Mining companies are staking claims on federal land near Grand Canyon National Park. Opponents say radioactive isotopes may leach into drinking water. Mining companies, backed by the administration, say there’s no cause for concern. (Melanie Stetson Freeman – Staff/File)
Do uranium mines belong near Grand Canyon?
Mining companies stake claims on federal land adjoining the park, while opponents say drinking water will be at risk.
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ August 19, 2008 edition
Reporter Mark Clayton discusses the large number of uranium mining claims near the Grand Canyon National Park.
Reporter Mark Clayton
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ.
On a ragged outcrop just a short walk from a Grand Canyon overlook where millions of visitors annually come to gawk at one of the world’s most stunning vistas sits the old Orphan uranium mine. Soil radiation levels around it are 450 times higher than normal. It’s encircled by a protective fence.
A sign warns: “Remain behind fence – environmental evaluation in progress.” In the canyon hundreds of feet below, another sign by gurgling Horn Creek instructs thirsty hikers not to drink its radioactive water.
Even so, Horn Creek eventually splashes its way to the canyon bottom and into the Colorado River, a vital water source for 25 million people from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to San Diego. In that mighty river, the Orphan’s radioactive dribble is diluted to insignificance.
But what if a dozen or even scores of new uranium mines were leaching uranium radioisotopes into this critical water source? That is what Arizona’s governor, water authorities in two states, scientists, environmentalists, and Congress are all worried about. Should they be?
Everybody from mining-industry officials to environmentalists agrees that the Orphan mine is a poster child for the bad old days of uranium mining going back to the 1950s. Today’s regulations and newer mining techniques make such pollution far less likely, industry officials say, though environmentalists vehemently disagree. The question remains: Is Orphan only a vision of the past – or is it a vision of the future, too?
The US Southwest may be about to find out. Driven by soaring uranium prices and fresh interest in nuclear power, mining companies have staked more than 10,600 exploratory mineral claims – most of them smaller than five acres – spread across 1 million acres of federal land adjacent to the Colorado River and Grand Canyon National Park, a federal official told Congress in June. Most are uranium claims, though some may be for other metals, observers say.
Such numbers and testimony about pollution have begun to move Congress. Following congressional hearings, the House Natural Resources Committee in late June declared an emergency withdrawal of 1 million acres from any mining claims. The federal land in question is on the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon, just outside the national park, through which the Colorado River flows.
While a federal lawsuit and injunction have temporarily stalled uranium development in the national forest on the south rim, Congress’s action is being resisted by the Bush administration on the north rim.
There, lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management are unaffected by the lawsuit to the south and exploration claims are still being processed routinely.
One such claim, by Quaterra Alaska Inc., the US subsidiary of Vancouver-based Quaterra Resources, Inc., was approved for exploratory drilling on June 27 – just two days after the House’s Natural Resources Committee vote that should have stopped such action.
A Department of Interior spokesman says the BLM is still processing claims because the agency doesn’t consider the Congressional vote valid. In a July letter it argued that the committee didn’t have a quorum, a point disputed by the committee’s chairman and the House parliamentarian.
Mining regulations are tougher now
“They are charging forward,” says Taylor McKinnon, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz.
Last month, the US Department of Energy approved 42 square miles for an expanded uranium mining program in the watershed of the Dolores River, a tributary of the Colorado. But the question of what impact dozens of new uranium mines across the entire Colorado River watershed might have – an environmental disaster or an energy bonanza with few ill effects – remains hotly debated.
“Old mines like the Orphan were mined in the 1950s under no federal regulations whatsoever,” says Eugene Spiering, vice president of exploration for Quaterra. “Most mines today are above the water table, which makes chances of leakage practically nil. What we have now is a well-regulated industry.”
Still, there has been no regionwide environmental assessment of the likely impact of a new uranium mining boom on the Colorado River, close observers say. Nor is such an evaluation apparently of much interest to federal land managers, if comments on the subject by a Department of Interior spokesman are any guide.
“We already have the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and others that require comprehensive analyses before any mining is done, so there won’t be impacts to the environment,” says Chris Paolino, a spokesman for the Department of Interior. “At this time we’re still evaluating plans on an individual basis, but [a regional study is] not something I can rule out.”
“We hear from the industry and federal government that today ‘we can do it safely,’ ” says Roger Clark, air and energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental watchdog group. “But the burden of proof is on the proponents. Somebody needs to ask, ‘What is the cumulative threat to drinking water in the Colorado River – not just from radioactivity, but from arsenic and mercury from these mines?’”
Some are asking for exactly such a study. With cities like Phoenix relying on clean Colorado River water, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) is calling for an “overall environmental impact analysis,” citing the uranium boom’s “potential to seriously harm” the water quality of Grand Canyon National Park and the Lower Colorado River.
Uranium company officials say fears about radioactive contamination are overblown. New mining methods, far tougher environmental standards, and desert-dry conditions for most mines mean minimal risk to the Colorado River and the region’s precious groundwater resources, they say.
“Yes, there were issues in the past,” says Ron Hochstein, president of Denison Mines, a Toronto-based company with at least nine mines under development in the area targeted by Congress. “But that’s not the way we do things today. We understand and know a lot more about uranium, radium, and radon and the impacts of those. So to say some things that happened in the 1950s and 1960s will happen again today is not a good comparison.”
Proven deposits are likely to be mined
Whether or not the thousands of unproven claims are ever developed, a fair number of uranium mining sites seem almost certain to reemerge. “Congress’s action only applies to unproven claims,” Mr. Clark points out, leaning against a fence at the Canyon Mine site.
Denison’s group of established mine sites – including the Canyon Mine in the Kaibab National Forest a few miles south of the park – are among those likely to reemerge. The Canyon Mine was mothballed in the 1980s – before it had even opened – because of sinking uranium prices. It is a proven site: Uranium is there. Denison must still apply for new state environmental permits in order to proceed, but expects its mines to begin opening around 2010.
Despite Horn Creek pollution, the good news is that recent studies have shown that most springs and creeks in the Grand Canyon still have good water quality: Uranium and other trace metals appear in low concentrations, according to congressional testimony.
The bad news, experts say, is that digging into the cylindrical vertical rock formations in which uranium is found – they’re called “breccia pipes” – can “mobilize” the uranium, causing it to oxidize when water from periodic downpours seeps down through the rock strata.
Indeed, the negative impact of water on uranium mines should not be minimized even in the desert, says Chris Shuey, a scientist who directs the Uranium Impact Assessment Program, a nonprofit research and information center. His research in the Churchrock area of the Navajo Nation near Gallup, N.M. – where uranium was mined and processed between 1952 and 1983 – showed statistically significant effects on human health from the elevated levels of radioactivity in the region.
While much uranium in the region does occur in formations above the water table, the bottom of the breccia pipes are located in the upper portion of the Redwall Limestone, a principal aquifer supplying springs in the Grand Canyon and wells for much of the region, Dr. Shuey told Congress in March.
“When you take uranium and the other trace elements out of their resting places in nature and expose them to the environment,” Shuey says by phone, “you expose them in higher concentrations to the environment and intensify their effects. People don’t appreciate the cumulative impact of mining in a consolidated area. There’s a very real threat.” A flash flood swept through Havasu Creek last week. That same watershed includes the Canyon Mine and numerous uranium claims.
Abe Springer, a hydrologist and researcher at Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, has made a career studying the movement of groundwater through the Redwall and other aquifers into seeps and springs that supply not only hikers, but also most of the region’s animal life with the water they need to survive.
“Once these elements became mobile through mining activities,” Dr. Springer told Congress in his March testimony, “they would continue to be mobile through the aquifer and eventually discharge in springs impacting the human uses of water of these springs.”
Even so, some industry figures dispute any connection between the Orphan uranium mine and higher radiation in Horn Creek.
A “fact sheet” e-mailed by Quaterra’s Mr. Spiering says, regarding water pollution, that “statements that the historic operations at the Orphan Mine have been polluting Horn Creek are false.” It cites a 2004 US Geological Survey study showing dissolved uranium in a range from 8.6 to 29 parts per billion and “within the EPA levels of safe drinking water.”
Closer look at USGS study
But a closer examination of the 2004 results finds that some uranium concentrations are at the upper end of the safe range for Horn Creek.
The same study’s results for nearby Salt Creek (at 29 to 31 p.p.b.) “approached or exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water standard” of 30 p.p.b., according to Shuey’s testimony to Congress.
The two creeks – Salt and Horn – also had by far the highest levels of the 20 springs and seeps tested in that study, Shuey testified. That USGS study also did not seek to assign causes of the higher radiation levels, he noted.
But the potential impact of tainted groundwater on native Americans, hikers, and local wildlife – as well as major cities downstream – are all reasons Rep. Rául Grijalva (D) of Arizona has sponsored legislation to permanently withdraw federal land around Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining.
“I hope we’ve matured enough not to forget history,” Representative Grijalva says in a phone interview. “Protection of water quality in the Colorado River is vital to the long-term health and safety of humans and other species. We can’t afford to simply issue permits and decades from now simply dismiss the consequences as unintended.
“We should know better than that.”
( More stories )
Comments
2. Robert | 08.19.08
Note the three ads at the bottom of the page:
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Uranium shares? Free intro classes. , aimed at uranium speculators.
They all say to me “vote with your wallet”.
Most of those who vote with their wallet live nowhere near or downstream of the Grand Canyon.
A shame there’s no requirement for equal space in this “free market” of ideas. Shuey’s group and others might get free space for their link:
http://www.sric.org/uranium/
Tha site is worth a look. It notes among other things that the Navaho Nation banned uranium mining on its land in 2005.
3. Glynn A. | 08.19.08
The media’s stories about exploratory drilling for uranium near the Grand Canyon continues to be misleading, irresponsible and illustrates the ignorance that permeates the press and news media when issues pertaining to mining are addressed. This is one of the better ones.
Oh and by the way, most of the mining clams within this area are about 20 acres, not five.
Let us clarify the fact that exploration drilling in search of a deposit of uranium or other mineral does not guarantee that mining will occur. Only about one exploration project in 1,000 discovers enough economic ore to become an ore depoit and to prompt a feasibility to dtermine if it is economically feasible to mine. Only about 1 in 1000 exploration projects reach this stage and fewer than half pass the feasiblity study.
If the feasibility study confirms an economic mineral deposit, prior to mining the company must file an Environmental Impact Statement. This is required by National Environmental Policy Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This impact statement involves intensive, multi-stage studies that identify and address environmental issues and impacts the proposed mine may have on the environment. In the Grand Canyon area this would include plans insuring zero water or waste emissions into the Grand Canyon and Colorado River watershed
At the end of the study, a determination is made as to whether the resource may be mined or must be abandoned.
In the event the resource is not mined, it is advantageous to future generations that the resource has been identified for possible extraction in the future if needed in a national emergency or when technologies are developed that would create a smaller footprint on the environment.
Just think how many years ahead we would be with our oil shortage if we had been smart enough to do that.
Contrary to some quoted in the article, there is no grave danger to the Grand Canyon. When the boundaries of the Grand Canyon National Park were determined, the potential multiple uses, including mining on the federal lands surrounding the park, were taken into consideration.
It is interesting to note that many years later in the 1980s while Bruce Babbit (Dem) was Secretary of The Interior for the Clinton Administration, and while The Canyon Ore Deposit (Mine) was being discovered and plans made to mine it. A study determined that there was no danger to the Grand Canyon and hence the park boundaries should not be expanded or permitting refused to the mine.
What we do have is a very vocal minority of environmental elitists that scream the sky is falling any time new mineral exploration or a new mine is proposed. They have become past masters a using all tools at hand to fool the public by blindsiding them with false and outdated data as well as consitently pumping dis-information into their media partners for dissemination. I hope we will not let them damage us in our mineral exploration and mining as they did with our domestic on and off shore oil exploration. We are now reliant on on foreign sources for oil because of the radical environmental anti-exploration law suits and political machinations. We must not allow them to fool us into becoming relint on foreign entities for our minerals and metals including uranium!
4. Kevin T | 08.20.08
I agree with Glynn that this is a pretty balanced article. Good job. I would have liked to have seen the parameters that the EPA uses to set its drinking water standards - assumed liters per day consumed. These standards are based on residential consumption - not recreational. Therefore, use of these limits to evaluate recreational or agricultural water sources is deceiving.
Mining Canadian and US uranium is going to be even more important as nuclear power reemerges as a viable energy source in the US and if Russia continues on the path it appears to be on. Kazakhstan, one the former Soviet republics which may be destined for Russian strong-arming, is producing most (maybe all) of the uranium for GE nuclear fuels. We cannot be dependent on this source.
5. CJC | 08.20.08
Kevin T- The EPA uses very stringent standards for drinking water as you have guessed.
This study found, in samples taken from Horn Creek at three different times that the uranium concentrations there were 30 ppb, 9 ppb, and 9 ppb (parts per billion). The Maximum Contamination Level allowed by the EPA for drinking water is …30 ppb. So- the water at Horn Creek did not exceed this limit.
To put this information into useful perspective though, consider this, from the City of Flagstaff Water Quality website:
“Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL): The highest level of a regulated contaminant that is allowed in drinking water. The MCL is set as close to the MCLG (see below) as feasible using the best available treatment technology. The MCL is set at very stringent standards.
To understand the possible health effects described for many regulated constituents, a person would have to drink 2 liters of water every day at the MCL level for a lifetime to have a one-in-a-million chance of having their health compromised.”
2 liters per day, for a lifetime- for one chance in a million…
But- it is not the mine that is releasing uranium into these Canyon creeks, but Old Mother Earth herself; in this case, from a very well known exposure of low-concentration uranium minerals on canyon walls upstream- from the same uranium deposit that the Orphan mined (mines by their indisputable nature remove, they do not add to.) Grand Canyon’s erosion process has cut into the naturally occurring deposit (as it has in many places within the Canyon, and around the Southwest) to allow this exposure. The water below these may contain some traces of this mineralization (there are minute traces of uranium in almost all water on earth, as well as in almost all rocks), but these concentrations are harmless, and they don’t come from any mine.
6. Faolan | 08.20.08
I personally find the idea of mining for uranium near the Grand Canyon repugnant. I am environmentally aware, but this feeling stems more from a sense that such areas deserve to be left alone.
And I think that moving backwards is foolish. I don’t see any reason worth using nuclear power again.
But that’s just me.
7. Tom Kabeary | 08.20.08
At the end of the day, a tiny handful of individuals will grow
rich exploiting the resources on public land, and the area won’t be
left better than when they started. Should we trust the mining industry
to protect the environment in an area so precious, or will greed hold sway?
Perhaps we should ask Robert Murray?
8. Phil Egidi | 08.20.08
A couple of points to add:
The radiation protection standards for uranium miners have not been updated in over 30 years and do not offer an equivalent level of protection that other radiation workers get under the law. So I don’t buy that mining is safe (it is easy to say its safer than in the ’50s - DUH), is it safe enough now is the question.
We currently import over 95% of our uranium that we use for electricity. We always will be dependent on foreign sources, we just don’t have the quality of ore in the US that other countries have.
There is an abandoned uranium mill (Hite) under Lake Powell, in addition to all the uranium being added by Mother Nature - in this case - dilution is the solution.
The uranium is not really the hazard, it is a very weak carcinogen - it is the radium and radon (plus its progeny) that are the real bad actors. Where there is uranium, there is radium and radon. They should be monitored and the focus of the health risks.
9. CJC | 08.20.08
There is NO abandoned uranium mill site under Lake Powell. That is ridiculous. About as ridiculous as most of the other nonsense in the article.
Phil, you are right however that uranium is a weak carcinogen, a very weak poison, and a very weak radiation source.
Are you sure those radiation protection standards have not been updated in 30 years? How do you know? Would you care to give us the source of this information, so we can check for ourselves? Or did you get this from the same source that gave you to believe a uranium mill is under Lake Powell?
Again- this is the kind of unverified, unreferenced, unsustantiated misleading and frequently outright false information that the public gets always gets about the uranium mining industry- and that is NEVER challenged by reporters or editors.
Let’s pick another false representation at random from the article:
“While much uranium in the region does occur in formations above the water table, the bottom of the breccia pipes are located in the upper portion of the Redwall Limestone…”
What isn’t said is that the ore deposits are located much higher in the geologic section, in the Supai Formation, separated by over a 1000 feet of impermeable sediments from the acquifer, and that altho 9 mines were operated in the region during the 1980s, there is no evidence at all of any effect on the water supply.
In fact, those mines had no had no harmful or lasting effect on the environment here at all, and the ones that were completed have also been completely reclaimed.
10. CJC | 08.21.08
To Poster Phil Egidi and readers of these comment- my humble apology. Turns out there IS a uranium mill under Lake Powell, as I have beeen notified by some of my betteer informed colleagues.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/umtra/whitecanyon_title1.html
True, it was only a very small test plant, but uranium mill none the less. I found the article at the link to be very interesting- and informative.
But, then- there it is: the Colorado River has a uranium mill IN it. And the folks downstream have not been poisoned in all these years, nor are they being poisoned now. A number of agencies along the way to the Sea of Cortez sample and test that water on a daily basis.
11. Larry Turner | 08.21.08
CJC’s retraction above shows the importance of data in discussing a matter like uranium mining within the Colorado River drainage. Valid viewpoints about the controversy are built on valid data, and not on speculative fears or unsupported claims. The anti-mining NGOs have, according to this CSM article, begun to adjust their perspective regarding the potential “threat” posed by uranium mining in northern Arizona: Initially, Shuey et al. claimed the fact that the low-flow Horn Creek spring (0.1 gallons/minute) with something like 30 ppb dissolved uranium posed a clear and present danger to hikers inn the Canyon, not to mention 25 million people downstream of the Grand Canyon National Park. Now the same people, have fallen back a bit from their earlier position, and are speculating that if a whole bunch of these springs started putting out 30 ppb uranium at 0.1 gallon per minute, then maybe we’d have a real problem downstream. That position is a distinct improvement — and is getting closer to the truth of the matter; namely, that there is no real threat to anyone’s drinking water from uranium-bearing breccia pipes, or from breccia pipe uranium exploration or mining in northern Arizona.
The original South Rim spring water data can be found online at:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2004/5146/ (the USGS data)
http://public.dirxploration.fastmail.us/ (the Univ. of Nev. Las Vegas data)
And discussion that puts these data into geological and hydrological perspective can be found at:
http://www.dirxploration.com/newsmay2008.html
12. LDT | 08.21.08
CJC’s retraction above shows the importance of data in discussing a matter like uranium mining within the Colorado River drainage. Valid viewpoints about the controversy are built on valid data, and not on speculative fears or unsupported claims. The anti-mining NGOs have, according to this CSM article, begun to adjust their perspective regarding the potential “threat” posed by uranium mining in northern Arizona: Initially, Shuey et al. claimed the fact that the low-flow Horn Creek spring (0.1 gallons/minute) with something like 30 ppb dissolved uranium posed a clear and present danger to hikers inn the Canyon, not to mention 25 million people downstream of the Grand Canyon National Park. Now the same people, have fallen back a bit from their earlier position, and are speculating that if a whole bunch of these springs started putting out 30 ppb uranium at 0.1 gallon per minute, then maybe we’d have a real problem downstream. That position is a distinct improvement — and is getting closer to the truth of the matter; namely, that there is no real threat to anyone’s drinking water from uranium-bearing breccia pipes, or from breccia pipe uranium exploration or mining in northern Arizona.
The original South Rim spring water data can be found online at:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2004/5146/ (the USGS data)
http://public.dirxploration.fastmail.us/ (the Univ. of Nev. Las Vegas data)
And discussion that puts these data into geological and hydrological perspective can be found at:
http://www.dirxploration.com/newsmay2008.html
13. dmg | 09.09.08
I don’t know why these sites get overwhelmed with industry shils like so many above. The truth is that uranium mining is NOT safe. The EPA has designated the uranium mining areas from the last boom period in the 1980s as the largest superfund site in the Southwest. The pollution from uranium mining has contaminated the aquifer outside of Tuba city - and leeching from these mines and tailings continues to deposit toxic chemicals into drinking water. The notion that mining today is somehow safer than it was 15 years ago when the last boom ended is also pure malarkey. There are no major regulations in place now that weren’t in place when these folks were last mining - and they left behind pollution problems that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up.
Exposing Uranium to oxygen as you do with mining makes it far more mobile and soluable in water. This is a simple chemical fact. Once uranium has been oxidized, and the other toxic chemicals such as Radon, released - pollution is invevitable. As for the measurements on Horn creek - the Park has measured contamination levels of 90 parts per billion during high water - three times the maximum EPA limit. I’d also note that far from being conservative, the current EPA limit is actually higher than that recommended by the WHO and European health agencies. Their level is 20 ppm. Even so, scientists have testified that there is actually no safe level of uranium in drinking water - even low levels will cause kidney failure and endocrine system problems over time.
The notion that mining is somehow an acceptable activity on the edge of the Grand Canyon is simply perverse. The more so that Uranium is not a particularly rare metal, and that there are plenty of deposits in less environmentally sensitive areas that could be mined to meet demand. The uranium around the Grand Canyon is simply slightly more profitable. Is there nothing that these folks won’t do for a buck?
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1. Larry Turner | 08.19.08
That was an interesting “article”.
Note that the same water studies that Shuey brandishes about show that a known undisturbed, unmined mineralized breccia pipe on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is marked by a spring flowing into the Colorado River drainage with higher (but still not toxic) levels of uranium than the “polluted” Horn Creek spring just below the Orphan Mine. This comparison indicates that the mining proponents are correct in maintaining that breccia pipe uranium mining does not increase groundwater levels of uranium: Both the mined and the unmined breccia pipes are drained with “dribbling” springs with very similar (and safe) water uranium levels.
By the way, the earthen dam that gave way upstream of Supai Village last week, flooding the drainage downstream of the dam, is reported to be owned by the Babbitt family — as in former Clinton Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt’s clan.