#radionuclides — Public Fediverse posts

Advocates demand halt to #uranium #mine near the #GrandCanyon

#EnergyFuels says #nuclear power is necessary to fight #ClimateChange, but #Indigenous tribes fear losing their homes

By Matthew Rozsa
January 31, 2024

"The Grand Canyon truly lives up to its name, being the largest canyon on Earth and one of the most popular national parks in America. But due to #UraniumMining in the area, some advocates are warning it could become the site of a future #EnvironmentalDisaster, which threatens to make one Indigenous village 'extinct.'

"More than 80 groups signed onto a statement on Monday — representing Indigenous communities, scientists and environmental nonprofits such as the #SierraClub and the #CenterForBiologicalDiversity — directed at President #JoeBiden and #Arizona Gov. #KatieHobbs, demanding they close the #PinyonPlain uranium mine, which is located near the Grand Canyon.

"'We have a choice in front of us. Allowing the Pinyon Plain mine to proceed is subjecting this landscape and its interconnected waters to a legacy of devastation and disregarding the rights of the #IndigenousPeoples on the land,' Sanober Mirza, Arizona program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in the statement. 'Or we can choose a different path — one that holds a promise of protecting the Grand Canyon’s cultural sanctity, its people and natural resources.'

"To understand why the mine's opponents feel so strongly, one can turn to #AmberReimondo, who work as energy director at a conservationist non-profit called the #GrandCanyonTrust. Reimondo explained to Salon by email that, on the one hand, #Biden permanently banned mining operations on nearly 1 million acres of federal managed lands by creating the #BaajNwaavjo I'tah Kukveni - Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in August 2023. Yet the Pinyon Plain mine was #exempt from this prohibition, and Reimondo argues that the impact on the region has been 'several fold.'

"'What they've created here is a long-term, slow motion #EnvironmentalDisaster."

"'The Grand Canyon region as a whole and especially the location of the mine, is deeply significant to Indigenous cultures and is a place where tribal members have conducted #ceremonies, collected medicine, hunted, and more, for centuries,' Reimondo said. 'The mine also overlies critical and complex [and] not well understood groundwater systems. One #aquifer in particular — the #RedWallMuavAquifer — is the sole source of water for the remote #HavasupaiVillage of #Supai inside the Grand Canyon. The mine poses a #contamination threat to these #groundwater resources not just today, but importantly, after the mine's mere 28-month operational lifespan has concluded and the mining operator 'cleans up' and moves on.'

"Supai is so remote, it's only accessible only by helicopter or an 8-mile mule ride or hike, Reimondo explained, noting that if the newly-oxygenated groundwater comes into contact with nearby rocks, minerals like #arsenic and #uranium will be dissolved by the groundwater and enter aquifers used by the local community and essential to local ecology, including #HavasuFalls. Taylor McKinnon, Southwest Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, expressed similar concerns.

"'Ultimately, this mine is going to require political leadership,' McKinnon told Salon in an interview, referring to both the Biden and #Hobbs administrations. 'Those administration's agencies have the authority to fix this problem if they so choose, and that's what they should do.'

"We have detailed strenuously for years that neither regulators nor industry can ensure against the permanent and irretrievable damage to Grand Canyon's aquifers and springs," McKinnon added. "This mine was approved originally in 1986, under a record of decision from the US Forest Service under a presumption that it was highly unlikely that the mine would encounter groundwater, and further unlikely that if it did, it had the potential to contaminate deeper aquifers in the springs that they feed. Subsequent state permitting from the #ArizonaDepartment OfEnvironmentalQuality has basically parroted those same assumptions.'

"Yet McKinnon alleges that in 2016 the mine punctured a perched aquifer, causing roughly 10 million gallons of water per year to drain into the mine workings. From there he asserts that a surface pond formed with water that has concentrations of uranium and arsenic far in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency (#EPA)'s water quality standards. Not only does this threaten the local endangered and endemic species, but it also impacts the nearby Havasupai tribe.

"Havasupai means 'people of the blue-green water,' McKinnon said. "It's their longstanding cultural identity, and it is the water they drink, they farm with and that provides for all of their tourism economy because it is this just a beautiful series of massive verdant waterfalls that flow through the village and down into a series of waterfalls and pools where people camp and they derive tourism dollars.'

"In a 2022 letter of opposition, the Havasupai Tribal Council, laid out what is at stake in the uranium mining controversy.

"'Our identity as a people is intrinsically intertwined with the health of #HavasuCreek and the environment to which it gives life,' the tribe’s letter explained. 'We use this water for drinking, #gardening and irrigating, municipal uses, and #cultural and #religious uses. If the water source becomes contaminated like we have seen in other areas of Arizona due to uranium mining, we will no longer be able to live in our homes and Supai Village will become extinct.'

"These fears are based on precedent. The nearby #NavajoNation is scattered with old uranium mines — over 500, in fact — awaiting cleanup, exposing locals to risk of '#LungCancer from inhalation of #radioactive particles, as well as #BoneCancer and impaired kidney function from exposure to #radionuclides in drinking water,' according to the EPA. Likewise, members of the #UteMountain #Ute tribe in #WhiteMesa, Utah have protested against uranium mines they say have contaminated local groundwater, air and even wildlife."

https://www.salon.com/2024/01/31/advocates-demand-halt-to-uranium-mine-near-the-grand-canyon/

#NoNukes #WaterIsLife #AirIsLife #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #CorporateColonialism #NoMining #UraniumMining #NuclearPowerNoThanks #IndigenousActivism

As promised, this week's #FollowFriday list are my favorite #NoNukes / #NoWar accounts. Follow them if you want news about #Fukushima, #NuclearDisarmament, and other #Nuclear news!

@123456Moto
(My lifeline here on Mastodon. Posts Leilani Athenaire’s tweets and news from #Japan)

@SZKN29
Illustrator, picture book author, care worker. Mainly covers Futaba District, Fukushima Prefecture on foot. A total of 410 km was covered. Tokyo Shimbun "Drawing Invisible Radioactivity"

@youranonriots
(Has timely #Fukushima posts!)
In the name of all #digital warriors, we warriors promise to participate in the #Anonymous.CC3 #HackThePlanet #AnonOps #infosec #Antifa

@brianpjcronin
(Covers #IndianPoint and #Holtec)
#Environmental Reporter for The Highlands Current: An award-winning, non-profit, independent newspaper in New York's Hudson Valley. I also teach journalism at Marist College. Not actually a cat.

@ausgestrahlt
#Atomkraft? Nein Danke! Wir streiten für eine Welt ohne #Atomenergie.
Nuclear power? No thank you! We are fighting for a world without nuclear energy.

@AntiAtomNetzTrier
We, #AntiAtom #AntiAKW moving people from #Trier and the surrounding area, are committed to the decommissioning of all nuclear plants and an ecological #Energiewende (decentralized and democratic, i.e. in the hands of citizens!). We oppose the French repository project #Bure in Lorraine with the resistance house #BureZoneLibre and for the closure of the #AKW #Cattenom. In addition, we support the switch to #Ökostrom|providers without #Atom or #Kohle|corporations as well as to corresponding banks.

@bojacobs
Nuclear historian at the #Hiroshima Peace Institute. Book - Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha - Yale 2022. I work on the global human & ecological harm from nuclear production, nuclear weapon tests, reactor accidents. I examine the impacts on communities, families & emotions; long-term ecological presence of #fallout #radionuclides; the legacy of our #NuclearWaste to 1,000s of generations of our descendants.
#histodons #nuclear #Hiroshima #peace

@CNDuk
The Campaign for Nuclear #Disarmament. Find out more: cnduk.org #CND

@nukes_of_hazard
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Working to limit & eventually eliminate the nuclear threat through Congressional & public outreach.

@AtomicAnalyst
Editor and co-author, "Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940" • Nonresident Senior Fellow, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I write primarily about nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons history and policy, and the nuclear "Football."

@Achim
Energy historian, with a focus on Soviet and Russian nuclear programmes. PhD candidate at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

@RosannaFarboel
PhD in History, Researcher at Lund University
Interests: #coldwarhistory #nuclearculture #nuclearhistory #nuclearhumanities #mediahistory #urbanhistory #memorystudies #historyofscienceandtechnology #digitalhistory #architecture #ruins #shelters #imaginaries #environmentalhistory #transnationalhistory

@armscontrolnow
(bot)
The Arms Control Association, founded in 1971, is a nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies.

@joshuafrank
Journalist. Montana kid. Editor at #CounterPunch.org. #𝘼𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙘𝘿𝙖𝙮𝙨, published by Haymarket Books, out now!

@ChristinaMacpherson
Long term anti-nuclear activist (and long time friend!)

@fukumeltdowns
#Fukushima #ELE #ClimateEmergency #NuclearCrimes ☢Stay UN-TUNA-ED! #Wigner
#RadBrain #NoMoreWars #NoNukes #AllTheSpentFuelPoolsAreCracked
#OpShutDownAllNukesNow