FLAGSTAFF, AZ — The Grand Canyon Trust wholly opposes further uranium mining and milling on the Colorado Plateau and does not support the expansion of nuclear power as part of the U.S. carbon reduction strategy. On the plateau, as in many places across the globe, uranium mining and milling have poisoned land and water and affected human health. These impacts have fallen disproportionately on Native communities and they linger still today.
We understand that some believe the expansion of nuclear power must play a role in addressing climate change given that nuclear power generation, at least excluding the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle, is carbon free. But nuclear power and the uranium mining, milling, processing, and disposal needed to support it have an inherent, unacceptable impact that is compounded by the half-life of uranium, which is measured in billions of years. These operations are unavoidably toxic and dangerous now and for future generations, in part because we lack a safe solution to long-term high-level radioactive waste disposal. Expansion of nuclear power to address climate change therefore amounts to addressing one existential threat by ignoring another. The Grand Canyon Trust understands the nuance, difficulty, and complexity of addressing climate change and we are also committed to ensuring that, despite that complexity, the transition to a carbon neutral future does not come at the further expense of impacted communities.
Modeling suggests that attaining carbon neutrality by 2050, as the IPCC has urged, almost certainly involves maintaining our existing nuclear fleet until it phases out. But the Colorado Plateau is not a linchpin to fueling the existing nuclear fleet and the plateau communities already dealing with the impact of current and past mining and milling deserve not to be shouldered with that additional burden. In the meantime, our nation can and must invest in a visionary and just pathway to carbon neutrality; one that does not perpetuate the unjust toxic legacy of uranium. We must cultivate a system that prioritizes energy efficiency and rapid scaling up of renewable energy. We need a system that prioritizes and enables a circular economy focused on responsible sourcing of materials required for renewable energy generation via purpose-built and well-planned recycling and reuse options. And where recycling and reuse do not fulfill demand, we must commit to better funded regulatory agencies to increase oversight capacity and strengthen, not weaken, regulatory standards, including reform of the settler colonial era hard rock mining law, which deems mining the “highest and best use” of the land.