What's up With That Uranium Mine Near the Grand Canyon?

August 14 2020

Ed Moss

by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

In May 2020, after a 7-year legal battle, a district court judge in Arizona helped clear the way for a mining company to dig radioactive uranium ore from a mine on national forest land not far from Grand Canyon National Park.

This was disappointing news given the poor environmental track record at the uranium mine in question — Canyon Mine — the vocal opposition of the Havasupai Tribe (whose leaders and citizens have opposed the mine for decades), and risks to vital groundwater.

There's a long list of problems at Canyon Mine — I wrote a whole report about it — but here are a few of the top contenders:

1. It's in the wrong place

Canyon Mine from the air. ECOFLIGHT

Behind a chainlink fence in a meadow on the Kaibab National Forest, Canyon Mine is built on the ancestral lands of the Havasupai Tribe near Red Butte, a federally recognized traditional cultural property and the place where the Havasupai people believe they emerged into this world.

For years, the Havasupai Tribe has organized an intertribal gathering nearby where hundreds of Indigenous people from tribes across the region who have cultural ties to the Grand Canyon convene to demonstrate their opposition to the mine.

Oh, and those cliffs you see on the horizon in the photo? That's just the Grand Canyon.

2. It's a water fiasco

Water cannons shooting water into the air at Canyon Mine to speed up evaporation. BLAKE MCCORD

Water cannons shoot mist into the air at Canyon Mine on March 15, 2017, to speed up evaporation. BLAKE MCCORD

In this arid landscape, where water is a precious and life-sustaining resource, Canyon Mine has a major flooding problem. In the course of drilling the mine shaft, the mining company hit groundwater. Starting in 2016, as the mine shaft reached the depth of the uranium ore, levels of dissolved uranium in the floodwater spiked to more than four times the EPA’s safe drinking water standard, and arsenic levels reached 29 times the EPA drinking water standard. Since 2016, more than 30 million gallons of water have been pumped out of the mine's shaft, at times risking to overflow the mine's open-air evaporation pond.

The Havasupai Tribe is particularly concerned about the mine contaminating the deeper Redwall-Muav aquifer, their sole source of drinking water, which feeds Havasu Creek and the world-famous turquoise-blue waterfalls you see in the photo up top.

Meanwhile, the mining company has resorted to some extraordinary measures to deal with its water problem, including misting the water into the air with cannons to speed up evaporation and even going so far as to truck contaminated water over state lines to the White Mesa uranium mill in Utah. The company was later notified by Arizona water regulators that this was illegal.

3. It's attracting animals and birds

A mourning dove drinking and bathing in the evaporation pond at Canyon Mine on May 29, 2018. TAYLOR MCKINNON, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

A mourning dove drinking and bathing in the evaporation pond at Canyon Mine. TAYLOR MCKINNON, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

The risk of contamination at Canyon Mine poses a danger to wildlife and concerns hunters and anglers. That's why groups like the Arizona Wildlife Federation and Trout Unlimited support a permanent ban on uranium mining on public lands around the Grand Canyon.

Birds have been photographed drinking from the evaporation pond, where contaminated water from the mine shaft is pumped. The pond isn't covered and is often the only available surface water for miles, making it attractive to thirsty animals. This summer, Grand Canyon Trust staff observed large burrows and animal prints around the bottom of the chainlink fence, as well as tufts of fur that had caught on the fence, where animals appeared to have tunneled under, likely to get to water.

4. It's not regulated strictly enough

A 2018 protest walk to Canyon Mine during the 2018 Red Butte Gathering. AMY S. MARTIN

The state agency charged with protecting Arizona's clean water and clean air could be doing more to protect people, wildlife, water, and the environment from Canyon Mine. In the short term, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality could require that the mine obtain a more stringent individual aquifer protection permit, rather than letting the mine owner squeak by with a more lenient general aquifer protection permit that we believe it’s not qualified to have. The state is currently deliberating over what kind of permit to require. The state could also require that the mine owner install a system of deep monitoring wells to keep tabs on any contamination that might be detected in the groundwater beneath the mine.

Canyon Mine isn't the only uranium mine around the Grand Canyon, but it is a poster child for what can go wrong mining uranium in the Grand Canyon region. Meanwhile, there are over 800 active mining claims on public lands surrounding the canyon, waiting out a temporary ban on developing new mines that is set to expire in 2032 so long as no administration attempts to lift it sooner.

Taking stock of the potentially irreversible consequences of uranium contamination on water, the environment, and human health, Canyon Mine simply isn't worth the risk.