Another 1-million acres near Grand Canyon remain off-limits to uranium

Four Indian tribes near the Grand Canyon have now banned uranium exploration and mining on their reservations.

RENO, NV - 

Northern Arizona's Hualapai Tribe has renewed its ban on uranium mining on nearly one million acres of land near the Grand Canyon.

In an interview with the Associated Press, David Brett, president and CEO of Pacific Bay Minerals (TSX-V: PBM), said, the company had been in negotiations to explore for uranium on the Hualapai's three-state reservation, when the tribal leaders renewed their ban.

When the ban was first enacted late last year, Sean Muller of Golden Eagle said, "The decision to ban uranium mining has come as a result of recent pressure from their attorney who also works for the Navajo Nation." In 1982, Muller, formerly the principal geologist for the Council of Energy Resources Tribes, successfully negotiated a uranium lease on the Hualapai Reservation with Energy Fuels.

The book "Quest for the Pillar of Gold" says, "Besides Western Nuclear (later Energy Fuels Nuclear), claims were made across much of the plateau region adjacent to Grand Canyon by Pathfinder Mines Corporation of St. George, Utah; UranezUSA of Denver, Colorado; and Rocky Mountain Energy (later Union Pacific Resources- Minerals) of Denver. Pathfinder Mines located two uranium ore bodies in breccia pipes west of Hacks Canyon, the EZ-1 and EZ-2. Union Pacific Resources found two breccia pipes that contain uranium ore: the Sage pipe, about ten miles south of Supai, on the Coconino Plateau, and the SBF pipe farther to the southwest, near the eastern boundary of the Hualapai Indian Reservation."

During testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands in March 2008, Hualapai Tribe Chairman Charlie Vaughn said, "It is our concern that the proliferation of mining activity near the Grand Canyon may affect the water that flows underground and issues at places like Havasu Falls."

"It is our concern that potential mining sites may compromise traditional and cultural sites that are Hualapai," he said, adding, "suffice it to say we do not want to see the land in proximity to the Grand Canyon scarred by additional roads or mining sites that will be a vestige of the beauty that once was for several generations to come."

 "There's a perception out there that is very hard to dislodge that it [uranium mining] poses this major health risk. " Brett said the "basically unexplored territory" is geologically crying out to be explored."

The Navajo and the Hopi have sued or threatened to sue over cleanup of uranium from the land near Tuba City, Arizona. The Hualapai, Navajo, Havasupai and Hopi tribes have all banned uranium mining on their lands.

Arizona Mining Association President Sydney Hay told AP, "There are some legacy sites that have given uranium mining a bad name, but the way to fix that is to clean up those legacy sites."

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