by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director
In August 2024, amid community uproar and protests against both the operation of Pinyon Plain uranium mine (formerly Canyon Mine) and the start of ore hauling from the mine across the Navajo Nation to the White Mesa uranium mill, Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, sent a letter to the U.S. Forest Service.
The letter asked the Forest Service to complete an environmental review called a "supplemental environmental impact statement" for the Pinyon Plain Mine on the grounds that the mine’s original 1986 review was "based on an outdated, inaccurate understanding of the risks posed by the Mine to groundwater supplies across the Grand Canyon region."
That’s because, up until the mine began commercial operation in December 2023 for the first time since it was approved nearly 38 years earlier, its mining equipment wasn’t the only thing that had been gathering dust. The federal government’s assessment of the mine’s environmental risks and impacts is also nearly four decades old and scientific research, particularly in the realm of groundwater science, has evolved.
Before federal agencies undertake a "major action," like approving a plan for mining on public lands, the National Environmental Policy Act requires them to prepare an environmental analysis to aid them in deciding how to act. Under some conditions, agencies must supplement their earlier analyses when "[t]here are substantial new circumstances or information about the significance of adverse effects that bear on the analysis." And agencies also may choose to update a prior analysis whenever it will serve the National Environmental Policy Act’s purposes.
Essentially, the attorney general and hydrologists believe the Forest Service’s 1986 conclusions about groundwater impacts from the mine might have been different knowing what we know now. They assert that the Forest Service must consider this new information.
While the attorney general says the environmental analysis of the risks the mine poses needs to be updated, the mine’s owner — Energy Fuels Resources — insists there is no need to revisit the original 1986 review because, the company claims, it was reaffirmed by the Forest Service in 2012 and upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022. But the truth is more complex.
What Energy Fuels says is only partially true. While the mine’s 1986 environmental impact statement has been reviewed, it hasn’t been reviewed in light of the latest developments in groundwater science.
"With scientific advancements in the 21st century and new insights into aquifer connectivity, it is critical that the U.S. Forest Service conduct a supplemental study for the Pinyon Plain Mine," Attorney General Mayes explains.
While it’s true that the 1986 environmental analysis was reviewed by the Forest Service in 2012 and was at issue in a lawsuit that concluded in February 2022, in neither forum was there any consideration of scientific research published in the past 12 years.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals considered the need for a new environmental impact statement through a different lens and did not examine scientific advancements since 1986. The court looked only at whether a "validity determination" the Forest Service completed to deem the mine exempt from a 2012 mining ban constituted "a major federal action" — a precondition that the National Environmental Policy Act sets out for requiring an environmental review.
The 2012 Forest Service review considered groundwater science in less than a page. Citing only one 2005 U.S. Geological Survey study, the Forest Service concluded: "There does not seem to be any reason to reevaluate the groundwater conditions or mining effects to them, as there is no new information or changed circumstance related to ground water that would indicate the original analysis is insufficient." Today, this is a much different story.
Long-time Grand Canyon groundwater scientists Dr. Laura Crossey and Dr. Karl Karlstrom say that more recent scientific studies paint a different picture than the one the Forest Service saw in 1986 and reaffirmed in 2012.
The 2012 Forest Service review highlights several key scientific conclusions as unchanged from the original analysis, but today scientists say it’s just not that simple.
Crossey and Karlstrom have done groundwater research in the region for years and are co-authors of a 2024 peer-reviewed paper that got the attention of Attorney General Mayes.
Their research and review of other studies in the region determined that Pinyon Plain Mine could potentially contaminate springs and wells on the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and endanger Havasu Springs, near Havasupai Village.
At a minimum, the study calls for additional monitoring at the mine to test for contaminants.
In the words of Crossey and Karlstrom: "In our view, the protection of spring ecosystems and tribal water sources and sacred sites requires cessation of all uranium mining activities at Pinyon Plain Mine…"
Even without the legal triggers that mandate an updated review, under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Forest Service can, at its discretion, decide to supplement an environmental impact statement, if it chooses.
When it comes to the potential risks Pinyon Plain Mine poses, we hope the Forest Service, at a minimum, will use its discretionary power to take a hard look at the science and consider what scientists have learned about groundwater in the region since 2012.
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Read MoreSign the petition to oppose Canyon uranium mine (aka Pinyon Plain Mine) Sign now
