Minuet: Uranium Mining At The Grand Canyon
2025
Uranium Mining at the Grand Canyon has returned.
Here we are again, torn between the competing calls of preservation and economic security.
By all accounts, nuclear power will play an increasingly important role in the years ahead to help quench our rapidly growing thirst for electricity. So there’s nothing terribly frivolous about mining uranium. This is no longshot roll of the mining industry dice.
But…
You would think there could be a corner or two of America where we might extract uranium ore from a less precarious spot. The Pinyon Plain Mine is less than eight miles from the Grand Canyon National Park. The quality of the ore being mined there is questionable. It’s not as if this location yields a rare, high grade.
Whatever the case, let’s give the operators, the Canadian firm Energy Fuels Resources, the benefit of the doubt, and respect the safety guardrails they have in place.
But’s let also monitor operations. Whatever howling the miners may unleash about needless governmental regulation and oversight, let’s keep in mind what’s at stake and the very real operational risks.
As President Reagan said about disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union, “trust but verify.”
Each year, millions of gallons of water are pumped out of the mineshaft. From there one of two things happens. Water is either poured in a pool to evaporate, or it’s loaded on tanker trucks and taken away to suppress dust.
We’re looking at a lot of water, more than 70 million gallons of groundwater taken from aquifers since 2016.
We need the people who run Energy Fuels Resources to manage the transport of this water with all possible care. There is no margin for error. The same goes for the transport of the ore, which is trucked to the White Mesa Uranium Mill in southern Utah.
Part of the route includes a stretch of I-40 across Northern Arizona.
The thought of a truck loaded with uranium ore getting into an accident while it goes through Flagstaff is unsettling.
The thought of radioactive water making its way to the Colorado River and poisoning the Grand Canyon is chilling.
The mine operators are knowledgeable. They’re professionals and they too grasp the risks.
They are also not as financially motivated to operate with 100% safety as they could be. There is no record of the company making ironclad financial assurances or putting up bonds to pick up the tab for cleanup and reclamation if something goes wrong.
What a strange situation. When we book a hotel room, we make a security deposit. When a foreign company mines for uranium eight miles from the Grand Canyon National Park, it apparently doesn’t.
Let’s hope Energy Fuels Resources has created an operating culture at the Pinyon Plain Mine which encourages every single worker to show up every single day with nothing less than complete professionalism… no corners cut, no rushing, no room for human error.
The Grand Canyon has already been scarred by a massive wildfire on the North Rim. Our national treasure can’t take another hit, a preventable hit.
