by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director
Less than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, a trip by the Canyon Mine might warrant a detour on your journey to one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Especially if you’re curious to see how the newly revived uranium mine, with its out-of-date environmental review, is progressing toward eventually producing uranium ore on land you, as an American citizen, own in the Kaibab National Forest.
If you’ve taken that detour over the past couple of weeks, you were likely greeted with a rather big surprise: large volumes of water being pumped out of the mine's shaft into a pond and misted into the air over the pond using "land sharks"—water cannons meant to speed up evaporation.
The sight of cannons shooting water high into the air might only pique mild interest. But to those who know the industry’s toxic legacy, which includes abandoned and unreclaimed mines on the Navajo Nation and other tribal lands, the Atlas tailings pile along the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, and the ongoing cleanup of the Orphan Mine on the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park, the sight is an alarming reminder of a uranium industry that has yet to prove public safety is part of its business plan. In fact, when the Forest Service approved Canyon Mine back in 1986, they predicted only trace amounts of groundwater would be discovered when drilling the mine shaft. The need for water cannons appears to disprove that 30-year-old prognostication.
Several records requests to state and federal oversight agencies, including Freedom of Information Act requests, have been submitted, and we are awaiting replies.
What we know so far is that the mine operator, Energy Fuels, discovered unexpected water in the Canyon Mine’s shaft in January 2017 and perhaps even as early as the fall of 2015. According to a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson, during construction, the mine shaft perforated an aquifer and its water is being pumped into the mine’s retention pond, which already holds a high volume of water as a result of this winter’s snow and rainfall.
The exact volume of water Energy Fuels is dealing with is unknown to the public. A representative from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality said that water from the aquifer had been discharging into the mineshaft at a rate of 18 gallons per minute, but has since reduced to 8 gallons per minute. Water in the pond recently tested at 130 parts of dissolved uranium per billion, more than three times the federal drinking water standard of 30 parts per billion.
Because the on-site retention pond had filled up, the mine operator started using the water cannons as well as haul trucks to prevent the pond from overflowing. The water being trucked off-site is taken across the Navajo Nation to another Energy Fuels facility, the White Mesa uranium mill, near Blanding, Utah. At least one news report states that more than 130 truckloads of contaminated water are being transported. However, it is unclear whether that’s the number the company expects to haul or the number it has hauled so far. It also begs the question of why water a company spokesman calls “relatively clean” would need to be disposed of at a radioactive waste processing site like the White Mesa Mill.
We are concerned about the airborne, radioactive water from the cannons drifting into the surrounding plant and animal habitats on the national forest. Scientific evidence suggests that mining uranium near the Grand Canyon will affect groundwater aquifers and springs in the region, and, according to University of Nevada, Las Vegas Professor of Hydrology David Kreamer, uranium mining is expected to change water quality in the canyon. As the U.S. Geological Survey reported in 2010, 15 springs and five wells in the region are already contaminated with concentrations of dissolved uranium that exceed drinking water standards as a result of mining. We are concerned that the water filling the 1,475-foot mine shaft at Canyon Mine, if contaminated, could potentially flow through rock fissures and pollute the groundwater aquifer that feeds seeps and springs in the Grand Canyon.
According to Professor Kreamer, “because groundwater flow can be very slow, the effects of groundwater contamination may take years…to fully manifest.” Unfortunately, because the operator is not required to drill monitoring wells around the mine, detection of such a catastrophic event may not occur until it is too late.
The information that’s available still leaves many concerned citizens with questions, for example:
Nothing. The Forest Service, the federal agency that permits the mine’s operations in the Kaibab National Forest, has not publicly voiced concern. The Utah Department of Waste Management and Radiation Control, the state agency that oversees operations at the White Mesa Mill, emailed us to say Energy Fuels is legally permitted to deliver Canyon Mine’s inconvenient wastewater to that facility, a conclusion the Grand Canyon Trust is seeking to verify. And the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, which has jurisdiction over the mine site itself, believes there’s little evidence that Energy Fuels has mismanaged its operations.
The Trust and others are currently working to answer lingering questions, verify agency statements, and figure out the best steps to take next. We’re communicating with regulators and reviewing licenses and regulations while we wait on records requests to the states of Utah and Arizona, and the Forest Service, to come back.
So many unknowns—perhaps even to the company and to regulators—give us pause. Given the Colorado Plateau’s history of uranium mining contamination and the complex system of aquifers, seeps, and springs that are vital not just to the Grand Canyon but to the Colorado River, and to the millions of people who rely on it downstream, we’re seeking answers. But we can’t help but wonder: Is uranium mining so near to the Grand Canyon really worth the risk?
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