Uranium

 by Tim Peterson, Cultural Landscapes Director

What’s going on in the uranium industry and at the White Mesa Mill, near Bears Ears National Monument? Three recent developments are worth watching.

1. New disclosures reveal that over 1.4 million pounds of radioactive waste from Estonia has arrived at the White Mesa Mill.
2. The mill’s owner, Energy Fuels Resources, has been awarded $18.5 million in taxpayer money to supply uranium to the U.S. Department of Energy’s strategic uranium reserve.
3. A Colorado mining executive has a far-fetched plan for a new uranium mill near Green River, Utah.

Worldly waste

Back in 2020, we told you about the proposal to ship radioactive waste left over from rare earth element processing generated halfway around the world at NPM Silmet OÜ, in Estonia, to the White Mesa Mill on the doorstep of Bears Ears National Monument and just miles from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community. Despite thousands of comments sent to regulators opposing the plan (if you sent a comment, thank you), the state of Utah approved the waste shipments in July 2021.

Recently obtained documents revealed that shipments from Estonia had begun to arrive at the mill by June 2022, and that more than 1.4 million pounds (660 metric tons) of waste packed into nearly 2,000 55-gallon drums had arrived by late July 2022. At that time, inspectors posted signs in the outdoor area where the drums were being stored indicating a “radiation area” out of caution, because of radiation emitted by the waste.

In an around-the-world circuit, NPM Silmet OÜ in Estonia is the same facility where Energy Fuels sends its new intermediate rare earth element product for further processing.

Public money funds private business

We learned late last year that the owner of the White Mesa Mill, Energy Fuels Resources, had been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract by the Department of Energy to supply uranium oxide for the nation’s strategic uranium reserve, a project funded by a one-time $75 million sum slipped in the final funding bill passed under President Trump.

Despite opposition from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, whose White Mesa community sits just a few miles down the road from the White Mesa Mill, the Department of Energy awarded the contract to Energy Fuels in December 2022. Energy Fuels plans to pocket $18.5 million in taxpayer dollars from the sale of existing uranium inventory it holds at a facility in Metropolis, Illinois. That facility has previously shipped radioactive waste for processing and final disposal at the White Mesa Mill.

Thankfully, no new mining or milling is necessary for Energy Fuels to fill the Department of Energy’s present order, but the government contract does support the company that runs the White Mesa Mill and Pinyon Plain uranium mine (formerly called Canyon Mine) near the Grand Canyon. Both operations are actively opposed by nearby Indigenous communities who view the company’s mining and milling activities as a threat to their homes and their future. What’s more, future mining (likely near the Grand Canyon) and milling may be triggered should uranium prices continue to climb or should the industry’s friends in Congress convince lawmakers to set aside more federal money for domestic uranium producers.

A bill to further prop up American uranium mining died in the last Congress, but similar bills are likely to be introduced again. Where would milling American uranium take place? You guessed it: at the White Mesa Mill. Unless a mining executive with a history of promoting a uranium mill that never got built has his way.

Son of Piñon Ridge?

"[C]onfident that the uranium market is in the early stages of a sustained upswing," in January 2023, George Glasier, CEO of Western Uranium and Vanadium, announced plans to build a new uranium mill in Utah near the town of Green River, in an industrial complex whose other improbable tenants would include a new nuclear power plant and a new oil refinery.

Glasier was CEO of Energy Fuels in the mid-2000s when the company proposed building a new uranium mill called Piñon Ridge just over the border from Utah in Colorado’s Paradox Valley. Plans to build the Piñon Ridge Mill went through a lengthy permitting process. Colorado regulators issued an operating license in 2011. Opponents sued, and by 2018, a judge had rescinded the permit.

By then Energy Fuels had bought the company that owned the existing White Mesa Mill, uranium prices had plummeted, and construction on the Piñon Ridge Mill never broke ground. Time will tell if that same “promote, permit, scrap” process will repeat, but in the meantime it looks like Glasier is beating the bushes for investors.

We’ll be following plans to build a new uranium mill in Utah closely, and we’ll let you know when the public has the chance to weigh in.

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

The Grand Canyon is more than a national park, but is it true that it's also home to a vast supply of uranium? How much uranium is there in the Grand Canyon region exactly?

If you've been lucky enough to visit the Grand Canyon, to stand at the rim and look out into the miles-wide abyss, then you know this natural wonder is a marvel of color and light, carved by water, wind, and time. Long before it was a national park, the Grand Canyon was the ancestral homeland of at least 11 Native American tribes whose people continue to live, work, and maintain strong cultural connections to the canyon, carrying on traditions passed down through the generations. 

In short, the Grand Canyon is the last place you might expect to find a uranium mine. And yet the uranium industry and its cheerleaders would have you believe that the Grand Canyon region is the linchpin in the U.S. uranium supply. But is it really?

What might be significant to an individual mining company hoping to produce a couple million pounds of uranium is a drop in the bucket for the national supply chain. Let's break it down.

How much uranium is near the Grand Canyon?

Not very much. Giving an exact number is tricky because there are so many different ways to describe and quantify uranium, but no matter how you look at it, the bottom line remains: the region is far from a linchpin for domestic uranium supply.

Estimates of how much uranium there is and how pure it is are based on sampling, measurements, many assumptions, and educated guesses. And estimates of uranium in the Grand Canyon region vary wildly from known deposits that have been sampled and measured, to general areas where uranium is simply speculated to exist.

Let's look at 1 million acres of federal public lands surrounding Grand Canyon National Park, where an administrative mining ban has been put in place to temporarily protect the canyon and surrounding region from uranium interests.

The most generous answer here is 3.7 percent of U.S. uranium — that's if we're talking uranium reserves, plus what uranium buffs call "estimated additional resources," plus so-called "speculative resources." Reserves are known uranium deposits that are large enough, pure enough, and accessible enough to actually be mined using current technology under certain price conditions.

Reserve estimates near the Grand Canyon were made assuming uranium prices as high as $100 per pound. The actual market price is currently around $50 per pound. This means that not all of the reserve figures are actually accessible today. At least some portion would require the price of uranium to as much as double in order to be mineable.

Estimated additional resources, as the name suggests, are estimated amounts of uranium based on geological trends in the area. Speculative resources are the most unreliable as these estimates are based only on assumptions that uranium might be present, though no direct measurements have been taken.

If we narrow our analysis and look only at reserves (known deposits) near the Grand Canyon versus reserves in the rest of the country, the figure drops to 2.5 percent. And if we add back in “estimated additional resources” (unconfirmed resources that geological trends suggest are possible) near the Grand Canyon compared to the same figures nationally, the Grand Canyon region holds only 1.3 percent of U.S. uranium.

In all cases, for the reserve and resource estimates to be accurate, uranium would have to be selling for as much as $100 per pound. At the current price of around $50 per pound, all of these estimates are likely overly generous.

And lastly, if you look at uranium resource areas — which don't account for quantity, but rather represent areas speculated to contain valuable uranium deposits, only about 0.2 percent of U.S. uranium resource areas are actually located in this 1 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon.

No matter how you slice it, the Grand Canyon region simply isn't sitting on the mother lode of U.S. uranium. Permanently protecting the Grand Canyon region uranium mining is not going to make a meaningful dent in the nation’s uranium supply chain. But it will protect a sacred landscape and invaluable water resources at a time when climate change spells certain water crisis for the desert Southwest.

How many uranium mines are in the Grand Canyon? 

Kanab North uranium mine, north rim of the Grand Canyon, outside of Grand Canyon National Park. BRUCE GORDON, ECOFLIGHT

So how many uranium mines are in the Grand Canyon exactly? That depends on how you define the Grand Canyon. If you're looking strictly at the national park, that answer appears to be one.

Just a short walk from Grand Canyon Village, just steps off the rim trail where unsuspecting visitors stroll along on the south rim of the canyon, sits the Orphan Mine, an abandoned uranium mine that, although it stopped operating in 1969, is still being cleaned up. So far, the mine has cost American taxpayers more than an estimated $15 million in cleanup expenses — and that's only the first phase. 

However, if you zoom out just a little bit, more and more uranium mines appear. If you look at the Grand Canyon from the air, you notice an intricate system of veins: side canyons that funnel water into the main artery of the Colorado River. In this landscape of fractured rock, how water flows underground is complicated and poorly understood, but we know that lands around the national park are hydrologically connected to lands inside the park.

Knowing that, it's disconcerting to see the former Kanab North and Pinenut uranium mines on the north rim of the Grand Canyon — technically outside of the national park. As we've seen with Orphan Mine, past uranium mines cast long shadows. Problems may not become apparent for decades, and options for cleanup are limited, expensive, and sometimes entirely nonexistent.

Uranium mining and milling sites are notoriously costly and challenging to tidy up, since uranium ore exposed to air can contaminate water and wind can scatter radioactive dust. 

Is uranium actually mined in the Grand Canyon?

While no uranium mines are currently operating inside Grand Canyon National Park, there is an active uranium mine on national forest land south of the park (on the ancestral lands of the Havasupai Tribe) — the Pinyon Plain Mine (formerly Canyon Mine) — that's gearing up to mine. The Havasupai Tribe, whose members live at the bottom of Havasu Canyon, a side canyon off the Grand Canyon, considers this mine a threat to its sole source of drinking water, and an existential threat to its people and their way of life.

Several more uranium mines are proposed or on standby on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, including the Arizona One, What, EZ1, and EZ2 mines.

So, is uranium mining banned in the Grand Canyon? 

Kind of. There's no new uranium mining allowed inside Grand Canyon National Park, but what about on the federal public lands surrounding the park, lands that drain into the Grand Canyon or are connected to the Grand Canyon's groundwater, water that feeds Havasu Creek and the Colorado River?

Well, in 2012, the U.S. Department of the Interior temporarily banned new uranium mines on about 1 million acres of these lands. But this temporary ban isn't enough — it's temporary and it's continually a political target. And this temporary ban hasn't dissuaded uranium companies, who continue to hang onto hundreds of active mining claims in the mining ban area, waiting for the ban to expire, or be lifted.

In short, although there's not a lot of uranium here, uranium mining, past and present, remains a major threat to the Grand Canyon region and a permanent solution must be reached sooner rather than later.

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

A controversial uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park is hiring. Many more like it could pop up near the Grand Canyon unless Congress acts.

Read strong remarks from Thomas Siyuja, Sr., Chairman of the Havasupai Tribe ›

While a bill to permanently ban new uranium mines on federal public lands surrounding the national park waits in the Senate, the conveniently renamed Pinyon Plain Mine (also known as Canyon Mine), mere miles from the Grand Canyon's south rim, appears to be wasting no time ramping up for business. Energy Fuels Resources, a U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian uranium company, which owns the mine, recently announced a cash infusion, and has posted an ad on Craigslist looking to hire miners. Increased activity has been observed inside the mine fence in recent weeks.

Congress and the president have a brief window to pass the Grand Canyon Protection Act and permanently protect the Grand Canyon and its precious waters from more uranium mines. The bill has passed the House twice, but still awaits a Senate vote. Nearly 600 active mining claims loom outside Grand Canyon National Park. If Congress fails to act, these claims could be developed into mines when an existing temporary mining ban expires.

There's no time to lose. Please urge your senators to pass Senate Bill 387, the Grand Canyon Protection Act, before they head home later this month. Contact your senators ›

A flooding uranium mine near the Grand Canyon

Mired by environmental problems, Canyon Mine is a poster child for what can go wrong at a uranium mine in the Grand Canyon region and a cautionary tale of what might await public lands around the Grand Canyon if Congress fails to pass permanent protections.

The mine sits on the Kaibab National Forest fewer than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, in a peaceful meadow below Red Butte. The area is the traditional homeland of the Havasupai Tribe, and Red Butte is federally recognized as a traditional cultural property. The tribe has ardently opposed the mine since the 1980s, on the ground and in court.

In the dry Grand Canyon region where water is life, the mine has hit precious groundwater, which has continuously flowed into the mine shaft for years. Miners have pumped more than 49 million gallons of water contaminated with high levels of uranium and arsenic out of the mine shaft, sometimes spraying it into the air to speed up evaporation. 

While passing the Grand Canyon Protection Act wouldn't stop Canyon Mine, which was exempted from the current temporary mining ban, it would stop new uranium mines from being developed on about 1 million acres of federal public lands surrounding the canyon and protect groundwater that flows into the Colorado River. The Havasupai Tribe, the Grand Canyon Trust, and many others continue to oppose the Canyon Mine.

While uranium industry supporters warn against closing the area off to new mines, the reality is that the Grand Canyon region contains just over 1 percent of U.S. uranium reserves and estimated additional resources. Only 0.2 percent of identified uranium resource areas in the U.S. are located in the mining ban area, and tourism and outdoor recreation, not mining, drive the region's economy.

Putting the Havasupai Tribe at risk

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

New data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows outdoor recreation growing rapidly in the Grand Canyon state, adding over $9.8 billion to Arizona's economy in 2021 and providing over 100,000 jobs. The findings underscore the need to permanently protect the Arizona economy and the Grand Canyon region from new uranium mines that could put land, air, and especially clean water at risk of radioactive contamination. Arizona outdoor recreation jobs depend a healthy, safe Grand Canyon. 

Overall, outdoor recreation, including fishing, hunting, RVing, camping, and other forms of "getting outside" accounted for 2.3 percent of Arizona's total gross domestic product in 2021, well above the national average, and Arizona jobs in the industry are on the rise. Outdoor recreation employment in the state grew by more than 17 percent, one of the highest growth rates for outdoor recreation jobs in the nation.

Outdoor recreation drives the Arizona economy

According to the numbers, about one in 33 people employed in Arizona in 2021 worked in outdoor recreation — more than manufacturing, retail, arts and entertainment, accommodation, and food service combined.

And, tellingly, outdoor recreation provided nearly 10 times as many jobs as mining. This shift shows how Arizona — once known as "the copper state" — has left its former moniker behind. In the Grand Canyon state, outdoor recreation, not mining, drives the economy and jobs.

People spending leisure time outside hinges on a healthy, clean, safe environment, including clean air and clean water for people and wildlife. This is especially true for the Grand Canyon, which attracts millions of visitors each year who hike, bike, camp, and stroll along the rims admiring the play of light against the canyon's colorful bands of rock.

Uranium mining threatens water, important cultural and spiritual sites

The Bureau of Economic Analysis data shows that mining supported just 12,800 jobs in Arizona in 2021, and analysis shows that only a tiny fraction of those came from the uranium industry. For example, the Canyon uranium mine (renamed Pinyon Plain Mine), near the Grand Canyon, currently employs only about a dozen people.

Although uranium mining does little for the Arizona economy, it does have a long history of contaminating land and water and poisoning people in northern Arizona, especially on the Navajo Nation, where hundreds of abandoned, radioactive uranium mines languish, awaiting expensive cleanup.

In fact, inside Grand Canyon National Park, steps from the popular South Rim Trail, lies the abandoned Orphan uranium mine, which will cost taxpayers millions of dollars to clean up. And fewer than 10 miles south of the Grand Canyon, more than 49 million gallons of water laced with high levels of uranium and arsenic have been pumped out of Canyon uranium mine (renamed Pinyon Plain Mine). The mine threatens nearby Red Butte, a site sacred to the Havasupai Tribe, which has led opposition to the mine since the 1980s.

READ MORE
"More uranium mining near the Grand Canyon? Might as well just poison our water now." Former Havasupai Tribal Council Member Carletta Tilousi's 2022 op-ed in the Arizona Republic ›

A temporary mining ban currently prevents new uranium mines from being developed on about 1 million acres of federal public lands near Grand Canyon National Park. Groundwater underneath these lands flows into the park and, eventually, into the Colorado River. As of May 2022, nearly 600 active mining claims are staked on these lands, waiting patiently for the ban to expire in 2032.

Current mining ban must be made permanent

The Grand Canyon Protection Act, a bill to make the Grand Canyon mining ban permanent, has passed the U.S. House, and is now in the Senate. There's still time for the Senate to vote on the bill and for the president to sign it into law before the current Congress ends on January 3, 2023. 

 by Tim Peterson, Cultural Landscapes Director

The White Mesa uranium mill in southeast Utah is a bad neighbor, according to members of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe's nearby White Mesa community. On October 22, 2022, tribal leaders, elders, and community advocates led a spiritual walk from their small reservation to the controversial uranium mill. The walk, organized annually, marks community and tribal opposition to the White Mesa Mill; this year it drew well over 100 people, the largest crowd to date.

The White Mesa Mill's sprawling waste pits, which spread across about 275 acres and contain more than 700 million pounds of radioactive materials from contaminated sites across the country and the world, sit just a few miles from the White Mesa community and a mile from the boundary of Bears Ears National Monument. 

"We don't drink our tap water"

White Mesa community members, tribal leaders, and the tribe's environmental department are concerned that radioactive contamination from the mill could put public health, water, and air quality at risk. The community's drinking water aquifer is located deep beneath the mill's waste pits.

"They dug up our ancestors that were buried there," tribal member Yolanda Badback, whose local group, White Mesa Concerned Community, helped organize the spiritual walk, told supporters. "So that’s why I’m standing up here fighting against this and trying to have clean air and clean water for our people...Because the majority of our people here in our community we don’t drink our tap water, we go out and purchase water to drink." 

"The common thing we got here with White Mesa, Blanding, Bluff, and this whole area is water," Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council Member Conrad Jacket told the crowd assembled outside the community center. "Red, white, blue…I don’t give a care what color you are, if water gets contaminated, then that’s the end..." 

In August 2021, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council passed a resolution stating that "the White Mesa Mill has had severe health impacts on the residents of White Mesa" and calling on the mill to cease operations.

Solidarity across Indigenous communities

Citizens of other tribal nations traveled long distances to support efforts to protect the White Mesa community from radioactive contamination.

"Every step that you take on this Mother Earth is a sacred step, every step is a prayer, every step is an offering. Every inch of this Mother Earth, this Turtle Island, has remains of our ancestors...The prayer walk is a solidarity walk," affirmed Ofelia Rivas who traveled from Tohono O'Odham lands.

Teracita Keyanna of the Navajo Nation, a member of the Red Water Pond Road Community Association, who works to protect her community from uranium industry waste at Superfund sites near Church Rock, in what is now known as New Mexico, told the crowd her association opposed the idea of uranium waste from the Navajo Nation being sent to the White Mesa Mill for processing and disposal.

"That’s not what we want. We don’t want another Indigenous community impacted," Keyanna explained. "The Red Water Pond Road Community Association is in solidarity with the White Mesa mill group here...We’re gonna make sure that we get it [the uranium waste] to a safe place…make sure that our Indigenous people are kept safe," she told the crowd.

Energy Fuels, the company that owns the White Mesa Mill, has touted its interest in processing waste from the Navajo Nation to investors, hoping for a piece of the $1.7 billion the U.S. government has promised for uranium cleanup on the Navajo Nation.

The mill has a history of processing and discarding waste that has contaminated Indigenous lands, including waste from the Midnite Mine Superfund site on the Spokane Indian Reservation in what is now Washington, and Sequoyah Fuels waste on the Cherokee Nation in what is now Oklahoma, transferring the risk from one Native community to another.

In December 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency barred the mill from accepting Superfund waste after determining the mill was violating the Clean Air Act by not discarding the waste safely, a decision it has since walked back.

Putting the Bears Ears cultural landscape at risk

According to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, the White Mesa Mill puts the Bears Ears cultural landscape at risk. The coalition's land management plan for Bears Ears National Monument says the mill is the source of "air and water pollution directly affecting the local communities" and affects "the broader cultural landscape of the region." The plan goes on to explain concern that "toxic dust that falls on plants can become a source of carcinogens or toxins to traditional communities whose members collect plants for medicine or consumption," and warning that contamination "may persist for generations." 

Ute elder Thelma Whiskers thanked supporters, in Ute and in English, for coming to White Mesa to join the walk. "I know the gas is so expensive and it's good to see you supporting us," Whiskers said. "We’re so happy to see you...brothers and sisters, friends, relatives...thank you."

If you missed the walk, a groundwater permitting process for the White Mesa Mill is expected to open in January 2023, which will be an opportunity to support community members in White Mesa again by sharing your concerns with regulators.

 by Tim Peterson, Cultural Landscapes Director

The air was clear, warm, and slightly breezy at the Blanding airport in southeast Utah last month, as we waited for EcoFlight pilot Gary and communications technician Amanda to arrive at the airstrip. Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition staff and community members from nearby White Mesa and the Oljato Chapter of the Navajo Nation were anxious to get in the air. Our flight plans would take us on scenic loops around central Bears Ears National Monument and over the controversial White Mesa uranium mill, an industrial facility one mile east of Bears Ears and a few miles north of the White Mesa Ute community.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the mill has been violating the Clean Air Act since at least June 2020, leaving radioactive material that is required by law to be covered in liquid to reduce emissions of cancer-causing radon gas uncovered. I was eager to see what efforts were underway at the mill to correct the violation. 

TAKE ACTION. Sign the petition to protect the Bears Ears cultural landscape from radioactive waste ›

Leaving radioactive material exposed

Though the weather was almost perfect, the sight that met our eyes from over the White Mesa Mill was not. From the air, it appeared that although the mill’s owner, Energy Fuels Resources, had begun to fill an inadequately covered waste pit with liquid, another showed signs of possibly drying out. 

An August 2021 overflight had revealed that one of the mill’s waste pits, known as Cell 4B, was not covered as legally required to control radon emissions. 

Exposed waste in Cell 4B (at bottom). BRUCE GORDON, ECOFLIGHT

That overflight and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s advocacy resulted in the mill’s primary regulator, Utah’s Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control, issuing a compliance advisory to the mill’s owner in October 2021. In December 2021, the EPA barred the mill from accepting radioactive waste from Superfund sites for processing and disposal, including waste from the Midnite Mine on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

EcoFlight flew staff from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe over the mill again in April 2022, and to our surprise, there appeared to be even less of a liquid covering in Cell 4B then than in 2021. That’s right — instead of correcting the problem, the mill’s owner had allowed it to get worse while appealing the state and the EPA’s decisions.

Exposed waste in Cell 4B (at bottom) in April 2022. TIM PETERSON, FLOWN BY ECOFLIGHT

Months later, radioactive materials remain uncovered

What we observed in July 2022 was slow progress: a large area of solid material remained visible in Cell 4B, which, according to the law, should be entirely covered in liquid. Shortly after our April overflights, the mill’s owner began filling Cell 4B, but by July, it remained a long way from full. 

Exposed waste in Cell 4B (at bottom) in July 2022. TIM PETERSON, FLOWN BY ECOFLIGHT

In May 2022, the mill’s owner estimated that it could take until early 2023 to completely fill the 40-acre waste pit with liquid. Why so long? Ordinarily, the mill would rely on water from nearby Recapture Reservoir to fill the pit, but due to severe drought conditions, that option is off the table. Instead, the mill’s owner must pump water from wells at a rate of only 200-300 gallons per minute with an astounding 130,000,000 gallons of water required to raise the liquid level to cover the solid material in the waste pond. 

In an ever-drier environment brought on by a changing climate, how will a uranium mill in the desert stay in compliance with the law? Based on another observation made that day from the air, that remains a perplexing problem.

Trouble in dry conditions

White Mesa Mill's waste pit known as Cell 1 in July 2022. TIM PETERSON, FLOWN BY ECOFLIGHT

Troublingly, we observed a bright green substance at the corner of another waste pit, the 55-acre Cell 1. 

Bright green substance visible in the corner of Cell 1. TIM PETERSON, FLOWN BY ECOFLIGHT

Though it is much older, Cell 1 is subject to the same regulations as Cell 4B: by law, solid materials in these ponds are required to be covered in liquid which acts as a barrier to radon gas emitted by the radioactive material discarded there. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Grand Canyon Trust have asked the EPA to investigate the condition of Cell 1 and await the agency’ findings. 

The EPA walks back Superfund waste ban

On July 20, 2022, I met with EPA officials, giving them copies of aerial photos from the last year. In exchange, I was given a July 18, 2022 letter in which the EPA walked back its December decision to stop the flow of radioactive Superfund waste to the mill. This means that the mill can accept Superfund waste again as long as it does not end up in Cell 4B. This is discouraging, especially in light of possible problems in Cell 1. 

If the mill can’t manage radioactive material safely, it should not be allowed to accept Superfund wastes again.  

Tribal members concerned for their health

Aldean Ketchum plays his flute at the Bears Ears Summer Gathering in 2019. TIM PETERSON

“I raised a red-tailed hawk, and now I know what his view of the mill looks like,” Ute Mountain Ute tribal member and world-renowned flute player Aldean Ketchum told fellow passengers. Ketchum shared how, a few days earlier, he had watched a whirlwind blow up to the mill from the southwest. As the funnel crossed the mill’s property, the cloud changed from reddish brown (the color of the local soil) to grey as it swept over the ore stockpiles that sit awaiting processing at the mill. “What did that cloud pick up when it crossed those ore piles,” he asked, “and is it harmful to our health?”

We just don’t know. Such data is expensive to gather. Soon, an epidemiological study to examine health concerns in the White Mesa Ute community will be designed, thanks to an EPA environmental justice grant. That study will take years to complete. In the meantime, you can urge regulators to take action now to protect people and the environment.

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

A uranium mine near the Grand Canyon’s south rim with a flooding problem got the go-ahead to continue operating, though uranium ore has yet to be commercially mined at the site. In April, the state of Arizona granted a new groundwater permit to Canyon Mine, which threatens to contaminate seeps and springs in the Grand Canyon and the Havasupai Tribe’s sole source of drinking water. While the permit includes some improved requirements, no amount of precautions make the risk of permanent groundwater contamination near the Grand Canyon acceptable.

Since puncturing a shallow aquifer, Canyon Mine has taken on nearly 50 million gallons of groundwater and counting. The water infiltrating the mineshaft exceeds the EPA’s drinking water standards for uranium by as much as 300 percent and arsenic by as much as 2,900 percent. If the region’s mining history is any indication, those levels are sure to increase if and when the mine begins extracting uranium ore, worsening the risk that contaminated groundwater could eventually find its way beyond the mineshaft into increasingly limited and important groundwater resources. 

Sometimes better still isn’t good enough

Aquifer protection permits are required for mines to operate. Facilities that have a good chance of polluting groundwater must get an individual aquifer protection permit. 

In 2020, the Trust, the Havasupai Tribe, and our partners succeeded in convincing the state to stop issuing Canyon Mine general aquifer protection permits, which are less stringent, lack site-specific requirements, and include only voluntary and thus unenforceable standards. 

In their decision to grant the individual permit, Arizona regulators thankfully included some improved measures as a result of public input. The agency will increase the mine’s post-closure monitoring to 30 years, add additional monitoring wells to the shallow aquifer (although still declines to require additional monitoring wells in the deeper regional aquifer), and require the mine operator to treat mineshaft water to decrease uranium and arsenic levels before it sprays the water on the mine site for dust suppression. 

We’re glad that Arizona regulators have imposed additional standards in an attempt to reduce the risks of mining uranium from this landscape. But the new standards aren’t enough. Uranium contamination in the Grand Canyon’s complex underground plumbing system would be irreversible. Some risks just aren’t worth taking. 

Too precious to risk

Uranium mining is risky business anywhere it’s done, particularly given that the half-life of uranium is measured in billions of years — a timespan longer than most people can comprehend. The radioactive metal is easily mobilized by exposure to oxygen. Once unearthed, it’s a challenge to prevent uranium from finding its way into the air we breathe and the water we drink. 

Beaver Falls, Havasu Creek. MIKE POPEJOY

This inherent risk is compounded near the Grand Canyon, where water is invaluable and the geology highly fractured, making groundwater systems complex and difficult to understand. Scientists have so much to learn about groundwater flow and pollution management — a monumental task to conduct comprehensive research in such a vast and remote region and on limited budgets. 

In addition to threats of permanent contamination, flooding at Canyon Mine threatens to deplete groundwater sources in the midst of climate change. The mine operator’s plan for managing any contamination is simply to continuously pump groundwater.

Allowing Canyon Mine to continue operating in a critical and high-risk landscape, less than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon and within a traditional cultural property for the Havasupai Tribe, is a gamble the Havasupai Tribe, the Grand Canyon Trust, and other nonprofit partners have urged regulators not to take. 

What now?

The Trust and our partners will continue to support the Havasupai Tribe in its efforts to close and cleanup Canyon Mine, which is currently exempt from a temporary mining ban in the region put in place by the Obama administration. But the risk of uranium mining in the region doesn’t stop with Canyon Mine. Its flooding problem is a perfect example of why uranium mining doesn’t belong next to the Grand Canyon. And its sign-off from regulators and the courts shows just how difficult it is to stop a mine, no matter how ill-conceived, once it has its foot in the door. 

That’s why the Trust, alongside a broad coalition of partners and community members, continues to push Congress to pass the Grand Canyon Protection Act. The bill would make the existing temporary mining ban permanent, forever safeguarding the region from the threat of uranium operations that are not, and will never be, safe for a watershed and a landscape as ecologically and culturally important as the Grand Canyon. 

Urge your senators to support the Grand Canyon Protection Act and help it become law once and for all. 

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

On June 7, 2022, the Grand Canyon Protection Act (Senate Bill 387) finally got a Senate subcommittee hearing. Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema introduced the Grand Canyon Protection Act in the Senate in 2021. The bill needed a hearing in order to advance through the Senate. The legislation would make a temporary ban on new uranium mines permanent, protecting about 1 million acres of federal public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon from mining. It has already passed the House.

Two senior U.S. government officials representing the U.S. departments of the Interior and Agriculture were witnesses at the hearing and voiced the administration’s support for the Grand Canyon Protection Act. The Havasupai Tribe and the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona also wrote to the subcommittee to express strong support for the bill by sovereign tribal governments.

Interior, USDA support Grand Canyon mining ban

Nada Culver, deputy director of policy and programs, represented the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Christopher French, deputy chief of the National Forest System, represented the Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture. 

"The Grand Canyon is a majestic national treasure, drawing Americans from across the country to visit, and numerous Tribal Nations regard it as a sacred place," Culver acknowledged in her written testimony. "S. 387 puts in place protections for one of our nation’s most iconic natural and cultural resources and safeguards recreational opportunities for the benefit of current and future generations," Culver continued, adding that the Department of the Interior "strongly supports the bill."

"USDA supports the bill," French said in his written testimony. The Forest Service manages 355,874 acres of national forest within the Grand Canyon mining ban footprint, including 17 acres of the Kaibab National Forest where Canyon uranium mine [renamed Pinyon Plain Mine] currently operates. French went on to explain that, in the USDA's view, the Grand Canyon Protection Act would not affect current mining operations, like Canyon Mine, that have already established valid existing rights.

What about Canyon Mine?

The bill would prevent new mining, but would not force Canyon Mine to close, despite long-standing opposition to the mine by the Havasupai Tribe. The Havasupai Tribe fears the mine, which has pierced groundwater, could contaminate the deep aquifer that feeds Grand Canyon seeps and springs and provides drinking water for the Havasupai people. 

A decade-long legal effort to close and clean up Canyon Mine failed earlier this year, demonstrating just how important it is to stop new uranium mines before they start. The Grand Canyon Trust will continue to support the Havasupai Tribe in the face of threats posed by Canyon Mine.

Uranium mining around the Grand Canyon is a "bad idea"

Bill sponsor Sen. Mark Kelly, who sits on the subcommittee, spoke out strongly in support of permanent protection for the Grand Canyon.

"...uranium mining around the Grand Canyon is just a bad idea. It's as simple as that," Kelly said. "It presents an unacceptable level of risk to aquifers and springs inside the Grand Canyon National Park and it threatens the Havasupai Tribe, and they have lived in the Grand Canyon for more than 800 years," Kelly explained.

With uranium prices on the rise, Kelly addressed the risk that mining claims that having been lying dormant could turn into actual mines. As of 2020, there were over 600 active mining claims staked on federal public lands in the mining ban area. These claims could potentially become mines, if prices continue to climb, Kelly said.

"I understand the importance of a secure and reliable supply of uranium," Kelly continued, but emphasized that the mining ban area contains only "a small sliver of our uranium reserves."

Only 0.2 percent of identified uranium resource areas in the U.S. are located in the mining ban area.

Tribes speak up in support of permanent protections

Conspicuously absent from the proceedings were the voices of the sovereign tribal nations of the region, many of whom have called the Grand Canyon home since time immemorial and strongly support a permanent Grand Canyon mining ban. Although not invited to testify before the subcommittee, tribal officials submitted written testimony to be included in the hearing record.

The secretary of the Interior announced a 20-year ban (the maximum allowed for an administrative ban) on new uranium mining claims on these lands back in 2012, in order to allow scientists time to better study and understand how uranium mining could impact the Grand Canyon. This research has been consistently underfunded by Congress; the U.S. Geological Survey has had to severely truncate its research plan. What’s more, the mining industry has seized on sparse, incomplete, budget-limited research to claim proof that mining does not impact the Grand Canyon region.

"A temporary ban is not enough," Havasupai Tribal Chairman Thomas Siyuja Sr. wrote to the subcommittee. "Our way of life is constantly under attack from the mining industry," he explained.

"We know there are those who will argue that due to the war in Ukraine and current supply chain issues, that uranium mining must be restarted to secure our country’s energy independence," Siyuja acknowledged. "But, our country’s energy independence cannot and should not come at the expense of our lands...Nor should it jeopardize our environment, including the water resources necessary for us to survive."

The Inter Tribal Association of Arizona (ITAA), an inter-tribal consortium of 21 member tribes in Arizona, also urged the subcommittee to support the bill, calling it "the appropriate action of acknowledgment and respect for protecting the cultural identities and living heritage of current and future generations of tribal members..."

To make it to the Senate floor, the bill must now be brought to the full Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for a vote.

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

A uranium mine near the Grand Canyon still has a water problem. An annual report submitted by uranium company Energy Fuels Resources to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality shows that, in 2021, miners pumped more than 8 million gallons of water laced with uranium and arsenic out of a uranium mine not far from Grand Canyon National Park.

Major flooding problems at Pinyon Plain Mine (formerly Canyon Mine) date back to at least 2016, when workers hit significant groundwater when drilling the mine's shaft. That water has been draining into the mine shaft ever since. The company's plan for dealing with the situation has been to bleed the pocket of water it hit — a perched aquifer — dry, depleting groundwater in a region already plagued by drought.  

Over 49 million gallons and counting

Over 49 million gallons of precious groundwater have essentially been wasted, pumped out of the flooding mine shaft at Pinyon Plain Mine (Canyon Mine) into the evaporation pond, and often misted into the air to speed up evaporation. The giant misters aren't supposed to be used when winds are high, to avoid spraying the surrounding national forest with radioactive water, but we've felt the spray ourselves while standing in the forest outside the mine's perimeter fence, when misters have been running.

During at least one flooding incident, water from Pinyon Plain Mine (Canyon Mine) has been trucked across state lines to the White Mesa uranium mill near the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe's White Mesa community in southeastern Utah, not far from Bears Ears National Monument, for disposal.

Although the 8.2 million gallons the company reported pumping out of the mine shaft in 2021 represent the lowest number since 2016, this marks the sixth consecutive year that more than 8 million gallons of water have been taken out of the ground at the mine.

High levels of uranium and arsenic

The evaporation pond where the water is piped — rare surface water in a dry climate — attracts birds and other wildlife that find their way under the perimeter fence.

Visitors to the mine site, in a meadow on the Kaibab National Forest, near Red Butte, may notice patches of animal fur caught in the chain link fence, and evidence of burrowing, where animals have tunneled under to get to the water. What the animals don't know, of course, is that the water pumped out of the mine shaft contain high levels of uranium and arsenic.

Strong opposition from the Havasupai Tribe

Canyon Mine, with Red Butte rising in the background. BLAKE MCCORD

The Havasupai Tribe, who see themselves as guardians of the Grand Canyon, have opposed the mine since the 1980s, in court and on the ground. The tribe is concerned that Pinyon Plain Mine (Canyon Mine) could contaminate the deeper aquifer, which provides water for people, livestock, and crops in the village of Supai, far below the canyon's rim. The tribe is also affected by the mine’s presence within the Red Butte Traditional Cultural Property, a place of vital importance to Havasupai identity.

Regulators ignore risks

Despite ongoing flooding problems and widespread concerns about contamination, not just from the Havasupai Tribe but among small business owners who rely on a steady stream of tourists coming to visit a clean and healthy Grand Canyon region, hunters and anglers, local governments, and many others, Arizona state regulators have continued to allow Pinyon Plain Mine (Canyon Mine) to operate. In spring 2022, regulators issued the mine a new permit, further greenlighting its operations.

This controversial uranium mine flies in the face of what Arizona voters want.

Recent polling shows that most Arizona voters oppose uranium mining on public lands in the Grand Canyon region, and support making a current temporary ban on new uranium mines in the region permanent by a more than four-to-one margin, across party lines.

However, even if a permanent mining ban went into place tomorrow (such a bill has passed the House, but is currently stalled in the Senate), Pinyon Plain Mine (Canyon Mine) would likely be exempted. That means ongoing flooding problems at the mine remain a problem for the Havasupai Tribe, wildlife, the environment, and anyone who cares about clean water and a healthy environment in the region, for generations to come.

Canyon Mine shouldn’t operate and it’s a prime example of why other mines like it shouldn’t get a foot in the door. The Grand Canyon Trust will continue working with tribes and with partners to find a path toward the mine’s closure and cleanup. 

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

If the 1872 Mining Law sounds like an antique, that’s because it is. And like many antiques, this law could use some refurbishing. The 1872 Mining Law governs the extraction of so-called “hardrock” minerals on federal public lands, such as uranium, copper, lithium, and other minerals. It allows mining companies to dig publicly owned riches out of the ground without paying their fair share, pollute water, harm communities, and stick taxpayers with the cleanup bill. Today, 150 years after Congress passed the law, it has yet to undergo significant reform. 

America has changed a lot since 1872, and we need mining laws that reflect the scale and risks of modern industrial mining. The demand for hardrock minerals, which are the building blocks of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, will grow as our nation transitions away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy production. We have the opportunity now, on the front end of this transition, to ensure modern mining laws protect our communities, taxpayers, and treasured places like the Grand Canyon, Bears Ears, and other important lands on the Colorado Plateau.

TAKE ACTION. Urge the Department of the Interior to bring our mining laws into the 21st century ›

Mining reform is long overdue. We need mining laws and regulations that:

Hold mining companies responsible for pollution

The 1872 Mining Law, written and passed to encourage not only mining but colonization in the West, gives mining companies essentially free access to federal lands. They pay a miniscule annual claim fee (now $125 per claim, which can be waived for those who hold 10 or more claims) and pay nothing back to public coffers in the form of cleanup funds or federal royalties when they sell the minerals they extract. 

By comparison, coal mining, which is regulated by the Mineral Leasing Act, requires companies to pay a percentage of sales back to the federal government as well as a fee that goes toward cleaning up abandoned mines.

Hardrock mining reform needs to include royalties and a cleanup fund to safeguard against bad actors.

Protect natural and cultural resources

A cultural site in Bears Ears National Monument. TIM PETERSON

Most hardrock mining happens in the West, on federal public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. Here on the Colorado Plateau, mining threatens some of our most treasured natural and cultural landscapes. 

• The Grand Canyon — Uranium mining outside park boundaries risks contaminating groundwater and the Havasupai Tribe’s sole source of drinking water.
• Bears Ears National Monument — A uranium mine on the doorstep of Bears Ears is on standby. If mining resumes, ore will be trucked through the monument. A handful of other mining claims exist in and around Bears Ears. 
• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — An alabaster mine near Henrieville, Utah is under review.  

Give tribes and communities a say in where is — and is not — appropriate for mining

The government generally treats hardrock mining under the 1872 law as the “highest and best use of the land.” Communities do not have a say in what land is open to mining and what land is not unless they secure an act of Congress (like the Grand Canyon Protection Act), or a presidential declaration establishing a national monument, or a mineral “withdrawal” from the Secretary of Interior — all heavy lifts.

A properly updated mining law would allow tribes and the public to work with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to prioritize cultural, recreational, and other uses above mining in certain areas. Canyon Mine, for instance, is an example of a hardrock mine that should not exist given its location within a traditional cultural property for the Havasupai Tribe, its proximity to the Grand Canyon, and its construction within a critically important and complex groundwater system.

Establish adequate environmental standards

Canyon uranium mine mists radioactive water into the air. BLAKE MCCORD

Mining companies are required to adhere to standards set in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. But compliance with existing environmental laws does not equal protection from pollution. Often, it means permitted pollution. 

We need to close the loopholes that make some mining pollution legal. 

Opportunities for change

The Trust, alongside our many tribal and nonprofit partners, asked the Department of the Interior to reform the Bureau of Land Management’s hardrock mining rules. In February 2022, the Biden administration announced steps toward mining reform. It established an interagency working group led by the Department of the Interior, which will accept public comments on how to improve federal hardrock mining regulations, laws, and permitting processes until July 31, 2022.