Despite legal challenges and a U.S. Government moratorium, Denison Mines, a Canadian company, has started mining uranium on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  This according to sources has been going on since December of 2009.

There plans are to extract 335 tons of uranium ore per day out of this mine, operating four days a week.  This ore is being trucked over 300 miles through towns and communities to the company's mill located near Blanding, Utah.

After pressure from environmental groups, the U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar called for a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in a buffer zone of 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon National Park.  But supposedly, this doesn't exclude existing claims such as Denison's.

Aboriginal nations of the area have banned uranium mining on their reservations.  This does not preclude the federal government, who has land around the park, from allowing permits to go forward.

The biggest pressure to expand uranium mining is the recent increases in the price of uranium.  Because of this increase, over 8,000 new mining claims are now threatening Northern Arizona.  Most of this uranium is being purchased by Areva (France) and Korea.

Obama, in a decision in January 2010 has approved spending $5.4 Billion on new reactor construction.  There has also been a flood of companies who have sought government approval for 26 reactors.  Estimates of their costs are about $12 Billion each.

Although nuclear energy is hailed by some as a solution to the current U.S. energy crisis and global warming, those more closely impacted by uranium mining and transportation recognize the severity of the threat.

Uranium is well known as a carcinogen.  Drilling in the radioactive material results in releases of radon gas and a host of other radionuclides that have been trapped in the ore.  Bringing this to the surface, this has the potential for contaminating groundwater, surface water and a host of sacred springs that have sustained Indigenous Peoples in the region.  And what will this do to the tourism dollar if they know that they are being brought within any distance of an active uranium mine.  The radon gas will be blown into the Colorado River, a source of 27 million people in 7 states for drinking water.  And what of the communities that don't have access to any other water?

Flocks of sheep and other livestock still graze among radioactive tailing piles and ingest radioactive water. According to the Navajo Nation up to 2.5 million gallons of uranium contaminated water is leaching out of the Shiprock Uranium Mill near Shiprock, New Mexico into the San Juan River every year. At the Church Rock Mine in New Mexico, which is now attempting to re-open, up to 875,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste continue to contaminate the land.

In July 1979 a dirt dam breached on the Navajo Nation at a uranium processing plant releasing more than 1,100 tons of radioactive waste and nearly 100 million gallons of contaminated fluid into the Rio Puerco (which ultimately flows into the Colorado River) near Church Rock, NM. This was the single largest nuclear accident in US history. Thousands of Diné families that live in the region, including those forced to relocate from the Joint Use Area due to coal mining, continue to suffer health impacts resulting from the spill.

In 2005 the Diné Nation government banned uranium mining and processing within its borders due to uranium’s harmful legacy of severe health impacts and poisoning of the environment.  And yet, high cancer rates, birth defects and other health impacts still bear out  the uranium industry’s dangerous legacy.

Sound familiar?

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