The Trump administration is aiming to increase American mineral production, pinning falling production in the U.S. on what they have deemed “overbearing federal regulation.”
Now, environmental groups and Tribes are concerned that this shift could come with major consequences for ecosystems and communities, including one of the country’s most iconic features: Arizona’s 277-mile-long Grand Canyon.
“This administration is so vindictive and so petty, in addition to being corrupt and corporate, that we’re assuming that they’re going to try and go after anything good a previous Democratic administration did,” Athan Manuel, the director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, told The Independent Monday. “And, obviously President [Joe] Biden announced the monument around the Grand Canyon to protect the million acres from future uranium mining, among other things.”
Uranium was listed in the president’s executive order to increase domestic minerals production that would “prioritize mineral production activities over other types of activities on federal lands that hold critical mineral deposits.”
The Grand Canyon, which is offers extraordinary vistas and serves as a major tourism boon for the state, is also home to uranium. Uranium is a vital component for the production of nuclear energy. It’s found in the canyon’s geologic features, deep in the sandstone.
The action ordered the interior, energy, defense and agriculture secretaries to identify additional sites for those activities that can be permitted as soon as possible. Specifically, it instructed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to identify and provide a list of all federal lands known to hold mineral deposits and reserves.
The order includes all mining projects for copper, uranium, potash, gold and any critical mineral, element, compound or material identified by the chair of the National Energy Dominance Council.
While it may be too soon to say what the order may mean for federal lands and those who depend on them, Grand Canyon Trust Staff Attorney Aaron Paul told The Independent that is is “deeply concerning” for the president to come in and “demand that one kind of use of the public land should get priority over everything else.”
“What we’re worried about are moves that the president and the Interior Department could make to reopen the area to mining, that was not done by this recent executive order and would take other sort of legal actions by those parts of the executive branch,” Paul explained.
Mining in the U.S. is regulated under the Mining Act of 1872, declaring that “all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the U.S.” are “free and open to exploration and purchase.”
For decades, environmental groups and tribes have called for the 153-year-old law to be updated, which only requires that four stakes are planted in the ground and paperwork is filed to stake a mining claim on public lands. Mining operations pay no royalties for the minerals they extract from lands owned by Americans, according to Inside Climate News.
The outlet notes that the order sets the stage to rollback one of the only actions to regulate the industry’s use of public lands and paves the way for other reversals, such as allowing Canadian Hudbay Minerals to dump its waste materials along Arizona’s Santa Rita mountains.
That location is not alone. Long-stalled New Mexico uranium mines are now “priority projects,” the leader of the Cibola National Forest told staff, according to a recording of a meeting obtained by Source NM. Earlier this month, the Interior Department announced the approval for the expansion of a coal mine in Montana.
Conservation groups also fear any impact on the West’s Grand Canyon National Monument.
The monument safeguards nearly one million acres surrounding the park, harbors sacred sites, and protects its unique species, including the critically endangered California condor. The area and Tribes in the community have long been affected by woes associated with uranium mining, and one mine currently remains operational along the canyon’s south rim.
The Pinyon Plains mine began extracting uranium near the Grand Canyon last year. The uranium is found in the canyon’s rocks. The mine is located less than 10 miles from the park and the Havasupai Tribe’s ancestral lands. There’s not that much uranium there: around 3.7 percent of reserves and other resources across the nation.
The Grand Canyon Trust says that more than 66 million gallons of groundwater, which is used for drinking water, have been pumped out of the mine’s shaft and found to contain high levels of heavy metals. A study published last year in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences found that there is a risk to the groundwater, and an EPA review found the same.
The National Parks Conservation Association notes that a legacy of uranium mining on Tribal lands resulted in radiation exposure that brought disproportionate rates of cancer across communities.
Davina Smith, a Navajo Nation organizer who works with the association as a Tribal coordinator, told The Independent that her grandfather had worked in a uranium mine and suffered the health effects.
“Our aquifers do not replenish,” said Smith. “So, there’s just so much that needs to be told from the communities that live in these areas that definitely are the ones that are having, to this day, deal with those repercussions.”
“I think the stories of our local communities … Those are the narratives that are always to this day not even considered,” she noted. “Because I feel this is going to be an ongoing issue that our health and our livelihood is not a concern, especially to this current president.”
Paul says that the risk still exists today, but it’s about whether that risk is acceptable.
“Energy Fuels, I think, says this is acceptable in order for us to run our business, and supply uranium and other minerals. And, I think that there are many people who would disagree with that,” said Paul.
Energy Fuels Inc., the company that operates Pinyon Plains mine and the largest uranium producer in the U.S., said that comments shared with The Independent were mostly from “Tribal activists.” The company noted that it has a good relationship with the Navajo Nation. In January, Energy Fuels and the Navajo Nation signed an agreement governing the transport of uranium ore along highways crossing the Navajo Nation. Furthermore, it wrote that the “best and most economic uranium deposits are located in Arizona, despite only 3.7 percent of the reserves found there.”
Energy Fuels said concerns about water in the mine shaft were unfounded. “This is a false narrative the activist try to create, implying that we’re contaminating groundwater or drinking water, which is simply not even remotely true,” a spokesperson said. “Many (most?) mines need to manage natural groundwater. When that water enters the mine, it is collected and disposed (we collect it in an epoxy lined sump, pump it to the surface and evaporate it in our lined pond. Needless to say, this is not appropriate drinking water. Ask yourself – would you drink untreated water directly from a mine? (or any industrial or other facility – heck, even a golf course!) I hope not.”
The company has told KJZZ that they know they’re “watched closely” and would “never go outside” of permitted boundaries.
They’ve said that all mining operations around Pinyon Plains are safe, according to the AZ Mirror.
Still Group’s fear the impact Trump’s order could have.
“I think the Grand Canyon and the surrounding region are national treasures and those uranium resources there, in context, are really not that significant,” Paul said. “And, the bottom line takeaway, in my view, is that there’s just no case for putting something as treasured as the Grand Canyon at risk for a tiny bit of uranium, especially considering the interests of the native nations for who that region is a homeland.”
“I mean, there’s almost no place more iconic in the United States than the Grand Canyon,” Manuel added.
