It’s Time for the Senate to Protect the Grand Canyon

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

The Havasupai Tribe has long known that uranium mining doesn’t belong near the Grand Canyon. After decades of work by tribal leaders, it’s high time that the federal government listen.

For years, the Havasupai Tribe has led the campaign for a permanent ban on new mines near the Grand Canyon. The tribe has also opposed an existing mine in the region called Canyon Mine (renamed “Pinyon Plain Mine” in 2020 in an apparent attempt to obscure its connection to the Grand Canyon) since it was first proposed in the 1980s. 

Former Havasupai Tribal Council chairman, Rex Tilousi, who passed on in June 2021, was a tireless voice against uranium mining in the region, including Canyon Mine, which threatens the Havasupai’s ancestral homelands and sacred sites, wildlife, and springs in and around the Grand Canyon. One of the springs of highest concern feeds the waters of Havasu Creek — a turquoise-blue ribbon that flows through the Havasupai village of Supai and creates world-renowned waterfalls. 

So you see, water to us, to the Havasupai People, is life. Hav’su Baa’ja in our language means ‘people of the blue-green water.’ We are the water people. We were made from the springs, the water, the rays of the sun, the earth. So we feel our environment — the earth, the sun, the waters, the air — this is us. It’s very hard for us to put it in the way where courts will understand …maybe this is why we are being denied the rights that we feel should be considered as a people. . .We’re trying to protect not only the Grand Canyon, not only the Havasupai, but all people. 

– Rex Tilousi, Havasupai elder and former chairman of the Havasupai Tribe 

A long road to permanent protection

The effort to protect the region from uranium mining has been multifaceted, from pursuing administrative and legislative avenues to ban new mining, to advocating for the reform of a 150-year-old settler-era mining law, to addressing the threats from individual mines in the region. 

The most recent piece of protective legislation — the Grand Canyon Protection Act, a bill that would permanently ban new mines or mining claims in the region — has been supported by many Grand Canyon-affiliated tribes in addition to the Havasupai. Tribes have been joined by hunting and fishing enthusiasts, outdoor recreationists, faith groups, business representatives, local governments, and NGOs like the Grand Canyon Trust. 

Today, progress toward that end has advanced farther than ever. After a previous version of the bill passed the House and but languished, and eventually died, in the Senate, in the 116th Congress (2019-2020), Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D-AZ, reintroduced the Grand Canyon Protection Act in the House in February 2021. It passed days later as part of a larger public lands package. The Biden administration also voiced its support for the package, noting that “[t]he 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.” Senators Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ, and Mark Kelly, D-AZ, followed suit and introduced their version of the bill in the Senate shortly after it passed the House. And that’s where we are today. Tribes and their allies await a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Senator Joe Manchin, D-WV. 

Religious, economic, and scientific reasons to say “no more”

AMY S. MARTIN

Promises of a uranium-fueled regional economy should have died when even an all-time price spike in the early 2000s failed to jump-start a mining boom. But today, companies continue to fight land protections with empty promises of jobs in rural towns that could genuinely use them, and of public revenue from an industry exempt from paying federal royalties. 

Meanwhile, as Rex Tilousi said, uranium mining near the Grand Canyon carries consequences that will be felt by all, not the Havasupai Tribe alone. Groundwater flow near the Grand Canyon is incredibly complex and difficult to predict, making uranium mining little more than a gamble with precious resources and a natural wonder. Inherent realities of mining uranium, like piercing groundwater aquifers and exposing uranium ore to the elements, pose health and economic risks for the Havasupai, for plants and wildlife, and for people and economies that rely upon a healthy Grand Canyon for their spiritual, economic, and physical wellbeing. Regional impacts are only the start of the larger ripple effects for communities along the full uranium supply chain: from mining to transport, processing, use, and disposal — for which the world has no truly safe solution. 

It’s time to permanently ban new mines

The reasons that uranium mining has no place near the Grand Canyon are many and they are no-brainers. Leaders like Rex Tilousi and others at the Havasupai Tribe, and everyone else who has fought to make the federal government understand reason over the chimera of a uranium-fueled economy deserve to have their vision of a Grand Canyon region safe from toxic and radioactive exploitation come to fruition. 

What can you do?

Contact your senators. Tell them the Grand Canyon Protection Act (S. 387) deserves a Senate hearing. Ask for their cosponsorship alongside Arizona senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, and ask them to vote for the bill.