Uranium Miners Pushed Hard for a Comeback. They Got Their Wish.
- 6 years ago
Uranium Miners Pushed Hard for a Comeback. They Got Their Wish.
Yet two weeks after Mr. Zinke’s visit, Energy Fuels wrote to the Interior Department arguing there were many other known uranium deposits within Bears Ears “that could provide valuable energy
and mineral resources in the future” and urging the department to shrink the monument away from any “existing or future operations.”
A bill introduced last month by Representative John Curtis, Republican of Utah, would codify Mr. Trump’s
cuts to the monument while banning further drilling or mining within the original boundaries.
His executive order instructing Mr. Zinke to review Bears Ears said
that improper monument designations could “create barriers to achieving energy independence.”
In theory, even after President Barack Obama established Bears Ears in 2016, mining companies
could have developed any of the claims within it, given proper local approvals.
Energy Fuels, together with other mining groups, lobbied extensively for a reduction of Bears Ears, preparing maps
that marked the areas it wanted removed from the monument and distributing them during a visit to the monument by Mr. Zinke in May.
But now, emboldened by the Trump administration’s embrace of corporate interests, the uranium mining industry is renewing a push into the areas adjacent to Mr. Holiday’s
Navajo Nation home: the Grand Canyon watershed to the west, where a new uranium mine is preparing to open, and the Bears Ears National Monument to the north.
But even as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke declared last month
that “there is no mine within Bears Ears,” there were more than 300 uranium mining claims inside the monument, according to data from Utah’s Bureau of Land Management office that was reviewed by .
Yet two weeks after Mr. Zinke’s visit, Energy Fuels wrote to the Interior Department arguing there were many other known uranium deposits within Bears Ears “that could provide valuable energy
and mineral resources in the future” and urging the department to shrink the monument away from any “existing or future operations.”
A bill introduced last month by Representative John Curtis, Republican of Utah, would codify Mr. Trump’s
cuts to the monument while banning further drilling or mining within the original boundaries.
His executive order instructing Mr. Zinke to review Bears Ears said
that improper monument designations could “create barriers to achieving energy independence.”
In theory, even after President Barack Obama established Bears Ears in 2016, mining companies
could have developed any of the claims within it, given proper local approvals.
Energy Fuels, together with other mining groups, lobbied extensively for a reduction of Bears Ears, preparing maps
that marked the areas it wanted removed from the monument and distributing them during a visit to the monument by Mr. Zinke in May.
But now, emboldened by the Trump administration’s embrace of corporate interests, the uranium mining industry is renewing a push into the areas adjacent to Mr. Holiday’s
Navajo Nation home: the Grand Canyon watershed to the west, where a new uranium mine is preparing to open, and the Bears Ears National Monument to the north.
But even as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke declared last month
that “there is no mine within Bears Ears,” there were more than 300 uranium mining claims inside the monument, according to data from Utah’s Bureau of Land Management office that was reviewed by .