TUSAYAN – In a clearing on Forest Road 305, about 15 miles south of Grand Canyon National Park, an enormous steel headframe towers beside a retention pond. Beneath the headframe, a mine shaft drops 1,400 feet into the earth.
This is the Canyon Mine, which opened in 1986 to extract uranium. A handful of employees work here during the week, but the mine has not produced a single ounce of the mineral, which is used to produce nuclear weapons and keep the country’s 96 nuclear reactors operating.
As demand for uranium has plummeted, the price is too low for U.S. companies to compete with other countries and still turn a profit. Uranium is produced in just seven facilities in the U.S., including the White Mesa Mill in Utah...