"In an iconic corner of the Grand Canyon, a uranium mine may threaten a tribe’s sole water source"
"Red Butte, Arizona — Lightly frosted with snow, the peaks of Red Butte look particularly beautiful today, remarks Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla, an elder of the Havasupai Tribe. This land near the south rim of the Grand Canyon is sacred to her people as the place where their creation story says life began. It was once a hub of ceremony and prayer, but tribal members rarely visit now—not since the Pinyon Plain Mine started to extract uranium just 10 kilometers away.
The mine sits on top of the aquifer that feeds the tribe’s waterfalls with the unusually blue water their name refers to: Havasupai, or Havasu ‘Baaja, meaning people of the blue-green waters. The tribe has no other source of drinking water, and they fear that if it becomes contaminated, their health will suffer. “Once it goes into our village, we will get sick,” Uqualla says. “I question to these mining people: ‘Are you going to take accountability to pay for my people’s hospitalizations?’”
The land surrounding the Grand Canyon contains some of the highest grade uranium in the United States—an element that’s in demand for nuclear energy production. President Joe Biden’s administration enacted the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument last year to protect 3700 square kilometers flanking the canyon and ban new mining claims. But the announcement didn’t affect the Pinyon Plain Mine—the focus of a long-running dispute that has mobilized scientists and pitted the tribe and environmental groups against the mining company and the state—because it had existing mining rights that were protected under federal law."
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