FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Flagstaff, AZ — The Grand Canyon Trust strongly supports a new Senate bill, S-3127 "The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act," announced today by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ, to protect public lands around Grand Canyon National Park from new mining claims in perpetuity. Sen. Sinema's bill offers much-needed permanent protections for the precious waters, national forest, and other treasured public lands around the Grand Canyon. A similar bill passed the House in October, with bipartisan support.
Read Senator Sinema's announcement of S-3127 ›
Visit the legislation's homepage for information and updates ›
"The Grand Canyon Trust is profoundly grateful to Senator Sinema for introducing this important legislation that will protect a natural wonder of the world — the Grand Canyon — for our children and for generations beyond, now, in the future, and forever," said Grand Canyon Trust Executive Director Ethan Aumack. "If there's one thing we as Arizonans, and indeed we as Americans, can agree upon, it's that the Grand Canyon deserves permanent protection from uranium mining. We're proud to stand with the Havasupai Tribe and many others in supporting this vital and necessary legislation."
Sen. Sinema's Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act is simple: it makes the current temporary ban on new mining claims around the Grand Canyon, put in place in 2012, permanent. Northern Arizona knows all too well the devastating effects uranium mining can have on communities, public health, water, and landscapes, a legacy that continues to haunt the region today. Grand Canyon National Park itself has a history of being marred by uranium mining, which has contaminated land and water inside the park; the abandoned Orphan Mine on the park's south rim has already cost American taxpayers more than $15 million in cleanup costs. And still today, as the clock ticks on the temporary ban and the administration contemplates mining-company requests to prematurely lift it, over 800 active mining claims lie in wait on public lands outside the park.
The Grand Canyon Trust has long supported the work of Grand Canyon tribes, including the Havasupai Tribe, to protect their homeland and its precious waters from the dangers of uranium-mining contamination. Sen. Sinema's bill would make this effort, at long last, a reality.
In addition to permanently protecting lands around the Grand Canyon from uranium mining, the bill mandates a government study of current uranium stockpiles available to meet national security needs. By including the study in the same bill, Sen. Sinema underscores the reality that any national security question is not relevant to the Grand Canyon or the public lands around it, which the bill simultaneously protects from new mining claims. It's clear that even if, in the future, the U.S. needed to mine more uranium for national security purposes, the Grand Canyon is — and always will be — too precious to mine.
"It was clear during the House bill process, the question of national security is not relevant to the Grand Canyon region, which holds less than 1 percent of known, mineable U.S. uranium reserves,” said Amber Reimondo, Energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust. “It's time for a permanent mining ban to become law. We are grateful that Senator Sinema has taken the next step with a bill that makes it clear: national security questions have no bearing on the need to permanently protect the Grand Canyon from becoming another chapter in our country’s already unjust, toxic uranium-mining legacy. There is no reality in which it is worthwhile to endanger the Grand Canyon. Today we are grateful to Senator Sinema for her leadership in advancing a permanent mining ban around the Grand Canyon."
