BY TIM WALKER
Coleen Kaska points over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon towards the rocks and scrub below, where a dark shadow marks the entrance to the old Orphan Mine. “There’s a big old hole down there that is evidence they can’t clean up an area after mining it,” says Kaska, 51, a member of the Havasupai tribe. “The Orphan Mine was here before I was born, and it’s still here to this day.”
First mined for copper at the turn of the 20th Century, the Orphan Mine became a source of uranium to supply the nuclear arms race in the 1950s. It was closed in 1969, but not before contaminating the water in nearby Horn Creek with enough uranium that passing hikers are warned not to drink it. The US National Park Service has already spent millions on a clean-up effort that is still in its early stages. “It proves not everything you dig up can be covered again,” says Kaska...