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The Daily Beast

America’s Most Iconic Natural Wonder Has a Uranium Mine Next Door

Scott Buffon/Arizona Daily Sun via APJust 10 miles south of the entrance to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is a giant hole in the ground where miners are hoping to strike it big with one of Earth’s rarest but deadliest elements—uranium. Despite it only being about 17 acres in size, the Canyon Mine extends over 1,400 feet down into the Earth’s surface and critics worry it could scar the Grand Canyon itself and pollute a nearby tribe’s water.Mining has been prevalent in the region surrounding the Grand Canyon since the early 1900s. During the atomic era of the 1950s, it was a little bit like the Wild West—interest in uranium mining soared and it evolved into a highly unregulated industry, where people were walking around with Geiger counters and shovels, hoping to sell it to the government for profit.As the price of uranium plummeted, so did interest in mining the region. However, in the mid-2000s, there was a massive market spike in the mineral, and the craze was back on. While better regulated, by the end of the decade there were over a thousand new uranium mining claims in the area surrounding the Grand Canyon.In 2012, unsure of the environmental consequences of uranium mining in the region, the Department of the Interior put a 20-year ban on staking new claims—effectively banning all new mining activities near the Grand Canyon.Conservationists were ecstatic about this. But there was just one small problem.Using a mining law from 1872 that critics call outdated, the USFS determined that miners who had established “valid existing rights,” to mine before the ban could continue to do so. To have such rights, a miner must have, before the ban, discovered and unearthed a “valuable mineral deposit”—one that can be extracted, removed, and marketed at a profit.The USFS found one mine to possess “valid existing rights,” and to thereby be exempt from the ban—Canyon Mine.The 2012 ban continued to draw scrutiny from both sides. Conservationists argued the ban should be made permanent, meanwhile, the Trump administration took steps to potentially eliminate it and make uranium more lucrative as a geopolitical strategy.As a result, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) introduced the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act to the House on Feb. 26, 2019, a bill that seeks to permanently ban all new mining in the region and protect the Grand Canyon from industrial interests.The bill passed the House via a partisan vote, and has been introduced into the Senate, where it is expected to pass as well.While conservationists view this as a good first step, the singular issue remains—Canyon Mine, which courtesy of the USFS decision in 2012, would remain exempt from the permanent ban.To get at the controversy of Canyon Mine, you don’t need to go too far down the shaft. In fact, even the name of the mine itself is a point of contention.The mine, which was named Canyon Mine across several owners and several decades, was recently renamed by its owner, Energy Fuels, to the Pinyon Planes Mine.Outlets have speculated that this was done to draw less attention to the mine. Curtis Moore, the VP of marketing and corporate development for the company, confirmed this, when he told The Daily Beast that this was done, “because