Mining and the Canyon

The Obama administration has extended for six months a 2009 moratorium on new uranium mining claims on one million acres approximately the Grand Canyon. This is good news; even better is the promise from Ken Salazar, the center secretary, that he will soon recommend a 20-year ban on new claims in the region. That is the maximum allowed below the 1872 mining law.

With uranium prices rising, the number of mining claims has jumped harshly over the last few years. There include been about 3,500 claims in the Grand Canyon-area alone. If developed, they would generate toxic wastes that would threaten the Colorado River — the cause of drinking water for roughly 27 million public — the aquifer and the Grand Canyon ecosystem in general.

Mr. Salazar said he could not abandon valid existing claims, but there is likely to be little actual mining. The decision to “withdraw” the land beginning future claims creates new regulatory hurdles for existing claimants, who must demonstrate, in the middle of other things that they had discovered real mineral deposits before the 2009 moratorium. Only handfuls have been able to do so.