Lawmakers push to lift northern Arizona uranium-mining ban

Arizona and Utah lawmakers touted a Senate bill Wednesday that would open additional than 1 million acres in the northern part of Arizona to new uranium mining the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act would avoid the Department of the Interior from banning new uranium mines on the land, saying mining can bring hundreds of millions of dollars per year into local economies with minimal environmental risk.

The bill is a response to a provisional ban on new mines in the so-called Arizona Strip federal lands next to Grand Canyon National Park a ban that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said he would like to extend for 20 years the department is at present studying the possibility John McCain, R-Ariz., said the ban sets a precedent that the Interior Department can modify land-use agreements without congressional consent he said the Interior Department breached an agreement it complete with Congress through the Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984, which specifies uses of the Arizona Strip.

“I don’t know if any of my colleagues were consult before this decision was made, but I sure as hell wasn’t,” said McCain, the major sponsor of the bill he was joined Wednesday by Republican lawmakers from the two states the Republicans’ measure is the conflicting of a House bill introduced this spring by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson his bill, the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act, would block additional uranium mining operations in the Arizona Strip.

Uranium mining on Arizona Strip threatened by Federal Government

Headed by the Arizona-Utah Local Economic Coalition, the thought was held at the Washington County Administration Building on Sept. 7. Co-chaired by Washington County Commissioner Alan Gardner and Mohave County Commissioner Buster Johnson of Arizona, the Coalition heard testimony for and alongside a proposal of Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, Salazar plans to close one million acres of the Arizona Strip to numerous uses for the next 20 years.

Uranium mining is seen as the major target of Salazar’s proposal, as the bulk of current mining movement takes place in the one million acre zone if passed, future mining claims will be out of the question, while present ones will develop into subject to review.

The problems lies in concerns over potential infectivity cause to water by uranium mining it is also supposed that the mining will guide to the contamination of the Colorado River and adversely authority the scenery of the Grand Canyon in 2009; the Department of the Interior organized an Environmental Impact.