President-elect Joe Biden may be ready to shut that door for good.
âI canât believe I have to say this, but we canât let Donald Trump open up the Grand Canyon for uranium mining,â Biden tweeted in August, after a Trump administration task force on nuclear fuel proposed relaxing restrictions on mining on federal lands.
In a statement posted at the same time, Biden called the Grand Canyon an âirreplaceable jewelâ and blasted the Trump administrationâs mining plan, saying he would focus instead on developing clean energy. While Biden did not lay out a specific mining plan, his statement was still enough for Kevin Dahl.
Biden firm on uranium-mining ban around the Grand Canyon havasunews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from havasunews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Advertisement: “We are finding out more things about how water travels and how one spring in the Grand Canyon might be influenced by last winter’s snowpack, and how another spring might be being supplied with water from thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, depending upon the geology that supports it,” he said. Dahl worries the aquifers and faults make the Grand Canyon susceptible to water contamination and other negative effects of mining. He and other environmentalists point to the 17-acre Canyon Mine in Kaibab National Forest, which was in place before the moratorium took effect and was, therefore, exempt.
For four years, the Trump administration took steps to boost uranium mining for what it called national security reasons, a move environmentalists saw as an attempt to open the door to mining near the Grand Canyon. President-elect Joe Biden may be ready to shut that door for good.
Dec. 24, 2020
Because it was approved in 1986, the Canyon Mine was not affected in 2012 when the federal government imposed a 20-year uranium mining ban on 1 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon. Low prices for uranium have kept the mine from operating, but that could change and it could begin production – a move critics fear could threaten the canyon. (File photo by Jake Eldridge/Cronkite News)
One of five stories in the series, “Hello, Joe: How Biden policies may be felt in Arizona.”
WASHINGTON – For four years, the Trump administration took steps to boost uranium mining for what it called national security reasons, a move environmentalists saw as an attempt to open the door to mining near the Grand Canyon.