Biden to Designate Nearly a Million Acres in Grand Canyon as National Monument

Biden has designated vast swaths of land in the Grand Canyon area as protected even as the move is termed as jeopardizing America’s uranium fuel security.

President Joe Biden speaks at a proclamation signing ceremony in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House in Washington on July 25, 2023. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

President Joe Biden will be designating a portion of land in the Grand Canyon region as a national monument and limiting mining in the area—a move criticized as jeopardizing America’s uranium fuel security.

On Tuesday, Mr. Biden is expected to sign a proclamation establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona. This will be the fifth national monument established by Mr. Biden. The monument “will conserve nearly 1 million acres of public lands surrounding Grand Canyon National Park. The new monument protects thousands of cultural and sacred sites that are precious to Tribal Nations in the Southwest,” an Aug. 8 White House fact sheet says.

The designation of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument has been long sought after by some Native American tribes that see the region as sacred. Leaders from tribal communities had asked for around 1.1 million acres of land to be designated.

However, only 917,618 acres of public lands that are under the management of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service are brought under the new monument designation.

The Biden administration’s latest national monument designation has faced pushback from supporters of uranium mining. Back in 2012, the Obama administration had imposed a 20-year prohibition on new uranium mining in the region. The new national monument designation will make this restriction permanent.

In an interview with AP, Buster Johnson, a supervisor at Mohave County, pointed out that the monument designation seems to be political in nature. He considers it a bad idea not to tap into the uranium in the region, saying that it could make America more dependent on Russia.

“We need uranium for the security of our country,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re out of the game.”

At present, there are no uranium mining companies operating in Arizona. One mine in the south Grand Canyon National Park has been in development for several years.

The Biden administration has pledged that the restriction on uranium mining won’t apply to existing mining claims that were established prior to 2012. Such claims “will remain in place, and the two approved mining operations within the boundaries of the monument would be able to operate,” the White House said.

On Aug. 7, 15 Republican lawmakers gathered at the town of Kingman, Arizona, to oppose the Biden administration’s new monument designation, calling it a “bureaucratic land grab,” according to Courthouse News.

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), a Republican from Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, warned that the monument designation would have “devastating effects” on Mohave County as many rural towns become isolated by the creation of the monument, resulting in a loss of economic opportunity for people in these areas.

“The Biden Administration will stop at nothing to inject Joe Biden’s radical eco-agenda into every aspect of American life,” he said in a statement that was read at the gathering by his district director.

Water Contamination Issue

Uranium mining’s effects on water supplies has been one of the issues that tribes in the region have been concerned about.

“It’s really the uranium we don’t want coming out of the ground because it’s going to affect everything around us—the trees, the land, the animals, the people,” Havasupai Tribal Councilwoman Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla, told AP.

In the Navajo Nation, where over 500 mines that supported Cold War weaponry were abandoned and were never cleaned up, uranium mining has been attributed to death and disease. The Navajo tribe continues to seek compensation for the people who lived and worked around these mines.

The Obama administration’s 20-year moratorium on mining in the region was a reaction to concerns that such activities were contaminating water.

However, a 2021 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that most springs and wells in northern Arizona, known for high-grade uranium ore, contained water that met federal drinking standards. The study sampled 206 sites—180 springs and 26 wells.

Of the 206 sites, 195 (95 percent) had maximum observed uranium concentrations that were less than the maximum contaminant level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In a statement to AZ Central, Curtis Moore, a spokesperson for Energy Fuels that operates the Pinyon Plain Mine, said that “there is zero scientific evidence that uranium mining on the lands covered by the proposed national monument has ever had any adverse effects on human health, groundwater, the Grand Canyon, or the environment. So, we believe a monument is unnecessary.”

A view into the Grand Canyon from the South Rim, Ariz., on July 10 2003. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Pinyon Plain Mine is located south of Grand Canyon National Park and has been in development for the many years.

Mr. Moore pointed out that current mining techniques are far safer than the old mining pits that were left behind in the mid-20th century, acknowledging that tribes that have suffered the consequences of mining contamination may be skeptical.

However, “activist groups like the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, and others are happy to exploit this distrust to advance their anti-nuclear political agendas,” he said.

Grand Canyon Trust and Sierra Club have challenged Energy Fuels’s claim that uranium mining contamination does not pose any significant threat to the region’s water.

They say that the lack of information about such contamination is due to a scarcity of sampling wells or a dearth of federal funds for monitoring such activity.