Today GOP lawmakers led by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) announced legislation that would open one million acres of public lands forming Grand Canyon National Park’s watershed to new uranium mining. The bill would overturn an existing moratorium on new mining and mining claims.
“It is unconscionable that Senator McCain and Representatives Flake and Franks are seeking to undermine protections for Grand Canyon and its watershed and showing so little regard for the people of Arizona, including all of those who expressed strong support for protecting these lands from uranium mining and the pollution it produces,” said Sandy Bahr, chapter director, Sierra Club – Grand Canyon Chapter.
The Grand Canyon and four corners region still suffer the pollution legacy of past mining. American Indian tribes in the region – Havasupai, Hualapai, Kaibab-Paiute, Navajo, and Hopi – have banned uranium mining on their lands. Water in Horn Creek, located in Grand Canyon National Park just below the old Orphan uranium mine, exhibits dissolved uranium concentrations over 10 times the health-based standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water, while groundwater sumps below old mines north of Grand Canyon have measured dissolved uranium more than 1000 times allowable for drinking water standards.
“Neither mining corporations, lawmakers nor public agencies can guarantee that uranium mining wouldn’t further contaminate aquifers feeding Grand Canyon’s springs and creeks. Such pollution—as we see in Horn Creek today–would be impossible to clean up,” said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. “A decade ago Senator McCain was a defender of Grand Canyon. Today he’s one its greatest threats.”
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