PRLog (Press Release)– Apr 26, 2011– There are just a few days left (May 4) to share your opinion about the potential to permit new uranium mines on public lands adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park. On July 20, 2009, Secretary of the In rc helicopter and car market place terior Ken Salazar issued a two-year segregation order limiting new mining claims on approximately one million acres of federal public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) in the Kanab Creek area and in the House Rock Valley managed by Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the Tusayan Ranger District of the Kaibab National Forest. The proposed withdrawal would limit mining to existing, proven claims on these lands. Secretary Ken Salazar should extend the existing, temporary withdrawal affecting new mining on the nearly one million acres of public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon for twenty years. More time is needed to find a long-term solution.
Colorado River & Trail Expeditions(http://www.crateinc.com), a Grand Canyon rafting outfitter, is profoundly concerned about mining in and around the Grand Canyon for multiple reasons. First and foremost the Grand Canyon is the most amazing place in the world, and it must be protected and preserved, if the Grand Canyon is not worth protecting, then nothing is. The damage to the quality and quantity of Grand Canyon springs, and the plants and animals that depend on those springs would be very detrimental. Lastly the damage to the tourism economy of the region could adversely affect Colorado River & Trail Expeditions and other touris corsa t based businesses.
Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon area typically involve excavation of vertical and horizontal shafts into, or near, breccia pipes, which are geologic collapse features and zones of historical groundwater recharge. This breccia pipe-type of uranium mine generates ore along with waste rock that typically is piled on the land's surface until shipment to a mill takes place. Local precipitation and surface run-off waters can come in contact with this surface uranium ore and transport it into the Grand Canyon via aquifers, springs, and drainages. The toxic Atlas uranium mill tailings pile abandoned in 1984 by the company in Moab, Utah will cost taxpayers $1 billion to remove from the Colorado River flood plain. The Atlas Mill is one of hundreds of places where uranium mining has left a poisonous footprint on our landscape, leaving 16 million tons of radioactive mill waste leaking into the Colorado River, the drinking water supply for 25 million people downstream alfa romeo .
There is a real potential for uranium contamination to occur in the creeks, seeps, and other tributaries that supply water to GCNP. Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles and Southern Nevada Water Authority have voiced their serious concerns about possible contamination of the Colorado River if uranium mining is permitted around the Grand Canyon.
In addition to quality of water, uranium mines will deplete water all together. The mines use water, which is usually supplied form wells or imported from springs. Water is necessary for mining operations to support drilling, potable water supply and sanitation needs. Wells in the Grand Canyon are typically 2000 feet deep and tap into the Redwall-Muav aquifer that supplies most of the springs in the Grand Canyon including Thunder River, Deer Creek and Stone Creek. If all mining claims in the Grand Canyon region were turned into active mines and used the same amount of water as projected by the Canyon Uranium Mine (Canyon Uranium Mine EIS, 1986) the resulting water would be over five times the use of the city of Flagstaff and would decimate the Grand Canyon's springs and all of the plants and animals that depend on the water. One mine alone could suck several small springs dry.
Tourism, not mining, has been the mainstay of the region's economy. Northern Arizona University conducted the Grand Canyon National Park Northern Arizona Tourism Study in April 2005. The study found that visitation to the Grand Canyon provided $687 mil car news lion annually in direct, indirect and induced revenues into the local economy, and employs 12,000 FTEs direct, indirect and induced. The Canyon averages five million visitors annually making it the key regional economic engine for Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. Polluting the Grand Canyon with uranium mines and their tailings would destroy this economic windfall from the Earth's most beautiful Natural Wonder. The Grand Canyon is a national treasure that belongs to all of us, and it is our responsibility to protect it for the next generation. Let's take the necessary steps to protect the canyon, and our tourism-dependent economy.
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