20-Year Ban on New Uranium-Mining Claims in Canyon Holds Up in courtyard

The Havasupai people, and the Grand Canyon division, won in U.S. District Court this week when a moderator denied the uranium industry’s motion to turn over a 20-year central ban on uranium mining on 1 million acres in the economically sensitive landmark and haven of sacred places to many tribes. Still under disputation, though, are formerly existing claims that are held still valid.

The March 20 move upheld a ban signed by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in January 2012, when he prohibited new uranium-mining claims, as well as growth on certain old claims whose rights may have expired, for 20 years on 1 million acres neighboring the canyon. 

The uranium industry was hopeful to cripple the Interior Department’s ability to provisionally protect lands from critical mining. Today’s opinion upholds the center Department’s authority to take such defensive measures.

Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens revered sites of the Havasupai, Hualapai, and Kaibab Paiute, Zuni, Hopi, and Navajo peoples. Not enclosed in the ban confined by the March 20, 2013, court decision is the question of previously accepted mining and new projects on claim sites with accessible rights.

Uranium Ban at U.S. Grand Canyon Pits Tourism Against Mining

An Obama administration ban on new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, the second most-visited U.S. national park, has touched off a argue over jobs from mining and tourism in a state that relies on both industries.The ban “comes at the cost of hundreds of high-paying jobs and approximately $10 billion worth of bustle for the Arizona economy,” Arizona Governor Janice K. Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who sign the 20-year ban yesterday at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, said it was part of an effort to maintain the $3.5 billion spent by guests to the national park each year.

“Tourism, leisure are extremely much a part of job creation of the United States,” Salazar said. “The jobs associated to the Grand Canyon are not jobs that can be export anywhere, those are truly American jobs.”The ban will avoid new uranium and other hard-rock mining on about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon National Park, which was visited by 4.5 million people in 2010, second to the Great Smoky Mountains. Previously accepted mining and new projects on claims and sites with accessible rights will be allowed, potentially leading to development of as many as 11 uranium mines, according to a declaration from the Interior Department.

More uranium mining near Canyon a bad idea

A temporary moratorium has halted new uranium mining claims near the Grand Canyon at the moment Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is on the verge of extend the ban, which covers 1 million acres of federal land, for 20 years but leading member of our congressional delegation are trying to stop him.

The stakes are sky-high: our No 1 tourist magnetism the health of wildlife and the drinking water for more than 26 million people yet Sens Jon Kyl and John McCain and Reps Jeff Flake and Trent Franks have introduced legislation to take the brakes off mining claim it would particularly forbid any moratorium.

What are the benefits that outweigh the risks? They call the moratorium a "job killer" But lifting it would create relatively few jobs, several of them in Utah at peak production, total employment in the five-county region, as well as Coconino and Mohave, would increase by less than 1 percent.

EDITORIAL: Protect the Grand Canyon

Congressional Republicans are continuing their physical attack on the nation’s environmental safeguards with a proposal to reverse a lately imposed 20-year ban on mining 1 million acres bordering the Grand Canyon.

Democrats were unable to strip this rapacious suggestion from an Interior spending bill that was approved Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee. Never intelligence that 3,500 mining claims include been filed in the Grand Canyon area alone. Never mind that uranium mining would generate toxic wastes that would infect the Colorado River, on which millions of Americans rely for drinking water.

Never mind the blight that mining would impose on an iconic landscape. Never mind that the moratorium has little effect on the nation’s uranium supply, the majority of which comes from New Mexico and Wyoming.Republicans have a rising fondness for managing environmental protections from end to end the budget process.

Board OKs letter supporting uranium mining

The county supervisors approved Tuesday a letter behind uranium mining in Northern Arizona including lands around the Grand Canyon. The board voted to straight staff to submit a letter to National Association of Counties to hold uranium mining on federal Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service Park in Northern Arizona including the Arizona Strip area.

In 2009, U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar withdrew regarding one million acres of land near the Grand Canyon beginning new mining operations for two years. Salazar recently extended the moratorium for six months on the public park in Northern Arizona.

One of three sections of the ground under moratorium in Mohave County is called the north segregation area, which includes land south of Colorado City and Fredonia. There is currently individual active seven-acre mine located south of Pipe Springs National Monument. One woman thought at Tuesday’s board meeting that uranium with the intention of is mine would not drain into the Grand Canyon and that the uranium would naturally drain into washes anyhow because of erosion. Another woman said Arizona Mine Inspector Joe Hart of Kingman told her the mining process would create the environment cleaner.

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.