeric limit on radon emissions that the agency had planned to eliminate was instead retained, with a few modifications. That will make it easier for the public to keep tabs on how much radon is being put off by some of the White Mesa Mill’s wastes, and it maintains a clear line as to exactly what amount of radon emissions is prohibited.
The agency, unfortunately, made some other changes that may turn out badly for public health and the environment. One of the major goals of the EPA’s rule is to force uranium producers to clean up the messes they make as they go. That reduces the hazards posed by the industry’s wastes — and leaves a smaller mess for taxpayers to clean up — if those producers abandon their facilities without reclaiming them. The new rule still has that objective, but it may let some facilities keep a much larger waste area open and defer reclamation costs to the detriment of the environment, the public’s health, and the public purse.
Although it will take some time to judge exactly how the EPA’s new rule will work on the ground, one thing is clear now: The EPA should have looked at ways to further reduce radon emissions from uranium-processing wastes. When the EPA regulates emissions of hazardous air pollutants like radon, the agency’s first step is to require industry either to reduce emissions as much as technologically possible or to use “generally available” technologies to control emissions. In its revisions to Subpart W, the EPA chose to require only that “generally available” technologies be used, meaning that the agency didn’t look into whether greater reductions in radon emissions were possible. We think that decision was out of step with the Clean Air Act, and, because of it, there’s no way for the public to be sure that the restrictions the agency imposed are truly the most appropriate for protecting the environment and human health.
For people living near the White Mesa Mill, the fact that the revised rule retained some protections may come as a small comfort. The mill’s wastes will remain radioactive for lifetimes, and unless they’re dug up and buried elsewhere, they’ll continue to pose a threat to the environment and those living nearby. We believe places like White Mesa, Utah, that brave the menace of the uranium industry’s radioactive wastes, deserve a tougher rule. But we don’t intend to let the rule that the EPA wrote get in the way of our commitment to pressing for the White Mesa Mill to be properly cleaned up.
Yesterday, the White House informed Arizona Representative Raúl Grijalva that President Obama will not designate the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument before leaving office later this month, leaving more than a million acres around the Grand Canyon vulnerable to uranium mining.
Grijalva introduced the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Act in October 2015. Drafted in close collaboration with the Havasupai, Hualapai, and Hopi tribes and supported by the Navajo Nation, Zuni, Paiute, and Yavapai leaders, the proposed monument would have protected 1.7 million acres of tribal homeland around the Grand Canyon, including water sources and sacred sites, and banned new uranium mines and claims. It also would have made the current 20-year mineral withdrawal, which bans new uranium mines on a million acres around the Grand Canyon, permanent. No such luck.
“The Havasupai people are on the verge of human extinction due to massive uranium development on the rims of the Grand Canyon. As the original people of this country, we are the most targeted by international mining companies who come into our territories and contaminate our waters and homes. We are very disappointed in the Obama administration for failing to protect the Grand Canyon,” said Havasupai Councilwoman Carletta Tilousi.
Presidential proclamation off the table
With a presidential proclamation via the Antiquities Act (like the one President Obama used to protect Bears Ears last month) off the table for the Grand Canyon, Grijalva is reintroducing the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Act today and making a final push for the bill in Congress. However, with the clock ticking and Arizona’s congressional delegation staunchly opposed to the monument, despite overwhelming support for the monument from voters in Arizona and nationwide, most likely, when the 115th Congress adjourns, the only thing protecting a million acres around the Grand Canyon from thousands of new uranium mining claims will be the temporary 2012 Department of Interior mineral withdrawal, which is currently under attack in the courts.
This is a real setback for the Grand Canyon. As of today, the 20-year mineral withdrawal issued by then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in 2012, which currently bans new uranium mines around the Grand Canyon, is in danger, whether it be from attacks by the Trump administration, Congress, or the National Mining Association. We expect opponents of the withdrawal to come at it with everything they've got. Within months, or even weeks, the withdrawal could be revoked, opening up the Grand Canyon to more than 3,000 new uranium mining claims.
Defending the Grand Canyon in court
This is gut-check time. To stop a rollback of protections around the Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon Trust and partners are currently in court, defending the 20-year withdrawal from an attack by the National Mining Association and demanding that the Forest Service require mine operators to conduct a new environmental review before allowing uranium mining to resume at the Canyon Mine, near Grand Canyon National Park.
Three generations of Havasupai Tribe members perform a round dance in protest at the Canyon uranium mine, near Grand Canyon National Park.
On December 15, 2016, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard two cases that will determine the future of uranium mining within the Grand Canyon’s watersheds. It could be months before we learn the panel’s decision, plus the Trump administration or Congress may try to jettison the 20-year ban on new uranium claims that the Secretary of the Interior ordered in 2012.
Here’s a quick look at the two cases:
National Mining Association v. Jewell
In National Mining Association v. Jewell, the National Mining Association (NMA) and others challenged the 20-year withdrawal of new mining claims around the Grand Canyon. Earthjustice Attorney Ted Zukoski represented the Grand Canyon Trust and others in supporting the Secretary of the Interior’s 2012 withdrawal. Zukoski argued alongside a U.S. Department of Justice attorney that the withdrawal is legal and the NMA’s suit is without merit. The withdrawal was upheld in 2014 by the district court. The NMA appealed the lower court’s decision to the Ninth Circuit.
Watch the oral argument:
Depending on what the appellate court and the new administration decide, Grand Canyon National Park will enter its centennial-year celebration in 2019 either as a place where citizens and common sense have prevailed, or as a prize under siege by corporate interests.
Havasupai Tribe v. Provencio
In Havasupai Tribe v. Provencio, the Havasupai Tribe and the Grand Canyon Trust argued against the U.S. Forest Service for allowing the Canyon uranium mine, near Grand Canyon National Park, to reopen without completing consultation with the Havasupai Tribe and without conducting a new environmental review.
Richard Hughes, attorney for the Havasupai Tribe, stated that because the government granted Traditional Cultural Property status in 2010 to the Red Butte area—which encompasses Canyon Mine—the agency should have completed tribal consultation prior to permitting the mine to reopen. He said: “The question in this case is…whether the U.S. Forest Service violated section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act in making the determination that EFR [Energy Fuel Resources, the company that owns and operates the mine]…could recommence the development of the Canyon Mine after a 20-year hiatus in activity without conducting any bona fide consultation…[or developing] measures to avoid, minimize, or mitigate what would certainly be the adverse impacts, the serious adverse impacts, of the Canyon Mine on the Red Butte cultural property, including the meadow [where the Canyon Mine is located].”
Watch the oral argument:
A long history of resistance
No matter the outcome of these looming decisions, be assured that people who are committed to protecting the Grand Canyon will remain undeterred. The Havasupai, for example, have a long history of resistance against those who threaten their sacred headwaters.
The dozen or so Havasupai elders and elected officials who attended the appeals court hearings in San Francisco in December made it clear that this fight is for their survival as a people. Havasupai Chairman Dan Watahomogie said: “We are the Havasuw ‘Baaja, which means people of the blue-green water. Our very being and continuance as Havasupai depends on the continued flow of our water and our ability to continue that reliance forever.”
Water is the Grand Canyon’s lifeblood. The Grand Canyon Trust stands with the Havasupai in defending against uranium mines and many other developments threatening Grand Canyon watersheds. Decisions made during the next few months are consequential. Together we are contributing a positive difference.
The first bucket of uranium ore may soon be lifted from Canyon Mine’s 1,400-foot shaft, stockpiled, and then trucked along the two-lane road that leads to Grand Canyon National Park’s busiest entrance. Its trail of radioactive dust will then blow along gateway town boulevards, where tourists enliven local economies, and through Native American communities—where last century’s uranium boom ended in a deadly bust.
Public commenters had asked that, before the ADEQ re-approved the permits, it assess the cumulative effects of radon gas, radiation, and radioactive dust in the Grand Canyon region. The state’s air pollution permitting agency refused, stating “State law does not allow the Department to consider results of a study like this in a permitting decision for a specific site.”
The ADEQ will, however, allow for up to 26 million pounds of mined ore to be stockpiled to a height of 20 feet without a covering. The radioactive ore will be sprayed to control dust, and the runoff water must be contained in a plastic-lined pond so that it cannot leach into the aquifer that feeds springs deep within the Grand Canyon.
The permit also requires annual soil and quarterly gamma radiation sampling, the installation of anemometers, which measure wind speed, and a halt to truck-loading activities if wind speed gets above 25 mph. If dust or radiation monitors reach certain thresholds, the ore stockpile must be reduced by half, covered with a tarp, and protected by wind barriers.
The ADEQ responded to public concerns regarding tarps covering the radioactive ore on the 24 haul trucks per day—traveling at speeds up to 65 mph—by requiring that the tarp “be lapped over the sides of the haul truck bed at least 6 inches, and secured every 4 feet with a tie down rope.”
“We are very upset that ADEQ approved the air quality permits,” stated Havasupai council member Carletta Tilousi. “Even though we stood firm on protecting the lands and sacred areas, again the state of Arizona won’t protect our Grand Canyon homelands as they went ahead and issued the air quality permits. We are very disappointed with the agency.”
Photo: Havasupai council member Carletta Tilousi testifies in favor of permanently banning uranium mining in Grand Canyon watersheds. (Photo credit: Amanda Voisard)
Grand Canyon’s Uncertain Future
In 1986, the U.S. Forest Service approved the development of Canyon Mine on public lands within a few miles of Grand Canyon National Park. When issuing the permit, it stated 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.”
Havasupai leaders appealed the decision but lost. However, due to a downturn in the uranium market, the mine shut in 1991 after sinking its shaft only 50 feet.
During the next two decades, water samples drawn from a spring below the nearby Orphan uranium mine confirmed that the now defunct mine is causing unsafe levels of dissolved uranium. The National Park Service now warns hikers against drinking from it. In 2010, water samples taken by the U.S. Geological Survey identified more contaminated sites “related to mining processes.” They found 15 springs and five wells that contained dissolved uranium concentrations in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for safe drinking water.
An upsurge in uranium prices in 2007 brought new life back to uranium mines and a wave of new uranium claims.
Despite mounting evidence that uranium mines are polluting Grand Canyon’s fragile seeps and springs, the U.S. Forest Service allowed Canyon Mine to resume operations, without updating its 1986 plan of operations and environment impact statement as required by law. The Havasupai Tribe, the Grand Canyon Trust, and other plaintiffs’ 2013 lawsuit against the agency was denied in federal district court in 2015.
The Havasupai Tribe appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court. The Grand Canyon Trust, Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club soon followed suit. Oral argument in appeals regarding the Canyon Mine will be heard and streamed live at the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco on Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 9:30 am. Appeals regarding the mining industry’s lawsuit to overturn the 2012 mineral withdrawal—which put a 20-year ban on new uranium claims—will be heard immediately thereafter.
Depending on what the appellate court decides, Grand Canyon National Park will enter its centennial-year celebration in 2019 either as a place where citizens and common sense have prevailed, or as a prize under siege by mining interests.
In early October, about 50 concerned citizens gathered in the Ute Mountain Ute tribal community of White Mesa for a public meeting about the continued operation of the nearby White Mesa uranium mill, the last operating conventional uranium mill in the United States. It was a big crowd for this rural community of a few hundred residents.
Ute Mountain Ute tribal members from White Mesa were joined by their neighbors from the nearby towns of Bluff and Blanding, united around a shared concern for the groundwater that sustains life across southeastern Utah.
The White Mesa Mill’s radioactive tailings impoundments—huge ponds where mill waste accumulates—are perched above the Navajo Aquifer, the groundwater supply for most of southeastern Utah. Some worry the liners in the older tailings impoundments may be leaking. And there are indications that they are, according to an expert commissioned by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to examine groundwater trends beneath the mill site.
The shallow groundwater aquifer beneath the mill site is already contaminated with chloroform and other solvents, as well as nitrate and chloride. The mill’s owner has asserted that all this contamination was caused by sources other than the mill’s tailings impoundments. Regardless, if contamination migrates into the deeper Navajo Aquifer, it could threaten the drinking water supply for nearby communities, including White Mesa and Bluff, Utah.
This concern, and others, brought a diverse crowd to the White Mesa recreation center where experts from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Environmental Programs Department and tribal elected officials spoke about public health and environmental concerns caused by the White Mesa Mill.
“We are looking for protection of groundwater and the deeper aquifer far into the future because these wastes will be here forever,” said Scott Clow, director of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s Environmental Programs Department.
It’s hard to forget that water is life when you live on the arid Colorado Plateau, but some moments really bring that reality home.
Living in Fear
Community members spoke passionately about the need for clean water and the desire to live without fear of radioactive contamination. Yolanda Badback, a White Mesa community member, spoke about her everyday worry, driving her kids to school not far from the mill. She doesn’t know whether radon, uranium, or other radioactive material may be harming them through the air.
Citizens from Bluff spoke to long-term concerns that contamination of the deep Navajo Aquifer could impact Bluff’s main water supply, which would be a catastrophe for that desert town. Of particular concern are a number of wells on the mill site that penetrate through the shallow contaminated aquifer to reach the Navajo Aquifer below. These wells could act as passageways, introducing contaminates from the shallow aquifer into the deeper water supply.
Standing Together
Our work to protect the groundwater in White Mesa is long and progress is hard to measure. But as other battles are showing us, whether it's the Dakota Access Pipeline or the Bears Ears effort, communities are stronger together.
And, as the processing site for all uranium mined on the Colorado Plateau, the White Mesa Mill should concern all communities impacted by or concerned about the impacts of uranium mining. This includes the tribal nations harmed by uranium mining—from the ongoing legacy of contamination and injustice on the Navajo Nation to the tribes currently fighting uranium mines located on sacred sites like Red Butte and Mt. Taylor. It also includes all who love the Grand Canyon, yet have to stand by as the Canyon Mine drills for ore only six miles from the Grand Canyon’s south rim, threatening groundwater quality in one of the most amazing places on earth. And this includes everyone who lives along the uranium-haul-truck routes, including the towns of Tuba City, Kayenta, Flagstaff, Williams, and Bluff, whose roads and highways will see daily traffic with uranium haul trucks traveling from the Canyon Mine to the White Mesa Mill.
And, of course, it includes the community of White Mesa, the mill’s closest neighbor, whose residents have borne the disproportionate impact of its operations, spills, and emissions for over thirty years.
Only a few months down the road, the state of Utah will consider issuing a new radioactive materials license for the White Mesa Mill. At issue will be deadlines for reclamation of the site, requirements for protecting the groundwater, and the level of regulation imposed by the state. Question after question in the public meeting focused on how to make change at the White Mesa Mill. How do we begin to move this mountain?
Community engagement will be a bright flag for regulators, generating awareness that the decisions made in Salt Lake City impact people in White Mesa, Bluff, and across the Colorado Plateau. As allies, we can work together to amplify the concerns of the White Mesa community and make connections between the uranium fights occurring across the Colorado Plateau. We will have an opportunity in this upcoming public comment period to stand together to improve the status quo.
Nearly 50 years ago, Ed Abbey wrote, “most of what I write about in this book [Desert Solitaire] is already gone or going under fast.” What, then, can be left—five decades after the desert bard declared defeat?
Grand Canyon National Park is setting a record pace of more than five million visitors this year…and it is stimulating nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in regional revenues. So, by some measures, it’s still worth seeing.
But unfettered development is eating away at its edges. Federal and state agencies keep issuing pollution permits for uranium mines on public lands that drain directly into the Grand Canyon.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has been re-issuing the same “aquifer protection permits” since the 1980s, despite mounting evidence of contamination. Similarly, the two federal agencies —the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management—that oversee the industrial intruders to our public lands steadfastly refuse to review operating permits that they approved two generations ago.
In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey reported: “Fifteen springs and 5 wells in the region contain concentrations of dissolved uranium that exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maximum contaminant level for drinking water and are related to mining processes.” And yet, despite abundant new evidence, agencies continue to permit uranium mines to open without requiring common-sense precautions such as wells to monitor aquifers that supply Grand Canyon’s seeps and springs.
Twelve trucks a day hauling high-grade uranium ore from Canyon Mine will soon be permitted—legally—to spread radioactive dust along the same two-lane road that tourists travel daily to reach the canyon’s most popular entrance.
Elsewhere, entrepreneurs are making it easier for more and more people to witness what may eventually become less and less worth visiting. At what point do new attractions and mechanized access into the abyss take a permanent bite out of what makes the canyon truly grand?
What’s at Stake?
Looking for answers, The Emerald Mile author Kevin Fedarko and photographer Pete McBride set out on a trans-canyon trek last September. They tried to hike the entire 700-mile length of the canyon below the rim—through some of the most unforgiving wilderness on Earth.
The National Geographic team divided their hike into segments, two of which are documented as videos. After exiting up a precipitous route paralleling the proposed tramway at the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers, the team interviewed opponents from Save the Confluence on the rim. Later, they videotaped the Scottsdale developer who is strong-arming the Navajo Nation to approve the tram over the objections of local families.
During their third leg, they climbed out to visit Canyon Mine. They interviewed miners who guarantee that there is absolutely no possibility of uranium pollution escaping the mine’s permitted containment area. Outside its chain-link fence, they met with three generations of Havasupai citizens, whose sole source of drinking water and tourist income could be permanently destroyed if the miners are wrong. And since the U.S. Forest Service denies the need to require monitoring wells, it will be too late before we ever know the answer.
“Are We Losing the Grand Canyon” speaks to issues that the Grand Canyon Trust has been working on since 1985. We are grateful to the National Geographic team for shedding more light on them through their amazing journey.
Their story concludes: “If you’re reading this story decades from now, say in 2066, hopefully a vast Grand Canyon wilderness, in the truest sense of the word, still exists.”
Now’s your chance to ensure that day will come. Three uranium mines near the Grand Canyon have air quality control permits that are up for renewal.
Three uranium mines near the Grand Canyon are seeking air quality control permit renewals that would allow them to pollute the environment around Grand Canyon National Park. Ask Arizona regulators to take action ›
Energy Fuels Resources, the company that owns most of the uranium mines around the Grand Canyon, as well as the nation’s only operating uranium mill, is asking the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to renew air quality control permits—more accurately described as “pollution permits”—for the Canyon, AZ1, and EZ uranium mines. All three mines are located within watersheds that drain directly into Grand Canyon National Park and threaten water, air, and other important resources of the greater Grand Canyon region, including soil, wildlife, and sacred Native American sites. According to Energy Fuels, recent core drilling at Canyon uranium mine reveals deposits with uranium ore grades as high as 6.88 percent. Such high concentrations of uranium amplify the risk of groundwater contamination, air pollution, and radiation. The ADEQ will accept public comments on the permit renewals until August 30, 2016 and will host three public hearings in northern Arizona.
Air quality control permits for uranium mines in Arizona come up for renewal only every five years, so the public will not have another chance to weigh in on the permits for these mines before 2020. On August 15, 2016, the Trust and partners submitted detailed comments urging the ADEQ to fulfill its responsibility to protect public health and the environment in Arizona by denying all three permits.
If the ADEQ decides to issue the permits anyway, we urge the department to:
Require a full assessment of the cumulative effects of these mines, including all pathways of pollution and the human and ecological harms of radon gas, radiation, and radioactive dust in the Grand Canyon region;
Incorporate new information about uranium toxicity and the potential impacts of radioactive dust dispersal on surrounding land, water, and biological communities within Grand Canyon watersheds discovered since the permits were last renewed in 2010;
Conduct systematic dust, soil, and water monitoring at the mines and along all transportation routes until sampling confirms that the mines and transportation routes are decontaminated;
Require mine owners to pay for all monitoring and decontamination costs;
Consider the environmental justice implications of permitting trucks to haul uranium ore and spread radioactive dust through Navajo and other Native American communities, where the deadly legacy of uranium continues to take its toll after decades of contamination;
Require an air quality control permit renewal for Pinenut Mine (permit number 62876) until comprehensive monitoring confirms that all radioactive material has been removed and that dust and other fugitive air emissions are no longer detected from the site, based on new evidence of permanent contamination at Kanab North, Pigeon, and other recently closed uranium mines.
Southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears is one of the richest living cultural landscapes in the world, so vital that a coalition of Native American tribes is asking President Obama to protect these already public lands as a national monument. It's a region under threat from looting, careless treatment of archaeological sites, and irresponsible energy development. You would think that our government agencies would exercise the utmost caution when making decisions about a landscape that holds a record of thousands of years of human history, but, as plans to expand a uranium mine show, this is not always the case.
Unnecessary Haste
Today, the Bureau of Land Management in Monticello, Utah, is considering using an expedited environmental analysis to allow a subsidiary of Canada-based Energy Fuels to expand a uranium mine in the heart of the Bears Ears region, between Natural Bridges National Monument and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The BLM’s plan would permit the company to expand the small existing Daneros uranium mine to ten times its current footprint and extract 400,000 more tons of uranium, extending the life of the mine by 13 years. Total, half a million tons of ore would be trucked through the proposed Bears Ears National Monument and along southeastern Utah’s main tourist roads to the White Mesa Mill, a site already plagued by contamination.
A Dubious Conclusion
In its review, the BLM failed to adequately consider the impact of the Daneros Mine expansion on Native American cultural resources, despite the mine’s location in one of the country’s richest cultural landscapes, home to more than 100,000 Native American cultural sites, from granaries to complex villages. In fact, the BLM dismissed detailed analysis of cultural resources completely, finding that there were no impacts to cultural resources on the 212 acres the agency surveyed.
Find this hard to believe? So do we. And, the BLM made its conclusion despite letters from the Navajo Nation stating that cultural resources were present in the area. The BLM also dismissed analysis of environmental justice, despite the fact that the ore will be shipped to the White Mesa Mill, where a disproportionate impact will fall on the White Mesa community of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.
Meaningful Review Needed
The BLM failed to require a full environmental impact statement for the Daneros Mine expansion. Instead, it settled for a less rigorous analysis that fails to address the long-term impacts of expanding the mine on the surrounding area, including its potential effects on water quality, air quality, wildlife, and human health.
The BLM also failed to analyze the impacts of the expansion as it relates to the White Mesa Mill, where the ore would be processed. The White Mesa Mill is already plagued with contamination that threatens the water, air, and public health of southeastern Utah, and must be addressed before it is allowed to process any more toxic and radioactive material.
Join us in asking the BLM to take a step back and require a meaningful analysis that considers the real impacts of this uranium mine before making a decision that could harm the future of the Bears Ears region and the Colorado Plateau for years to come.
America’s last uranium mill claims it has a clean record when it comes to protecting groundwater underneath its toxic waste ponds, but a laundry list of citations from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality tells a different story.
In May 2016, a spokesperson for Energy Fuels, the company that owns and operates the nation’s last uranium mill in White Mesa, in southeastern Utah, told The Cortez Journal:
“We take protection of groundwater very seriously, and we have not received any violations relating to the tailing ponds or groundwater. It is extremely monitored, and if a problem was found, we would address it.”
The company seems to have forgotten a few details, so let’s refresh our memories.
According to Utah's list, between 1999 and 2013, the state cited the White Mesa Mill on 28 occasions for violating state water-quality regulations.
It’s easy to misplace things, but if anyone needs another copy of the list, it can be found conveniently online, thanks to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, which has posted the record of violations and civil penalties for public viewing.
And you won’t need to read very far to find entries that fault the company for groundwater contamination. In fact, the very first violation on the list is for "discharging pollutants to waters of the State, causing groundwater pollution which constitutes a menace to public health and the environment and impairs beneficial uses of water, and for placing wastes in a location where there is probable cause to believe it will cause groundwater pollution."
Over the last year, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, whose White Mesa tribal community lies only a few miles from the mill, commissioned a data review and evaluation of the groundwater monitoring around the White Mesa Mill site. GeoLogic, the independent experts evaluating the data, concluded:
“[s]eepage from the tailings cells (particularly the older cells) is indicated by increased concentrations of heavy metals, reduced pH (increased acidity), and lower bicarbonate concentrations.”
In short, there is evidence that the tailings cells—huge ponds containing millions of gallons of toxic and radioactive waste—are leaking.
And regardless of whether the groundwater contamination at the mill has been caused by the tailings cells, the published record of groundwater violations stands in stark contrast to the company's recent press statements.
Learn more about groundwater concerns near the White Mesa Mill:
Time for a reality check. Read a response to some of the company’s other statements.
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by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director
Three generations of Havasupai Tribe members perform a round dance in protest at the Canyon uranium mine, near Grand Canyon National Park.
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