Congressman: Obama says no to Grand Canyon Monument

The proposed Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument would encompass 1.7 million acres in northern Arizona.

By Loretta Yerian
Williams News

WILLIAMS, Ariz. — According to Arizona Representative Raúl Grijalva (D), the Obama administration has decided not to designate the 1.7 million acre Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument before Obama leaves office this week.

In the Jan. 6 press release, Grijalva expressed his disappointment in the decision not to establish the monument, which would have encompassed all of the north Kaibab and Tusayan ranger districts of the Kaibab National Forest as well as lands on the Arizona Strip north of the Colorado River. All lands are currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department, Arizona State Trust Lands, along with approximately 28,000 acres under private ownership.

“I can only express my profound disappointment,” Grijalva said. “The Grand Canyon is one of the world’s most iconic and popular natural places, not just for its beauty but for its importance to tribal culture and history. Instead of building on former Secretary Salazar’s work, the interior and agriculture departments are apparently willing to leave the future of the Grand Canyon and the health of Arizona tribes up to Donald Trump. I am not.”

In 2016, Williams was among a number of cities and towns to pass resolutions opposing the establishment of the monument.

In April, Williams councilman Frank McNelly, representing Williams City Council and as a private rancher, joined small business owners, sportsmen, farmers, ranchers, elected officials and other stakeholders for a public session in Kingman that roundly criticized the proposed monument.

At the time, McNelly said he and other council members were frustrated that state leaders had not consulted with local northern Arizona community members about the monument. He said the land was appropriately managed now and the council saw no reason for the designation of a monument.

“There is very little private land in this state and I think it is very important the people of this state manage the land and not be dictated from some government agency,” McNelly said.

McNelly said he was glad of the outcome and said it was the right decision for the people who live and work the area that would have been in or near the designation.

“I think it is a really positive thing for the state and I would really praise Paul Gosar for his efforts and his vision on giving a voice to this and doing what he could to stop it,” he said. “It is better for the people who live here to decide and make the regulations and rules that govern the land where we live and work.”

Supporters of the designation, which included local and national environmental groups, the Navajo Nation and the Hopi and Havasupai tribes were disappointed in the decision and have vowed to continue to fight for preservation efforts.

“While the lands beyond the rim of the Grand Canyon are no less spectacular, culturally important, or economically vital than before, they do now face an even greater risk,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club. “We remain dedicated to working with area tribes and communities to ensure these lands are protected for future generations.”

Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye expressed his gratitude in the recent designation of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, but said he was disappointed in the decision for the Grand Canyon monument.

“We are disappointed that the Grand Canyon was not included in the designation by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act,” Begaye said. “We were hopeful to have both designations, but we are thankful for the Bears Ears designation. The Grand Canyon is an international monument that is visited by millions of people each year. The next administration should seriously consider designating the Grand Canyon under the Antiquities Act as a national monument to protect the canyon from mining and abuse in the name of economic development. This landscape should not be destroyed but saved for future generations to admire the beauty of the Southwest. We need to make sure that it is protected as a national monument.”

Supporters of the monument said designation of the monument would have protected wildland species and rare plants, protect cultural and archaeological sites, manage wildlife migration routes, reduce road density, provide retirement of grazing rights and helped prevent new uranium mines.

Polls showed that Arizonans varied in their support for the monument. Arizona representative Grijalva and former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick supported the designation while U.S. Sen. John McCain (R), U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R) and Gov. Doug Ducey opposed the designation.

On Jan. 6, Grijalva reintroduced the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Act and started mobilizing monument supporters for a strong push in the 115th Congress. The bill, which closely mirrors the previous version, would confer national monument status on two parcels of federal land, one north and one south of Grand Canyon National Park.

“The need to protect the Grand Canyon is bigger than who’s president or who sits in Congress,” Grijalva said. “The American people demand that this important place be preserved. People from all walks of life have been fighting this fight for a long time, and we’re going to keep working until we get it done.”

McNelly said he will be more confident in the decision not to designate the monument after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20 and said he thought it was a good effort by Arizonans who opposed the designation, which he doesn’t see changing anytime soon.

“Right now Grijalva is in the minority, being a democrat. We have the majority and our champion, Paul Gosar who I’m sure will be on top of all those things,” he said. “I think Grijalva needs to get over it and go back to worrying about Tucson and not worrying about Williams and the North Rim.”

Court: Bureau of Land Management does not have to protect monuments

HOWARD FISCHER
Capitol Media Services

PHOENIX -- A federal appeals court has rejected a bid by environmental groups to force the Bureau of Land Management to do more to protect two national monuments in Arizona.

In an unsigned opinion, the three-judge panel of the sad there was nothing inherently wrong or illegal with BLM permitting "moderate to minor damage" to some objects in the Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs national monuments.

The judges acknowledged that the proclamations in 2000 by President Clinton creating both monuments say they were established "for the purpose of protecting the objects" within the monuments. But they said the proclamations also allow other uses in the 1.3 million acres in northern Arizona, including grazing and public visitation.

"BLM interpreted the proclamations to permit balancing the protection of monument objects with other uses, rather than require absolute protection of each individual object," the court wrote. "Giving the deference we owe to BLM's interpretation, we conclude that is a reasonable one."

According to court records, the resource management plans for the two monuments close 89,598 acres in Vermilion Cliffs to motorized and mechanized vehicle use and 285,647 acres in Grand Canyon-Parashant.

The plans also close 360 miles of routes that were in use prior to the management plans, a figure put at about 18 percent of existing routes. It also says that the proclamations specifically allow continued grazing -- and that the management plans do not designate any new grazing allotments.

Instead, they keep in grazing use about 34,000 acres in Parashant.

It also says that prior to grazing, ranchers must obtain permits from BLM which are subject to additional regulatory review.

In their appellate ruling, the judges said the National Historic Preservation Act requires BLM to "make a reasonable and good faith effort" to identify historic properties that would be affected by routes through the monuments. And they said BLM relied on existing information that covered less than 5 percent of the area in the monuments.

But they said the agency is committed to doing ongoing inventories. And the judge said BLM is permitted to use a phased process when dealing with particularly large parcels of land.

And the court said that using a restrictive definition advocated by The Wilderness Society would require closing off more than 94 percent of the routes previously open to the public in Vermilion Cliffs.

Finally, the judges rejected the contention of challengers that BLM is not exercising its full discretion to protect wilderness characteristics of the areas because it refused to designate Wilderness Study Areas.

They noted that BLM used to designate such areas as part of its discretion under federal law to manage lands to protect their wilderness values. But following a settlement with the state of Utah in a different case, BLM no longer creates those study areas.

"But the record shows that BLM views the change in policy as semantic," the appellate court wrote, pointing out that, even under the revised policy, the agency still has authority to protect wilderness characteristics over other uses.

Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument Proposed by Conservation Groups

by Morgan Skinner
KCSG News

St. George, UT - A proposed Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument submitted to the US Bureau of Land Management by the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council and The Wilderness Society, both headquartered in Flagstaff, Arizona, has prompted strong local reaction by public officials. Washington County Commissioner Allan Gardner told KCSG News "the proposal is another effort to permanently shutdown all uranium mining on the Arizona Strip that will cost millions in lost tax revenue to the counties involved."

Rachel Tueller, Public Affairs Officer for the BLM Arizona Strip District told KCSG News, "BLM did not solicit nor does it advocate the proposed national monument designation." When asked about the status of this proposal, she said, "It had been referred for review as are all citizen proposals."

The proposed monument has six priorities; (1) Stop old-growth ponderosa pine logging, (2) Protect cultural and archaeological sites, (3) Manage native wildlife and wildlife migration, (4) Reduce road density, (5) Provide voluntary retirement of grazing permits, and (6) Prevent new uranium mines.

Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument Executive Summary

• Total public land - 1.7-million acres
• Total privately held - 7,000 acres
• Number of tribes for whom the land holds significance - 6; Kaibab Paiute, Hopi, Zuni, Hualapi, Havasupai and Navajo
• Number of archeological sites - more than 3,000
• Number of acres containing ancient trees and old-growth forest - approximately 300,000
• Number of wildlife species on the federal
• Endangered Species - 4
• Number of wildlife species on the Arizona
• Species of greatest conservation need list - 22
• Number of creeks, springs and seeps - more than 125

Headwaters Economics, an independent nonprofit research group based in Bozeman, Montana, prepared a series of reports on the economic performance of western communities near national monuments. Each in-depth report shows important data and trends on demographics, jobs, income, and the performance of specific economic sectors. The research shows that the monument designations help to safeguard and highlight amenities that draw new residents, tourists and businesses to surrounding communities.

Western counties with protected public lands, like national monuments, were found to be more successful at attracting fast-growing economic sectors and as a result grew more quickly, on average, than counties without protected public lands. In addition, protected natural amenities, such as the pristine scenery found at Grand Staircase-Escalante also helped sustain property values and attract new investment.

The Reports:

• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
• Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument
• Vermilion National Monument

The conservation groups are networking to encourage a national monument designation even though they have encountered opposition in Congress among the representatives from western states where much of the federal land is located. Washington lawmakers, have introduced legislation to limit the president's use of the Antiquities Act without state and local community input. Thus far the various bills introduced are still pending in committees.

On March 23, Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert signed House Bill 148 that demands the federal government make good on the promises made in the 1894 Enabling Act to extinguish title to federal lands in Utah. The Governor was joined by US Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, Congressman Rob Bishop, Utah Representatives Ken Ivory and Roger Barrus and other stakeholders in a show of unity for the effort to return public lands to state control even though the legislation may be ruled unconstitutional. The legislation creates a principle-driven framework for a structured public dialogue, a potential legal challenge and path forward to re-balance Utah's relationship with the federal government, the Governor said.

The Antiquities Act

Since its passage by Congress in 1906, the Antiquities Act has been used for the preservation of public lands managed by government. Sixteen presidents have declared 132 national monuments under the act; eight Republican presidents, eight Democratic presidents. National park units such as the Grand Canyon, Statue of Liberty, Joshua Tree, Olympic, Zion, and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were all established originally by presidential monument designation.

Bill Clinton created the most monuments, nineteen, and expanded three others. Arizona has the largest number of national monuments with eighteen followed by New Mexico with twelve and California with ten.

There are five National Monuments in Utah:

• Natural Bridges designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908
• Timpanogos Cave designated by President Harding in 1922
• Hovenweep designated in 1923 by President Harding
• Cedar Breaks designated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933
• Grand Staircase-Escalante designated by President Clinton in 1996

Six federal agencies in four departments manage the 101 current National Monuments. A single agency, the National Park Service manages 96 monuments, while five are co-managed by two agencies. The Bureau of Land Managment manages sixteen National Monuments, two with the National Park Service and one with the US Forest Service. Only 75 of the NPS's 76 National Monuments are official units because the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument overlaps with Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Groups file lawsuit to stop mining near Grand Canyon

Suzanne Adams
Kingman Daily Miner


KINGMAN - New mining jobs in the Arizona Strip area may be put on hold. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Grand Canyon Trust and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Nov. 16 challenging a Bureau of Land Management permit for the Arizona 1 Mine.

"I'm very disappointed," said Mohave County Supervisor Gary Watson when he heard of the lawsuit. "It's absolutely absurd to me to lock up one of the richest deposits of uranium in the continental United States."

"As far as we're concerned we have all the necessary permits," said Denison Mines Corp. President and CEO Ron Hochstein, which owns the uranium mine. The company is not named in the lawsuit.

The mine is located 45 miles south of Fredonia and north of the Grand Canyon National Park. It is one of three mines owned by Denison within the boundary of a 1 million-acre area south and north of the Grand Canyon that the federal government is considering withdrawing from all mining for the next 20 years.

The company is still working on air quality permits for the other mining claims it has in the area. At this time, the federal government is not allowing any new mining claims in the area.

In their lawsuit, the conservation groups are claiming that the BLM failed to update a 1988 environmental assessment before issuing a permit to Denison in September.

"The mine has been down for more than a decade," said Roger Clark of the Grand Canyon Trust. It would be prudent to re-evaluate the area, he said. New information has been collected about the area's groundwater and endangered species, and changes to BLM management policies have happened since the mine was closed in 1992, he said.

The conservation groups are also claiming that the BLM did not examine the validity of mine's claim and did not request a new plan of operation for the mine.

The conservation groups state in a news release that the mine's old operation plan expired when it was closed, and the company never established that there was a viable uranium deposit in the area, which is required in order to file a mining claim.

All claims pertaining to the mine have been kept in good standing since the mine was staked in the 1980s, Hochstein said.

The conservation groups have not requested a halt to any mining activity in the area, but they may in the future, Clark said.

Watson said he agrees that mining should not be allowed in the Grand Canyon National Park, but the Arizona 1 Mine is outside of park limits and Denison has met all of the permit qualifications.

According to company's Web site, the mine would employ 32 people and cost $2.3 million to get started. It would mine begin mining in the first quarter of 2010. The company plans to get about 857,000 pounds of uranium ore over the next three years and is expecting to sell it for between $53 and $65 per pound.

Ariz. governor opposes halt on new mining claims

Associated Press



PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer objects to a ban on filing new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres of federal land in northern Arizona for two years while a permanent prohibition is under study.

Most of the Bureau of Land Management and National Forest land covered by a July order is in the Arizona Strip located north of Grand Canyon National Park. The rest is located south of the canyon.

There's been a flurry of new mining claims, including for uranium.

Brewer sent Salazar a letter Friday saying adequate environmental protections are in place and that modern-day mining exploration creates "minimal impact to the land."

She also says economic impacts, energy independence and national security considerations support continued exploration.

Continued Arizona Strip access urged by Board

Kingman Daily Miner

KINGMAN - The Mohave County Board of Supervisors met Thursday afternoon and approved a resolution urging the 111th Congress to reject House Resolution 644 and continue to allow access to uranium and other mineral reserves in the Arizona Strip.

The strip is an area of land in the northwestern section of Mohave County between the Grand Canyon and the Utah border. The area has been known to have a rich reserve of minerals, including uranium.

HR 644 would close 1,068,908 acres of federal land in the area of Kanab Creek and House Rock Valley from all forms of entry, appropriation, and disposal by the federal government. It would also prevent the location, entry and operating of any new mines in the area.

Supporters of HR 644 say it will protect important natural resources and the groundwater for generations to come.

The Board and the National Association of Counties argue that the uranium reserves in the Arizona Strip area could provide a significant source of alternative domestic energy for the country and important jobs for the county.

According to the resolution the Board sent to Congress, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates 375 million pounds of uranium oxide may exist within the Arizona Strip area, nearly 40 percent of the nation's uranium reserves.

The Board and the NAC state in the resolution that threats to the watershed are unfounded. The Colorado River already contains trace amounts of uranium at levels far below safe drinking water standards and the deepest mine ever drilled in the Arizona Strip area was 1,000 feet.

Off-roaders drive closer to the Grand Canyon

OPINION

By Bill Wade
Writers on the Range
Salt Lake Tribune

Part of the pride in putting on the iconic flat hat and the green and gray National Park Service uniform is knowing you work for an organization that tries to protect some of the most beautiful and historic places in the world. After serving the National Park Service for 32 years - the last nine as superintendent of Shenandoah National Park - a passage in the National Park Service's mission statement in the 1916 Organic Act resonates with me deeply:

The agency exists ". . . to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

That 92-year-old statement is what drives so many agency employees today, and what makes working for the National Park Service a special and rewarding experience. That is why it is so hard to stomach a recent final management plan adopted by the Bureau of Land Management for an area north of the Grand Canyon on the Arizona Strip - specifically, the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument and the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The plan concerns lands jointly managed by the National Park Service and the BLM, and it opens up previously protected trails, primitive roads and archaeological sites to off-road vehicles.

In the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument alone more than 760,000 acres would be open to off-roaders. Farther east, more than 200,000 acres would be open in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The newly designated routes in both monuments exceed what wildlife biologists say can be tolerated by big-game species such as mule deer and pronghorn.

This is in direct opposition to everything that the National Park Service stands for as an organization, and it's a slap in the face to its employees, wilderness lovers and the Organic Act itself. It discounts the very reasons these places were designated national monuments in the first place.

The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument boasts on its Web site that, "Modern-day visitors enjoy the solitude and quiet that this remote monument offers." Extending off-road vehicle use to new places means that this solitude and quiet will cease to exist. More vehicles will also lead to more trash, vandalism, damage and looting to sensitive areas. How does increasing motorized use leave these areas "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations?"

The answer is, of course, it doesn't. Opening up these areas will damage cultural resources, wildlife, vegetation and solitude - all resources the Park Service is responsible for safeguarding. The only way to protect these monuments from the damage that off-road vehicles will certainly do is for the agencies to amend its Arizona Strip plan to wipe those routes from the map. A reassessment should make it clear how the monuments' route systems impact wildlife and scientific values. Once the agencies find that the current route systems hurt wildlife and wilderness suitability, they have the authority to close those roads.

Without protection from the National Park Service, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument could well become unrecognizable. Deterioration will be swift and complete, and without additional protection by the BLM, the same will be true for Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. And when these areas have been damaged beyond repair, where will drivers of off-road vehicles turn? Which of our national treasures will be next on their list to treat as disposable property?

Does anyone believe that the geysers of Yellowstone National Park would be as magnificent as they are today without the protection of the National Park Service? Or that the spires, arches and columns of Arches National Park would be as pristine without the watchful eye of the agency? These parks would be developed and roaded past recognition. But because the American people won protection for these places from the federal government, these remarkable resources are protected for all time.

The National Park Service and BLM need to step forward and continue to protect these lands in Arizona. That is what their missions require. Sacrificing portions here and there, whether to small, special-interest recreation groups or to resource extractive industries sets a bad precedent for the future of all federal lands and cheats the American people to whom they belong.

BILL WADE is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He chairs the executive council of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees and lives in Tucson, Ariz.

Activists assail final Arizona Strip plan

Associated Press
Deseret News







PHOENIX — Environmental groups sharply criticized a final federal management plan Friday for millions of acres of rugged and remote public lands in northern Arizona's Arizona Strip.

Groups including the Wilderness Society and the Center for Biological Diversity said the plan allows too much off-road vehicle use, livestock grazing and oil and gas development on the 2.8 million acres of public lands.

The Arizona Strip stretches for miles north of the Grand Canyon National Park and includes the Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Canyon-Parashant national monuments.

There are no paved roads on either monument, but several graded gravel roads on the latter. "They mostly are primitive two-track roads that are very infrequently traveled," said Scott Florence, BLM district manager for the Arizona Strip.

Critics contended that the plan, which took effect Friday upon being published in the Federal Register, would not prevent habitat fragmentation for such key wildlife species found in the region as deer, elk and mountain lions.

It also would do little on behalf of the desert tortoise and other threatened, endangered and sensitive species, they said.

Wildlife habitat and archaeological sites will be sacrificed to oil and gas development, off-road vehicles and livestock grazing under the plan BLM issued, members of several environmental organizations said.

"Page after page, the BLM finds ways to promote continued off-road vehicle use in places that were set aside for their ancient artifacts, rugged landscapes, and habitat for desert species," said Nada Culver, Wilderness Society senior counsel.

The BLM's 3,000-page plan ignored why national monuments were created and disregards the wishes of the public to protect them, she said.

But federal officials defended the plan as the most practical, saying it allows people to use the land while protecting it. It has been debated for several years.

Florence said his agency was trying to be as proactive as possible and that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a no-jeopardy biological opinion concerning the plan's impact on the desert tortoise.

"It isn't surprising that they would take that position because they did in their comments and protests on the final plan," he said.

"In developing the plans, we looked at the monument proclamations and feel that we developed plans that will adequately protect those monument objects while allowing for other uses out there.

"They seem to be focused a lot on the route designations, and in developing the plans we did close several hundred miles of routes to vehicle use."

Florence said a total of 290 miles of roads and trails on the two monuments would be closed under the plan, along with another 17 miles under National Park Service administration on the Grand Canyon-Parashant.

Nearly 1,650 more miles will remain open on the two monuments, along with more than 275 miles for administrative use only, he said.

Environmentalists fear the land will come under increasing pressure from thousands of tourists and off-highway vehicle enthusiasts in the next 20 years. The surrounding communities in Nevada and Utah are expected to grow by an estimated 1.4 million new residents in that time.

BLM/NPS finalizes approved plans for Arizona Strip District

The Spectrum
St. George, Utah








ST. GEORGE -- The Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service will release the Records of Decision and three separate final management plans for the Arizona Strip Field Office, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument and Vermilion Cliffs National Monument on Friday.

Completion of these three management plans is a major milestone in the six-year planning process on the Arizona Strip. One plan covers the BLM Arizona Strip Field Office, which manages 1.7 million acres. A second plan is for the BLM-managed 293,000-acre Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.

The third plan includes lands jointly managed by BLM and NPS in the 1.05 million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. The two national
monuments in northern Arizona have been managed under an interim plan since
they were established by presidential proclamation in 2000.

The documents can be viewed on-line at www.blm.gov/az/ or
http://www.nps.gov/lame/parkmgmt/docs.htm.

Copies can also be found at public libraries in St. George and Kanab; Page, Flagstaff, Fredonia, and Kingman, Ariz.; and Boulder City, Nev. Copies of the documents in print and CD versions are also available at the BLM Arizona Strip District Office, 345 E. Riverside Drive in St. George; by sending an e-mail request to Arizona_Strip@blm.gov or by calling 688-3266.

The decisions designating routes of travel for motorized vehicles in the national monuments and the Ferry Swale area in these final management plans are implementation decisions and are now appealable under 43 CFR Part 4.

These decisions are contained in the travel management section of Chapter 2 in each management plan; specific route designation maps and reports can be found on the CDs accompanying each management plan. Any party adversely affected by the proposed route designations may appeal within 30 days by filing with the Arizona Strip District Manager at the address listed above.

The appeal should state the specific route number(s), as identified on the route designation maps on the CDs. See specific appeal procedures in the Records of Decision accompanying each management plan.

Uranium claims spring up along Grand Canyon rim

A rush to extract uranium on public lands pits environmentalists against mining companies

By Judy Pasternak, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ. -- Thanks to renewed interest in nuclear power, the United States is on the verge of a uranium mining boom, and nowhere is the hurry to stake claims more pronounced than in the districts flanking the Grand Canyon's storied sandstone cliffs.

On public lands within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park, there are now more than 1,100 uranium claims, compared with just 10 in January 2003, according to data from the Department of the Interior.

In recent months, the uranium rush has spawned a clash as epic as the canyon's 18-mile chasm, with both sides claiming to be working for the good of the planet.

Environmental organizations have appealed to federal courts and Congress to halt any drilling on the grounds that mining so close to such a rare piece of the nation's patrimony could prove ruinous for the canyon's visitors and wildlife alike.

Mining companies say the raw material they seek is important to the environment, too: The uranium would feed nuclear reactors that could -- unlike coal and natural gas -- produce electricity without contributing to global warming.

And uranium is in short supply. In recent years, mines closed in Canada and West Africa, yet the United States as well as France and other European countries have announced intentions to expand nuclear power. Predictably, the price of uranium has soared -- to $65 a pound as of last week, from $9.70 a pound in 2002.

In the five Western states where uranium is mined in the U.S., 4,333 new claims were filed in 2004, according to the Interior Department; last year the number had swelled to 43,153.

The push to extract more uranium has caused controversy not just involving federal land but private and state land as well. In Virginia, a company's plan to operate in a never-mined deposit spurred a hearing in the Legislature. In New Mexico, a Navajo activist group is challenging in federal court a license issued just over the reservation's east border.

Uranium claims are also encroaching on stretches of Western parkland such as Arches National Park, Capitol Reef National Park and Canyonlands National Park, all in Utah, as well as a proposed wilderness area in Colorado called the Dolores River Canyon.

But by far the most claims staked near any national park are in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, which draws 5 million people a year. The park is second in popularity only to the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

"If you can't stop mining at the Grand Canyon, where can you stop it?" asked Richard Wiles, executive director of the Environmental Working Group.

The energy-versus-environment debate is apparent within the Interior Department, which granted the mining claims through its Bureau of Land Management. Among the mining critics is Steve Martin, superintendent of the Grand Canyon park and an Interior Department employee himself. "There should be some places that you just do not mine," Martin said.

Uranium is "a special concern," he added, because it is both a toxic heavy metal and a source of radiation. He worries about uranium escaping into the local water, and about its effect on fish in the Colorado River at the bottom of the gorge, and on the bald eagles, California condors and bighorn sheep that depend on the canyon's seeps and springs. More than a third of the canyon's species would be affected if water quality suffered, he said.

Martin is not the only one uneasy about potential water contamination. Add to the list the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles, which sells wholesale water throughout Southern California from its Colorado River Aqueduct. "In addition to the public health impacts, exploration and mining of radioactive material near a drinking water source may impact the public's confidence in the safety and reliability of the water supply," the district's general manager, Jeffrey Kightlinger, wrote in March to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

No one is mining near the Grand Canyon yet, but wooden claim stakes can be spotted throughout the brush-covered plains north and south of the park.

Vane Minerals, a British company, applied last year to start exploratory drilling on seven sites in the Kaibab National Forest, near the canyon's popular South Rim.

Under current mining law the Forest Service had no choice but to allow the drilling, Regional Forester Corbin Newman testified in March to Congress. The mission of a national forest is different from that of a national park, he pointed out. Indeed, signs at the Kaibab Forest's border proclaim that visitors are entering the "Land of Many Uses."

In response to the approval, the Grand Canyon Trust, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club sued in federal court, alleging that the Forest Service didn't thoroughly investigate the environmental effect of drilling and prospective mining. In April, a judge issued a temporary restraining order until the case could be heard, probably in the summer.

Drilling had already begun near Deer Tank Wash just off a dirt road about five miles from the canyon park's east entrance. Now, the only signs of that activity are a 6-inch pipe sticking up half a foot from the ground near a large piñon tree, and hay scattered in the mud.

The wash is prone to flooding, said Taylor McKinnon, a public lands advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Would the water from a flash flood go through the bore hole to the aquifer? We don't know because there wasn't an analysis," he said.

Meanwhile, five additional proposals for exploratory drilling have recently been submitted to the Kaibab National Forest, according to Newman. And three old uranium mines near the canyon park are on standby, ready to resume operations.

Many of the companies are based abroad, said McKinnon, so their directors don't understand the special place that the Grand Canyon holds in this country's lore: "What if an American company went to drill at Stonehenge?"

But the region is special in another way, said Kris Hefton, chief executive of Vane's American uranium operation. The uranium is found in "breccia pipes," contained geological formations that hold higher-grade deposits than elsewhere in the U.S., he said.

Breccia pipe mines can be compact, less than 20 acres in size, and uranium producers say they are among the easiest to restore after mining is done. And because the ore holds so much uranium, it's cheaper to mine. "They're not as susceptible if the price drops," Hefton said, adding that mining can be profitable in the region even if uranium fetches only $20 a pound.

"You won't have to depend on foreign uranium," he said. Though higher-grade deposits are found in Canada, and more mines are opening in the next five years, "you never know what the Canadians will do. It just makes sense to protect our industry from a national security standpoint."

Nevertheless, Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would withdraw a million acres of federal land around the Grand Canyon park from future mining and mineral leases. The bill would not affect the claims already staked if they are found to contain uranium deposits.

And so uranium mining could end up being part of the view at Gunsight Point, a promontory north of the park at the end of a rutted dirt road on public land. There, two striking gorges merge into one, with a dry wash at the bottom of Snake Gulch coming in from the east and Kanab Creek flowing in from the west.

Overlooking the creek are 14 uranium claims, according to an analysis of Interior Department data by the Environmental Working Group. The claims are held by companies such as Energy Metals and Uranium One Ventures, and by an official with Quaterra Resources Inc., which boasts to investors that it is "one of the largest claim holders in the Arizona Strip District."

On a hazy morning, the canyon is still visible downstream. And Martin, charged with its protection, is apprehensive. His experience with uranium mines is confined to one that actually operated right at the canyon's edge, grandfathered in because it opened before Congress created the national park in 1919. The U.S. bought the site in 1962, and mining stopped in 1969.

Now the remains of the aerial tram that carried the ore can be seen at the South Rim. Special strips have been placed atop the structure to keep California condors from resting there, to protect them from lightning strikes. And a chain-link fence keeps hikers away from mine wastes.

Elevated radiation has been detected in Horn Creek below, and signs have been posted warning visitors not to drink the water. A National Park Service sign explains to the public that uranium deposits also lie just outside the park.

"What does the future hold?" the note asks, and concludes: "Mines and other industry near parks often bring unforeseen impacts on park resources."

Middle of Nowhere Is a Center of Conflict

A federal plan allows more recreation and mining in a rugged land of national monuments.



By Julie Cart, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times



VERMILION CLIFFS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ariz. — The 3 million acres of federal land in the Arizona Strip have their remote geography to thank for preserving their spectacular red sandstone escarpments, slot canyons, rock art and ruins of ancient pueblos.

One of the last places in the Lower 48 to be mapped, the strip, in the northwestern corner of the state, is today bypassed by major highways and mostly devoid of gas stations, hotels and other visitor services. As a result, more than 12,000 years of human history written on this rugged landscape has remained in place, undisturbed by tourism or development.

That is about to change.

Here at the backdoor of the Grand Canyon, two national monuments, Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs, are poised to absorb the effects of the explosive growth from Las Vegas to the west and St. George, Utah, to the north — two of the fastest expanding areas in the nation.

The federal agency that oversees much of the land in the Arizona Strip, the Bureau of Land Management, is preparing a long-range plan for the area that would allow uranium mining and oil and gas exploration across 96% of the lands outside the monuments.

The plan would also permit livestock grazing in the monuments and open 3,000 miles of roads to motorized recreation, including some in the monuments. A 7,100-acre "play area" for dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles would be established. And although that area would be outside the monuments, it would be next to land set aside to protect a threatened cactus and a Native American petroglyph site.

Critics, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the local County Board of Supervisors, say the agency's plan fails to protect the two monuments with their thousands of historic and cultural sites, and exposes fragile BLM lands to nearly unrestricted livestock grazing and recreational activities.

Others say the proposal won't safeguard rare plants and animals, such as the desert tortoise and 20 species of raptors and other birds, including a colony of California condors reintroduced at Vermilion Cliffs.

"What you have in the Arizona Strip is a kind of sleepy place that has been highlighted with two monuments, but the BLM hasn't really risen to these different challenges," said Martha Hahn, a former BLM administrator with 21 years at the agency. Hahn now works with the conservation group Grand Canyon Trust.

But current BLM officials say the plan, which is four years in the works and won't be finalized for months, is a commendable effort to reconcile the agency's tradition of various uses on public land with its newer mandate to conserve national monuments.

"It's all about finding the right balance between protecting the resource and allowing the public to use the land for grazing and other activities," said Scott Florence, the BLM's district manager for the Arizona Strip.

The Arizona Strip was cut off from its surrounding area by the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River until a ferry was established in 1871, which remained the only river crossing until the first bridge was built 60 years later.

After ancient Pueblo people settled on the mesas and in the canyons, only the intrepid passed through here: Spanish friars in the 18th century, wayward mountain men, scattered trappers and, in the 19th century, Mormon families guiding wagons along the Honeymoon Trail to St. George.

In 2000, President Clinton created the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, at just over 1 million acres, and the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, at nearly 300,000 acres. The BLM manages another 1 1/2 million acres in the area that don't carry the same level of protection.

The presidential proclamations called the monuments geological treasures. The one for Vermillion Cliffs reads: "Full of natural splendor and a sense of solitude, this area remains remote and unspoiled, qualities that are essential to the protection of the scientific and historic objects it contains."

Up to now, the Arizona Strip has been administered under a 1992 management plan. The proposed plan is the first to take into account the monument designations. Much of the land within the national monuments was intended to be set aside for scientific study, but BLM budgets often fail to make room for expensive scientific analysis. To survey the sites in Grand Canyon-Parashant, for example, would cost $30 million, according to Diana Hawks, who leads the BLM's planning effort.

According to an article in the latest edition of Issues in Science and Technology, published by the National Academies and the University of Texas at Dallas, only 6% of the BLM's 260 million acres in the West have been surveyed for cultural resources. About 263,000 cultural sites have been found, according to the article, but archeologists estimate there are likely to be 4.5 million sites on BLM holdings.

The pattern is repeated here. More than 97% of the land within the monuments has not been surveyed for archeological or paleontological sites, and according to a scientific study conducted last summer, 63% of the sites in Grand Canyon-Parashant are vulnerable to damage by off-road vehicle routes, as are nearly half the sites in the more remote Vermilion Cliffs monument.

"These archeological sites are a nonrenewable resource. Once they are gone, they are gone forever, " said Peter Bungart, a Flagstaff-based archeologist who conducted last year's monument surveys. "The silent history that's on that landscape is important, unless you argue that history is not important."

The BLM's new plan concludes that none of the proposed activities in the monuments would damage resources. But critics contend that the agency can't claim that roads won't damage archeological resources, considering the BLM doesn't even know where all of the sites are.

On a recent tour of Vermilion Cliffs, Rick Moore of the Grand Canyon Trust pointed out many archeological sites near roads, especially vulnerable to vandals. He showed one site atop the Paria Plateau where a road sliced though remnants of an early pueblo, the ruin's low stone walls flanking the dirt road.

The Coconino County Board of Supervisors is particularly concerned about the web of new roads open in the monuments and the other BLM lands.

"We have ample evidence that misuse of the land in these landscapes is sometimes irreparable, and sometimes it ain't gonna be right in your lifetime," Supervisor Carl Taylor said.

Taylor said the prospect of renewed uranium mining has created a rush to stake claims on the western side of the Arizona Strip and that the activity would create even more roads.

According to the EPA, the BLM's plan would open nearly nine times more public land to off-road vehicle use.

The EPA also argued against off-road travel in desert tortoise habitat and recommended that the BLM "eliminate open motorized and mechanized cross-county travel due to substantial impacts from this activity on soils, water resources, cultural resources and wildlife."

Proponents of motorized recreation, on the other hand, fear they will lose some of the freedom they enjoyed before the monuments were created.

"What we're worried about is that traditional routes are going to be closed, somewhat arbitrarily," said Dale Grange of Hurricane, Utah, president of the Tri State ATV Club and the motorized recreation representative at BLM meetings. Grange said motorcycle and ATV rallies in the Arizona Strip draw hundreds of participants. But because of BLM restrictions, organizers have to turn people away.

The BLM's Florence said the management plan for the area, though not perfect, is the result of years of careful, ongoing study.

"We fully expect to make some changes, clarifying what the plan does in term of protecting monument objects," he said. "It needs to be more clear, building in specific details exactly how the monument objects will be protected."

Wilderness takes a massive hit

The door closes on new BLM wilderness proposals

by Matt Jenkins
High Country News

For years, wilderness groups have been hounding the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to continue to identify lands worthy of formal protection as wilderness. An initial round of wilderness inventories, completed in 1991, led to protection of 6.5 million acres of BLM wilderness. But citizens' wilderness groups argued that substantial areas of potential wilderness were overlooked. In Utah, for instance, the original BLM inventory identified 3.2 million acres which met Wilderness Act criteria - areas larger than 5,000 acres with "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." But the Utah Wilderness Coalition argued that the true number was closer to 9 million acres and - under the direction of Clinton-era Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt - the BLM re-inventoried its Utah lands, ultimately identifying an additional 2.6 million acres eligible for protection.

But on April 11, the BLM stepped back in time. The Department of the Interior settled a lawsuit with the state of Utah, eliminating the 2.6 million acres of potential wilderness identified during the 1990s. Not only that, but Interior also agreed to prohibit the BLM from conducting further wilderness inventories or designating new "wilderness study areas" without explicit congressional direction - a policy the Interior Department intends to extend across the West.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton outlined the new policy in letters sent the same day to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. It effectively knocks tens of millions of acres out of the running for wilderness protection - and it will likely open up wildlands to development just as the BLM implements a new industry-friendly policy for oil and gas drilling on its lands.

"You have to understand just how radical a proposition this is," says Jim Angell, an attorney for Earthjustice, the nonprofit law firm that represents several wilderness groups. "What they're saying is: Those wilderness inventories that got done, for the most part, under Reagan - and were deeply flawed and highly political back then - are what we're stuck with. BLM can't even re-inventory its own lands to see if they're eligible for wilderness. They have to turn a blind eye to those lands and continue to develop them."

A long battle

The 1964 Wilderness Act directed the U.S. Forest Service to identify forestlands that might qualify for protection as wilderness. But it wasn't until 1976, with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), that the same mandate was extended to the BLM. FLPMA required BLM to complete a one-shot, nationwide inventory of eligible wilderness by 1991. As a result, Congress formally protected 6.5 million acres of BLM land as wilderness, while another 15.5 million acres were protected as wilderness study areas for future consideration.

But the BLM's responsibility didn't end there. Federal law requires the agency to maintain an ongoing inventory of potential wilderness. That opened a window of opportunity to wilderness groups, which argued the agency's initial surveys were far from complete. After years of on-the-ground surveys by citizens, the groups took their findings to the BLM and urged the agency to consider more areas for protection.

"It's been very common practice for the BLM to recognize that the first inventories that were done in the mid- to late-'80s, were not entirely accurate," says Heidi McIntosh of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Interior Secretary Babbitt recognized this and in 1996, he called for the re-inventory of BLM land in Utah, which ultimately identified 2.6 million more acres of potential wilderness.

The agency did a similar thing in Colorado. In 1996, the Colorado Environmental Coalition pushed the BLM to re-evaluate the Vermillion Basin, an oil-and-gas hotspot in the far northwest corner of the state that was being eyed for development by the Marathon Oil Company (HCN, 8/5/02: Land plan attracts an anti-grazing gorilla).

"We were making the case that BLM shouldn't allow any wilderness-damaging activities until (it) has a chance to take a second look," says Jeff Widen of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. And the BLM agreed, identifying some 600,000 acres of land - not only in the Vermillion Basin, but around the state - to protect as wilderness study areas until Congress could consider them for formal wilderness designation.

These re-evaluations were not without controversy. In 1996, the state of Utah sued Interior to invalidate Babbitt's new survey. The state abandoned the suit after an appeals court upheld the BLM's authority to re-inventory wilderness. But this March, Utah refiled, and just two weeks later - on April 11 - the state and the Interior Department announced that they had reached a settlement.

"The timing of the suit is incredible," says Widen. "A number of state-based wilderness groups tried to intervene, and before the judge ever even ruled, Interior just came out of the blue and settled this thing." The settlement follows a Bush administration pattern of inviting lawsuits that could weaken environmental protection and then settling them out of court (HCN, 10/14/02: Wildlife Service bows to home builders).

The end of wilderness?

The new policy could demolish efforts for more wilderness protection - and it is likely to spread quickly region-wide.

The Utah settlement came on the heels of two March letters to Norton from Republican senators and congressmen in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California and Montana, asking that "the Bureau of Land Management immediately suspend any new wilderness reviews of public lands other than reviews specifically directed by an Act of Congress." In her April 11 letters to Senators Bennett and Domenici, Secretary Norton made it clear that the invalidation of wilderness proposed after 1991 would extend across the West.

"It's pretty clear that what we're going to see BLM start doing pretty quick is start leasing lands (for oil and gas development) that are in citizens' wilderness inventories," says Ken Rait of the Campaign for America's Wilderness. In Colorado, the first land on the block could be the Vermillion Basin and the energy-rich Roan Plateau near Rifle. In Utah, it's the area around Moab as well as the Book Cliffs outside of Green River, which have long been eyed by oil and gas companies.

The Arizona Wilderness Coalition's just-released, million-acre wilderness proposal for the remote Arizona Strip, north of the Grand Canyon, is also on the rocks, and the new policy affects wilderness efforts in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho, as well.

Wilderness groups are still pondering their response to the move, but a lawsuit seems likely. Says Widen, "BLM didn't say to the oil and gas industry, 'You applied for drilling permits back in 1980-whatever, so you had your chance.' "

"This is a major issue for the future of the BLM and how it will manage its lands in the 21st century," says The Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth. "It's wrong for the administration to say, 'We're never going to do wilderness again.' "

Matt Jenkins is an assistant editor for High Country News.

• U.S. Department of the Interior, John Wright, 202/208-6416,www.doi.gov;

• The Wilderness Society, Dave Alberswerth, 202/833-2300, www.wilderness.org;

• Campaign for America's Wilderness, Doug Scott, 206/342-9212, www.leaveitwild.org.