Uranium

 by Audrey Kruse, Community Engagement Director

As we walked along the chain-link fence surrounding a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park, I suddenly stopped short in my tracks. There in front of me was a sizable tunnel, approximately 18 inches in width and depth, excavated in the dirt under the fence. Tufts of tan fur stuck to the bottom rungs and paw prints littered the dusty soil in front of the tunnel. I sighed deeply, picturing the thirsty coyote who smelled the radioactive pond water on the inside of this fence and decided that digging underneath it was her best chance at sweet relief from the scorching Arizona sun. 

Canyon Mine’s water woes

The fence the clever coyote diligently perforated encloses a uranium mine situated about 10 miles south of the Grand Canyon’s south rim. Canyon Mine, owned by Energy Fuels Resources, has a mineshaft almost 1,500 feet deep. Since 2016, the mineshaft has been flooding with intercepted groundwater, despite assurances from the mining company that this would never happen (the company claimed that groundwater, if it was present at all, would be well below the deepest parts of the mine). 

Once uranium ore is exposed to air, like has happened with the digging of Canyon Mine’s mineshaft, it becomes soluble in water. The company’s own testing shows that once in the mineshaft, the floodwater is radioactive, with uranium concentrations as high as four times the Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water standards. Arsenic, another cancer-causing contaminant, is also found in the mineshaft water at levels 29 times the drinking water standard. This flooding necessitates perpetual pumping of the water into on-site holding ponds for evaporative disposal of the water. 

In 2019 alone, over 10.5 million gallons of now-contaminated groundwater were pumped out of the mineshaft and into these holding ponds for evaporation, and inevitably, for occasional consumption by the local wildlife who find their way past the fence and into the uncovered pond.

Since the region’s groundwater flow is an unknown matrix of fissures and aquifers and an adequate groundwater monitoring system hasn’t been required at the mine, it’s impossible to definitively measure and manage the risk of contamination to the Grand Canyon’s seeps and springs emerging from groundwater aquifers below the mine.

The presence of the mine and its radioactive pond isn’t just an affront to the local wildlife. Its position at the foothills of Red Butte, one of the most sacred sites of the Havasupai people and a Traditional Cultural Property, plus the fact that water from the Redwall Muav Aquifer that lies beneath Canyon Mine feeds the majestic waterfalls of Havasu Creek on Havasupai land, makes the mine’s very existence a desecration of this landscape. 

Where else can wildlife find water? Nowhere.

The radioactive-laden pond is the only reliable surface water in this arid area. A nearby stock tank, called Owl Tank, is sadly devoid of water most of the year. 

Coyotes are not the only animals seeking an oasis in the desert. Trust staff document small mammal burrows under the fence on almost every visit to Canyon Mine. Water sprinklers, floating around the impoundment pond like watery Roombas, continuously mist the water into the air above the pond, supposedly to evaporate away the water and leave the heavier contaminants to sink to the bottom of the pond liner. 

The day I saw the coyote tunnels, I also watched swallows swerve in and out of the water-sprayers and drink from the pond’s surface. A raven squawked and walked along the pond’s edge, glaring at me with his side-eye suspicion. As we turned to leave, I saw a delicate lavender butterfly dipping into the pond for a drink. This was all during a one-hour visit on a random weekday morning.

Urge regulators to close Canyon Mine

As soon as I returned from the visit, we filed a complaint with the regulatory agency that permits Canyon Mine’s operation. A few days later we received photos showing the coyote burrows had been plugged with gravel, something any self-respecting coyote would easily be able to re-excavate. The perpetual pumping of the groundwater and ongoing fence plugs to keep wildlife at bay show there are no quick fixes to the gaping hole that is Canyon Mine.

The wildlife, the people, and the Grand Canyon deserve better than this poisonous surface and groundwater blight. 

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Late last year, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act — a bill that would make permanent the current 20-year ban on uranium mining on 1 million acres of public lands adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park — passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support. The companion to the bill was introduced by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ, in December 2019, but more than six months later, the bill remains stalled and has not moved closer to a vote on the Senate floor. 

New hope for banning uranium mining around the canyon, forever

However, this week, the Havasupai Tribe and the rest of the broad coalition of tribes, local governments, business owners, and conservation organizations that support banning new uranium mines on public lands around the Grand Canyon saw a flicker of new hope that a permanent mining ban may be possible during this Congress.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a bill that is considered annually by Congress and mostly has to do with the Department of Defense’s budget and spending. However, bills that are related to actions by the defense department — uranium mining, for example — can sometimes also get tacked on as amendments. Because time limits the number of introduced bills that can actually be considered and voted on, the NDAA is a more sure path all the way through the legislative process given its higher level of priority. This year, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act was added to the bill as an amendment. On Tuesday, July 21, 2020, that amendment passed and the House of Representatives passed its version of the NDAA. 

Next steps  

The Senate is expected to pass its own version of the NDAA this week as well. That version will not look the same as the House version, so to reconcile the two, select members of the House and Senate will need to confer and come up with a version that both chambers can agree upon before the bill can be sent to the president’s desk for signature. This process may take several months and amendments that were included can still be struck down. However, this latest development is a heartening reminder that support for permanently banning new uranium mines on public lands around the Grand Canyon remains strong in the House.

Urge your senators to protect the Grand Canyon

In the meantime, the Grand Canyon Trust will continue to track both the Senate version of the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act and the progress of the NDAA. You can help by continuing to call and email your senators to express your support for the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. 

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Not mining radioactive uranium or other minerals near the Grand Canyon seems like a no-brainer, yet over 800 active mining claims lie in wait on about 1 million acres of public lands surrounding the national park.

Since 2012, a temporary ban has prevented those claims from being turned into new mines. But as uranium companies and their allies in Congress continue to push for lifting the ban, and for taxpayer subsidies to artificially prop up the domestic uranium-mining industry, it's worth pointing out why mining uranium so near the Grand Canyon is such a bad idea. Here's a little refresher, in no particular order:

1. Um, it's a national park

Two-hundred and seventy-seven miles long and a mile deep, carved by water and time, the Grand Canyon needs no introduction. If you want to talk titles, it's not just a national park, it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. But since a picture is worth 1,000 words, let's just cut to the chase here. You want a reason uranium mining doesn't belong here? Here's one: 

Grand Canyon National Park already bears the scars of uranium mining and suffers the long legacy of uranium contamination.

Orphan uranium mine, on the South Rim inside the park, just a short walk from the busy tourist village, is fenced off to protect visitors from radiation and contaminated soil. The water in Horn Creek, below the mine, is radioactive to the point that the National Park Service warns hikers not to drink from it unless death by thirst is the only alternative.

2. It's the ancestral homeland of Native peoples

More than a national park, the Grand Canyon is the ancestral homeland of many Indigenous peoples. While the National Park Service officially recognizes 11 Native American tribes and nations with historic and cultural ties to what is now the park, many more have connections to the Grand Canyon.

East of the national park, over 500 uranium mines lie abandoned on the Navajo Nation, contaminating land and water and exposing Navajo Nation citizens to harmful radiation.

The Havasupai Tribe, whose people make their home at the bottom of a side canyon off the Grand Canyon, fear that Canyon uranium mine, south of the national park and currently exempt from the temporary mining ban, could contaminate the aquifer that feeds its famous blue-green waterfalls and is the sole source of the tribe's drinking water. 

The tribe has fought Canyon Mine and other uranium mines around the Grand Canyon on the ground and in court for decades. The Hualapai Tribe and the Hopi Tribe, alongside the Navajo Nation, the Havasupai Tribe, and many others, support permanently protecting lands around the Grand Canyon from the perils of uranium mining.

To ignore these calls is to ignore and continue the generations of injustice faced by Indigenous peoples at the hands of the U.S. government. 

3. Nobody really understands how groundwater flow works here

And it’s a complicated question to answer. The ground around the Grand Canyon is fractured rock, which makes it extremely difficult to predict with any accuracy how water flows through it and how long it takes to get from point A to point B.

For example, in one study, scientists placed dye in sinkholes on the Grand Canyon's north rim to try to determine where water from various locations emerges into the seeps and springs inside the canyon. They found that the dye did not show up in all the places they expected it would, and that it was carried in many directions through almost 6,500 vertical feet of rock and traveled up to 25 miles horizontally in a matter of weeks. In one instance, dye samples placed in the same fault emerged in two totally different locations.

If water becomes contaminated with uranium, as it has at Canyon Mine and other mines in the region, once it seeps in between rocks, no one knows exactly where in the Grand Canyon region it will end up, or how long it will take to get there. If contamination does occur, it may very well be impossible to clean up.

4. Grand Canyon tourism fuels the northern Arizona economy

Pre-COVID-19, nearly 6 million people visited Grand Canyon National Park annually. People come from across the United States and the world to stare in awe at the canyon's breathtaking displays of color and light.

In 2018, park visitors spent $947 million in communities near the park and that spending supported 12,558 jobs and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $1.2 billion. Tourism, not mining, is what keeps northern Arizona in business, which explains the broad support from the business community for a permanent uranium ban here.

5. Arizonans support banning mining around the Grand Canyon

Polling shows that two out of three registered Arizona voters support the current ban on uranium mining around the Grand Canyon. Majorities of voters across the political spectrum support continuing the ban on new mining — this is true for Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Almost three-quarters of voters believe outdoor recreation is more important to the future of the Arizona economy than mining, period.

The list goes on. The Grand Canyon region and its peoples have already witnessed firsthand the damage and the suffering uranium mining can cause.

The Grand Canyon region is too precious to mine. It's time to ban new uranium mines around the canyon forever.

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

In May 2020, after a 7-year legal battle, a district court judge in Arizona helped clear the way for a mining company to dig radioactive uranium ore from a mine on national forest land not far from Grand Canyon National Park.

This was disappointing news given the poor environmental track record at the uranium mine in question — Canyon Mine — the vocal opposition of the Havasupai Tribe (whose leaders and citizens have opposed the mine for decades), and risks to vital groundwater.

There's a long list of problems at Canyon Mine — I wrote a whole report about it — but here are a few of the top contenders:

1. It's in the wrong place

Behind a chainlink fence in a meadow on the Kaibab National Forest, Canyon Mine is built on the ancestral lands of the Havasupai Tribe near Red Butte, a federally recognized traditional cultural property and the place where the Havasupai people believe they emerged into this world.

For years, the Havasupai Tribe has organized an intertribal gathering nearby where hundreds of Indigenous people from tribes across the region who have cultural ties to the Grand Canyon convene to demonstrate their opposition to the mine.

Oh, and those cliffs you see on the horizon in the photo? That's just the Grand Canyon.

2. It's a water fiasco

3. It's attracting animals and birds

A mourning dove drinking and bathing in the evaporation pond at Canyon Mine. TAYLOR MCKINNON, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

The risk of contamination at Canyon Mine poses a danger to wildlife and concerns hunters and anglers. That's why groups like the Arizona Wildlife Federation and Trout Unlimited support a permanent ban on uranium mining on public lands around the Grand Canyon.

Birds have been photographed drinking from the evaporation pond, where contaminated water from the mine shaft is pumped. The pond isn't covered and is often the only available surface water for miles, making it attractive to thirsty animals. This summer, Grand Canyon Trust staff observed large burrows and animal prints around the bottom of the chainlink fence, as well as tufts of fur that had caught on the fence, where animals appeared to have tunneled under, likely to get to water. 

4. It's not regulated strictly enough

A 2018 protest walk to Canyon Mine during the 2018 Red Butte Gathering. AMY S. MARTIN

The state agency charged with protecting Arizona's clean water and clean air could be doing more to protect people, wildlife, water, and the environment from Canyon Mine. In the short term, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality could require that the mine obtain a more stringent individual aquifer protection permit, rather than letting the mine owner squeak by with a more lenient general aquifer protection permit that we believe it’s not qualified to have. The state is currently deliberating over what kind of permit to require. The state could also require that the mine owner install a system of deep monitoring wells to keep tabs on any contamination that might be detected in the groundwater beneath the mine.

Canyon Mine isn't the only uranium mine around the Grand Canyon, but it is a poster child for what can go wrong mining uranium in the Grand Canyon region. Meanwhile, there are over 800 active mining claims on public lands surrounding the canyon, waiting out a temporary ban on developing new mines that is set to expire in 2032 so long as no administration attempts to lift it sooner.

Taking stock of the potentially irreversible consequences of uranium contamination on water, the environment, and human health, Canyon Mine simply isn't worth the risk. 

 by Tim Peterson, Cultural Landscapes Director

UPDATE: The public comment deadline has been extended from June 5 to July 10, 2020. Comment  now ›

Radioactive waste from the Baltic nation of Estonia could soon be shipped across the Atlantic and trucked to a uranium mill on the doorstep of Bears Ears National Monument if the state of Utah approves an application submitted by the mill’s owner, Energy Fuels Resources. Apparently, there is no facility in Estonia that can accept the waste — 660 tons of it in the first year — leftovers from a metals processing plant in the small European nation.

Nearby Ute Mountain Ute community concerned

The Estonian waste, which contains less than half of 1 percent uranium ore, would be processed at the White Mesa uranium mill, just east of Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. The toxic sludge left over would then be dumped into the mill’s massive waste pits and remain onsite in perpetuity. The mill is just a few miles north of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa reservation. White Mesa community members worry that waste from the pits could contaminate the tribe’s drinking water.

The cheapest alternative

“The mill has already become the cheapest alternative for disposal of low-level radioactive waste in North America,” Scott Clow, environmental programs director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, told the Cortez Journal. “Now, it appears that it may become a destination for the materials from around the globe. That is disconcerting and dangerous,” Clow said.

The public has until July 10, 2020 to comment on the proposal to ship the waste to White Mesa for processing.

Take action. Urge Utah regulators not to allow Estonian waste to be processed at the mill ›

The White Mesa Mill was built to process uranium ore mined across the Colorado Plateau, including at mines near the Grand Canyon and around the Bears Ears region. But with uranium prices low, in addition to seeking a taxpayer-funded bailout, mill owner Energy Fuels Resources is pursuing additional contracts to process what it calls “alternate feed” — radioactive wastes from other industrial operations, like the facility in Estonia, or from contaminated military or industrial sites.

Part of a broader push

The current push to accept the waste from Estonia is part of a broader attempt to amend the mill’s operating license that includes a proposal to accept waste resulting from a massive railroad and water-delivery tunnel in Colorado. The proposed changes would also double a current cap on the amount of waste the mill is allowed to dump into its waste pits from uranium mines where chemicals are injected into the ground to dissolve uranium ore in place, and lift the cap entirely for waste from such mines owned by Energy Fuels Resources. 

Bringing radioactive waste to the Bears Ears region

In addition to owning and operating the White Mesa Mill, Energy Fuels Resources owns an interest in hundreds of mining claims near Bears Ears National Monument. In 2017, represented by former lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, who is now the administrator of the EPA, the company successfully lobbied to shrink the borders of Bears Ears National Monument. Now Energy Fuels Resources wants to import radioactive waste from Europe, extract the tiny percentage of uranium it contains, and dump the remaining byproducts into a pit just outside the national monument’s boundaries, despite the longstanding and vocal concerns of Ute Mountain Ute tribal members just down the road.

Stand with Bears Ears, raise your voice

Bears Ears is one of the richest cultural landscapes in the United States and an ancestral homeland of many tribes, including the Ute Mountain Ute, who have inhabited the region since time immemorial. It is a place for healing. Bears Ears deserves better than hundreds of tons of waste shipped to its doorstep from Estonia.

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Canyon Mine, which has yet to extract uranium ore after three decades despite a contested exemption from the current mining ban, is already an environmental blight near the Grand Canyon.

The mine, despite being what some describe as a “modern” mining operation — one that operates in the era of environmental regulations — is a clear example of why uranium mining is a dangerous and unsustainable activity for the Grand Canyon region and the people, economies, and wildlife the Grand Canyon supports. The mine’s sordid environmental track record is the topic of a new research report published by the Grand Canyon Trust: “Canyon Mine: Why No Uranium Mine is ‘Safe’ for the Grand Canyon Region.” 

The Grand Canyon region is the physical and spiritual home of several Native American tribes. It’s the hub of northern Arizona’s tourism and outdoor-recreation-based economy, and the source of water for millions. 

The complexity and vast unknowns about the region’s groundwater flow make it virtually impossible to definitively assess and manage risk as well as any contamination that occurs. It’s because of this combination of high risks and high unknowns that the current temporary Grand Canyon mining ban was put in place in 2012. The new report summarizes problems at Canyon Mine, which demonstrate precisely why uranium mining should not be allowed in such a critical, yet insufficiently understood region.

State regulatory leniency

Without a clear understanding of groundwater flow, adequate groundwater monitoring is more important than ever. Yet groundwater monitoring at Canyon Mine is substandard, in part because of the type of groundwater permit the mine has been given. 

In order to operate, Canyon Mine is required by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to have an aquifer protection permit. From the early 1990s until 2008, ADEQ required the mine to apply for a more stringent “individual” aquifer protection permit, which assumes the mine has the potential to contaminate groundwater and can be accompanied by site-specific requirements like additional monitoring wells. But records show the mine was unable to gain approval for an individual permit due, in part, to “deficiencies” in the mine’s 1993 application. 

In 2008, as the mine owner worked to bring the mine out of a nearly two-decade standby period, the company instead applied for, and was denied, a “general” permit — a much more lenient permit that involves “voluntary conditions,” no public comment periods, and helps ADEQ to “save a lot of staff time.”

In the 2008 general permit denial, ADEQ informed the mine owner that the “facility does not conform to the requirements of the general permit” and that it needed to apply for an individual permit. But abruptly, in 2009, shortly into Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s new administration, the mine owner again applied for a general permit and was ultimately approved. Canyon Mine’s owners applied to renew its general permit last summer. ADEQ still has not announced a decision, but is expected to do so soon.

Take Action. Urge ADEQ to require a more stringent, "individual" permit for Canyon Mine ›

Mine-shaft flooding: a Pandora’s box

When Canyon Mine was first being permitted in the late 1980s, the mine’s owners assured regulators that it posed little danger to groundwater, in large part because its mine shaft would be dry. But as miners were constructing the 1,470-foot-deep mine shaft in 2016, the mine began taking on significant quantities of water — over 30 million gallons to date —contaminated with levels of uranium and arsenic several times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safe drinking water standards. 

If contaminated water at any point, perhaps even long after the mine is closed, finds its way into groundwater, the results could be devastating, particularly for the Havasupai Tribe. On the Havasupai reservation, in a side canyon off the Grand Canyon, Havasu Creek flows through Supai Village from the Redwall-Muav Aquifer, a regional aquifer that underlies Canyon Mine. The creek feeds the iconic blue-green waterfalls that draw tourists from around the globe and are the main driver of the tribe’s economy.

The report explains other issues as well, including failures to maintain flood control infrastructure, the company’s struggle to manage the influx of water into the mine shaft, and the deliberate use of the contaminated mine-shaft water for onsite dust suppression as a way of “managing” the mine's flooding problem.

The bottom line

Canyon Mine serves as a clear warning of what can happen when the realities of mining in the Grand Canyon region are ignored. In general, mines destabilize uranium ore by exposing it to the elements, triggering millions of years of struggle with Mother Nature to keep it contained and out of the air we breathe and the water we drink. This destabilization is especially risky near the Grand Canyon, where groundwater pathways are unclear. Canyon Mine’s ongoing flooding underscores that reality. 

Canyon Mine also underscores another reality: that of a private company’s ultimate concern for its own bottom line. This self-interest is a dangerous incentive for mining companies to seek pathways toward more lenient, less expensive oversight. 

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

In an announcement today, the Department of Energy released the long-awaited strategy from the Nuclear Fuel Working Group, which was charged with developing recommendations to revive and expand domestic nuclear fuel production. President Trump established the working group last summer when he declined to impose trade measures requested by uranium companies to force domestic and U.S. government utilities to buy their product. 

The strategy released today includes a few components that may have implications for the Grand Canyon region. 

Taxpayer dollars for mining companies

A company with operations near Grand Canyon National Park, including one mine with ongoing environmental problems, has expressed hope over the past several months that the working group would bring about “immediate relief” in the form of tax dollar support for its operations. While the strategy doesn’t appear to offer quite the “immediate” relief the company hoped for, it does call for a domestic uranium reserve to be built out over the next 10 years through government purchases of uranium from domestic mining operations.

In other words, the strategy calls for Congress to allocate taxpayer dollars to purchase U.S.-mined uranium, which is lower quality than uranium from countries like Australia and Canada, and thus more expensive to produce and for which there has not been a meaningful market in decades. This objective is reflected in President Trump’s budget proposal to Congress earlier this year where he requested $150 million per year for 10 years for the purposes of building out a U.S. uranium reserve.

Undercutting environmental regulations and land protections

In step with the administration’s critical minerals strategy released last summer, the working group’s report calls for streamlining regulations intended to safeguard the environment and the interests of Native American communities. This could have far-reaching implications for the Grand Canyon region, from attacks on the current mining ban around Grand Canyon National Park, to minimizing review of future mining proposals.

In particular, the group’s strategy targets the landmark National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), which requires consultation with tribal governments prior to approval of actions that would impact them. The working group report even goes so far as to suggest that uranium mines should be considered for “categorical exclusions” from NEPA. Categorical exclusions amount to a determination that uranium mining operations do not have significant effects on the human environment, and therefore require neither environmental assessments nor environmental impact statements to move forward.

Grand Canyon mining ban at risk

Today’s announcement by the administration comes less than a week after the Western Congressional Caucus, led by Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, sent a letter to President Trump requesting that the administration lift the current mining ban around the Grand Canyon.

In 2012, the secretary of the interior put a temporary stop to uranium exploration by issuing a 20-year ban on new uranium mines on one million acres of public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon. There are still 800 active mining claims on national forest and other public lands around the Grand Canyon, but legislation is working its way through Congress to permanently stop new uranium mining around the park.

The working group’s strategy seeks to undermine important regulations and expand access to uranium deposits on public lands, and it puts land protections, like the Grand Canyon mining ban, at risk.

The Trust continues to monitor actions by the administration and Congress to ensure that attempts to undermine the current mining ban are met with swift opposition. Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act — a bill that will make the temporary ban permanent — remains in the Senate after its passage in the House late last year. The senate bill still needs additional co-sponsor support, so if you’re able, now is a good time to call your senators and ask them to support S. 3127. 

 by Megan Kelly, Energy Associate

Today, in Washington D.C., Congress is mulling over legislation that would establish a permanent mining ban for public lands around the Grand Canyon. At the same time, the Trump administration has recommended at least one massive subsidy to artificially prop up the uranium industry so that companies who cannot turn a profit mining uranium can mine the U.S. Treasury instead. And here in Arizona, one of those companies, Energy Fuels Resources, holds open a festering wound in the form of a flooding uranium mine, called Canyon Mine, which sits less than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Where the company sees hope for taxpayer subsidies, the Havasupai Tribe and other northern Arizona community members see the potential for disaster. 

Mine flooding increases in volume and toxicity

Canyon Mine wasn’t supposed to take on water. At least that’s what the mine’s owners told Arizona regulators when they were trying to open the mine back in the 1980s. Despite the company’s denial, a significant amount of water has been flooding the mineshaft since 2016 when the mineshaft surpassed a depth of 450 feet. And the flooding has only gotten worse. A recent set of records we requested shows that in 2019, 10.7 million gallons of water had to be removed from the mineshaft. Compare that to the 9.7 million gallons in 2018, and 8.8 million gallons in 2017.

It appears we have a problem — a rapidly growing problem.

Why does it matter if the mine floods?

Water in a uranium mine is dangerous. Exposure of uranium ore to oxygen makes otherwise stabilized uranium very soluble in water. In 2019, uranium levels in the mineshaft water reached over four times the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) safe drinking water standard, an increase from 2018 levels. Unfortunately, uranium isn’t the only toxin in the water flooding the mine. Arsenic is also mineralized near the orebody, and, in 2019, it dissolved in the mineshaft’s floodwater at levels 28 times the EPA’s safe drinking water standard, another increase since 2018.

Once water is contaminated, it becomes a never-ending battle against Mother Nature to ensure that it doesn’t find its way through any pathways — either natural (like permeable or fractured rock) or manmade (like wells or boreholes) — to groundwater aquifers, seeps, or springs that flow into the Grand Canyon and supply drinking water to communities like Supai Village, home of the Havasupai people. And perhaps worst of all, any man-made plug of this flooding will eventually fail, so the threat and need for careful monitoring will exist long after the mine is closed and “cleaned up.” The best thing we can do now is avoid exposing more ore and stop making the problem worse.

Groundwater permit renewal still in limbo

As increasing amounts of water flood the mineshaft, Canyon Mine grows as an ongoing threat to the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai people who live within its walls, and visitors from around the world. Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) still has not announced whether or not it will renew the mine’s aquifer protection permit, which expired in 2019 and is required for mines since they can discharge harmful substances like dissolved uranium into the groundwater. Because of ample flooding in the mineshaft and the irreversible damage that could happen if water sources become contaminated, the Trust and several partners submitted a letter to ADEQ asking for the mine to be issued a different category of aquifer protection permit, which includes requirements like groundwater monitoring and more frequent reporting (under the expired general permit, water management and water quality testing are only voluntary “requirements”).

In the medical field, a wound would be cleaned up and stitched to prevent a gash from becoming a fatal infection. But at Canyon Mine, the mining company continues to let the wound fester, no matter the costs, while waiting for the Trump administration to hand over taxpayer dollars.

Want to get involved? Here’s how you can help!

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Last year was one of welcome progress for those wishing to permanently protect the Grand Canyon from the threat of uranium mining. The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act — a bill that would permanently ban uranium mining around the Grand Canyon — was introduced and passed through the House with bipartisan support. And before the year’s end, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema introduced her version of the bill in the Senate.

Yet 2019 was also a year of mounting threats as President Trump and his administration listened closely to the requests of ailing uranium mining companies and launched a working group tasked with recommending ways for the U.S. government to support the uranium industry, which holds a toxic grip on the Colorado Plateau.

We expected that the Nuclear Fuel Working Group’s recommendations would be made public when the White House received them last fall. But the days passed, and the announcement never came. Then earlier this month, inside President Trump’s 2021 budget proposal to Congress, came the first hint at something the working group may have asked for — government manufactured demand and taxpayer dollars for uranium mined on U.S. soil.

Government manufactured demand? How does that work?

The president’s 2021 budget proposal includes a request for $150 million per year for 10 years ($1.5 billion total) for the purpose of establishing a U.S. uranium reserve, something an industry trade group had requested of the working group as a way of generating business for mining companies in the U.S. despite the global uranium market saturation and subsequent lack of demand for U.S. uranium.

What else will the working group recommendations contain?

In short, we don’t know. But a recent Politico report suggests the wait may soon come to an end and the working group’s recommendations could be available as soon as this week. According to one uranium CEO’s conversation with InvestorIntel, we can expect a whittled down version of the 66 recommendations the working group originally sent to the White House in November.

As for what those recommendations might be, we know the Trump administration has set the stage for fulfilling the uranium industry’s wish list by designating uranium, for the first time in history, as a critical mineral. We know that the uranium industry and its supporters in the administration and Congress have asked for everything from a “buy American requirement” (requiring all government utilities to purchase 100 percent of their supply from U.S. mines), to removal of mining bans like the one around the Grand Canyon, to access to areas that are presently protected by national park, national monument, wildlife refuge, or other land use designations. And we know that while the Grand Canyon Trust and our partners shared our concerns with the working group back in September, the uranium industry has had much more direct access to the working group and its process.

We’ll keep you posted about the working group’s recommendations and any actions you can take as soon as the information is available. In the meantime, it’s important that your senators understand the importance of and support the Senate version of the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act.

Please ask your senators to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining forever ›

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Today, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ, announced legislation in the Senate that would permanently protect the Grand Canyon from new mining claims. The bill, S-3127 “The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act,” permanently bans new mining claims on about 1 million acres of national forest and other public lands surrounding Grand Canyon National Park.

Read Senator Sinema's announcement of S-3127 ›

Visit the legislation's homepage for information and updates ›

The landmark legislation would make permanent the current temporary ban on new mining claims around the Grand Canyon put in place by then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in 2012 after a jump in uranium prices in 2006 and 2007 led to thousands of new mining claims springing up on public lands around the Grand Canyon. At present, 831 mining claims remain active in the temporary mining ban footprint, patiently biding their time.

The temporary ban continues to garner massive public support from Grand Canyon region tribes, local governments, and business owners, and remains widely popular with among Arizona voters across party lines.

Permanently protecting the Grand Canyon from uranium mining

The bill is a major step forward toward permanently protecting the Grand Canyon from the threat of uranium mining, which has a long history of contaminating land and water in northern Arizona, including inside Grand Canyon National Park. The Orphan Mine, an abandoned uranium mine inside the park not far from the popular South Rim village, has already cost taxpayers at least $15 million in cleanup expenses and counting.

Sen. Sinema’s legislation comes less than two months after similar legislation passed the House with bipartisan support. And it comes at a crucial time, as the uranium industry has pushed the Trump administration hard, seeking to artificially inflate demand and prices for domestically mined uranium as a way to prop up its bottom line in the face of low uranium prices.

Uranium industry pushing to lift mining bans

In November, the Nuclear Fuel Working Group created by the president to study ways to help prop up U.S. uranium mining sent its recommendations to the White House, but so far those recommendations have not been made public and no official decisions have been announced.

The nuclear power industry opposed “buy American” requirements requested by uranium companies under the mantle of “national security” saying they would drive up prices and force power plants to close. But the industry has voiced support for subsidies to U.S. uranium mining companies or to nuclear power producers who buy uranium mined in the U.S. (even though higher-quality uranium can be bought cheaper from friendly countries like Canada and Australia) and even urged the lifting of mining bans, like the current temporary ban protecting lands around the Grand Canyon. 

Grand Canyon uranium isn’t a national security issue

Sen. Sinema’s legislation, while substantively similar to Congressman Grijalva’s bill in the House, isn’t a perfect mirror image. Like Grijalva’s bill, Sinema’s bill in the Senate would immediately make the temporary mining ban permanent. But Sinema also chose to acknowledge questions about national security by calling for a non-partisan assessment of nationwide uranium stockpiles. By combining the two, the message is clear: national security is and should be a priority, but that question has no relevance for the Grand Canyon — a region where, no matter what the need for uranium may be, the risks to human life and economies posed by mining are too high and, less than 1 percent of known, mineable uranium reserves in the U.S. even exist there.

Additionally, uranium ore located around the Grand Canyon is relatively low-grade and, because it’s found deep underground in formations known as “breccia pipes,” it’s more expensive to mine than deposits found elsewhere that may be mined using other, more cost-effective methods.

National security is about protecting American lives and American values. As Sen. Sinema’s new Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act shows, those values include protecting the Grand Canyon and the fragile public lands and waters around it from being desecrated by uranium-mining contamination, not just now, but permanently and forever.