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Mining for uranium in the U.S. is picking up. It's used in nuclear fuel, the price of which hit a 16-year high earlier this year. Native American tribes in Arizona and the state attorney general are questioning the safety of a mine near the Grand Canyon. Ryan Heinsius with member station KNAU in Flagstaff reports.
RYAN HEINSIUS, BYLINE: Last year, on a remote stretch of northern Arizona forest, President Joe Biden declared the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: From time immemorial, more than a dozen tribal nations have lived, gathered, prayed on these lands.
HEINSIUS: The monument now blocks what could have been hundreds of new uranium mines on almost a million acres just outside the park. They're the ancestral lands of the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo and others.
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BIDEN: Our nation's history is etched in our people and in our lands. Today's action is going to protect and preserve that history.
HEINSIUS: It was also a recognition of a far darker history - the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines on and near the Navajo Nation left over from the Cold War that are blamed for death, cancers and other grave health problems.
JASMINE BLACKWATER-NYGREN: When it comes to uranium specifically, I think there's almost a moral obligation to say no and to make that message strong.
HEINSIUS: Navajo First Lady and former Arizona legislator, Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren, says radiation exposure killed two of her grandparents, one of whom was a uranium miner. It's an all-too-common story on Navajo. But one previously established mine within the monument can still legally operate, and it started producing uranium ore this year.
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HEINSIUS: A cage-like elevator descends 1,500 feet to the very bottom of the Pinyon Plain Mine.
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HEINSIUS: A ventilation system whirs above a diesel front loader and a small team of workers. Assistant superintendent Matt Germansen.
MATT GERMANSEN: It's just you and the miners that you're working with accomplishing a goal.
HEINSIUS: That goal is digging out a geological formation called a breccia pipe that contains some of the highest-grade uranium ore in the U.S.
GERMANSEN: We have basically everything we need to operate down here, from heavy equipment to first aid to electrical power systems.
HEINSIUS: Germansen and the mine's owner, Energy Fuels, say the mine is safe and won't affect the Grand Canyon's groundwater or environment. Conservationists have challenged that for years. Energy Fuels is frustrated that the monument has stymied the area's future uranium development.
GERMANSEN: To declare a national monument is certainly frustrating because it feels like it was done without the science backing it.
HEINSIUS: The Havasupai Tribe, whose reservation is at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, worries that the mine will pollute its groundwater. They challenged a 1986 environmental analysis by the U.S. Forest Service that found almost no risk of contamination. But a federal appeals court ruled it valid.
This month, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes questioned the nearly 40-year-old science in the study and asked for a new one. Energy Fuels' vice president, Curtis Moore, says Arizona's only operational uranium mine is a key part of the transition from fossil fuels.
CURTIS MOORE: If we're going to address climate change, nuclear has to be a part of that. There's just no way to get there without nuclear. Uranium powers nuclear.
HEINSIUS: U.S. interest in carbon-emissions-free nuclear power is ramping up at the same time one supply just became off-limits for geopolitical reasons.
MOORE: A big one is Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine.
HEINSIUS: The U.S. can no longer buy uranium from Russia, which has been a significant supplier. Last month, Energy Fuels sent its first truckloads of ore from its Arizona mine to its processing plant in Utah. The route crosses the Navajo Reservation, and that brought protests.
BUU NYGREN: Our people are still dying today. They're suffering. There's so much generational trauma that uranium has brought to our people.
HEINSIUS: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren spoke at a protest on a federal highway on the reservation. The tribe outlawed uranium ore hauling more than a decade ago, and he's vowed to stop any future shipments.
NYGREN: It's a humanitarian issue that we face here on Navajo because it's killed thousands of our people.
HEINSIUS: Energy Fuels says it's well within its rights to haul on state and federal highways through the reservation, but it stopped sending shipments at the request of Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, who's mediating talks between the company and the Navajo. There's no timeline for when hauling may restart.
For NPR News, I'm Ryan Heinsius in Flagstaff. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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