FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Uranium mining in the U.S. is picking up after the nuclear fuel’s price hit a 16-year high earlier this year. But now that a mine near the Grand Canyon is producing ore, Native American tribes, local officials and Arizona’s attorney general are questioning its safety.

Last year, on a remote stretch of northern Arizona forest, President Biden designated the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

“From time immemorial, more than a dozen tribal nations have lived, gathered, prayed on these lands,” Biden said as he addressed an enthusiastic crowd of tribal leaders, members of Congress, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and advocates.

The monument designation permanently banned new uranium mining claims on nearly a million acres adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park and blocks what could have been hundreds of new operations in an area that is culturally significant to the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo and others.

“Our nation’s history is etched in our people and in our lands. Today’s action is going to protect and preserve that history,” said Biden, as Red Butte, one of the Havasupai Tribe’s most sacred sites, loomed in the background.

The declaration 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 era that are blamed for deaths, cancers and other grave health problems in many of the region’s Indigenous communities.

“When it comes to uranium specifically, I think there’s almost a moral obligation to say no and to make that message strong,” says Navajo Nation first lady and former Arizona legislator Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren.

She says radiation exposure killed two of her grandparents, one of whom was a uranium miner. It is an all-too-common story on Navajo and a hardship that’s touched nearly every family there. But one previously established mine that has been on hold for decades and is located within the national monument can legally still operate because of preexisting rights. And it started producing uranium ore earlier this year.

Inside the Pinyon Plain mine near the Grand Canyon in Arizona

Ryan Heinsius/KNAU

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“It’s just you and the miners that you’re working with accomplishing a goal,” says Pinyon Plain Mine Assistant Superintendent Matt Germansen.

He has just stepped off a cage-like elevator after taking the five-minute ride almost 1,500 feet to the bottom of the mineshaft. A ventilation system whirs above a diesel front-loader and a small team of workers including miners, electricians and welders. They have their sights set on digging out a geological formation called a breccia pipe that contains some of the highest-grade uranium ore in the U.S.

“We have basically everything we need to operate down here from heavy equipment to first aid to electrical power systems,” Germansen says as he walks through the tunnels of the subterranean operation.

He and the mine’s owner, Energy Fuels, say the mine is safe and won’t affect the Grand Canyon’s groundwater or environment — something conservationists have challenged for years. The company says Biden’s designation has stymied the area’s potential for significant uranium development.

“To declare a national monument is certainly frustrating because it feels like it was done without the science backing it,” Germansen says.

But that science remains inconclusive. Hydrologists with the U.S. Geological Survey have studied the area for more than a decade and have sampled thousands of water sources throughout the Grand Canyon. They say there is no definitive evidence of water contamination from Pinyon Plain or other uranium mines. But they caution that they do not yet have a complete picture of its complex geology and many uncertainties remain.

Tribes in the region have been steadfast in their opposition and have fought uranium mining near the Grand Canyon for decades. The Havasupai, whose reservation is at the bottom of the canyon, worry that Pinyon Plain could pollute its sole water source. They, along with environmental groups, challenged a 1986 environmental analysis by the U.S. Forest Service that found almost no risk of contamination. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it valid and reaffirmed the company’s right to mine in 2022. Earlier this month, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes questioned the nearly 40-year-old science in the original study and asked the agency, which manages the land where the mine is located, to conduct a new one.

Carbon emissions-free energy

Energy Fuels maintains that Pinyon Plain, Arizona’s only currently operational uranium mine, is a key part of the global transition away from fossil fuels. It’s expected to produce about 2.5 million pounds of processed uranium over its lifespan of three or more years.

“If we’re going to address climate change, nuclear has to be part of that. There’s just no way to get there without nuclear. Uranium powers nuclear,” says Curtis Moore, Energy Fuels’ senior vice president for marketing and corporate development.

While interest in the U.S. for carbon emissions-free nuclear power is ramping up, a significant supply of uranium just became off-limits for geopolitical reasons.

“A big one is Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine,” Moore says.

Earlier this year, Biden signed a law that bans U.S. imports of uranium from Russia. It took effect in August. Previously, the U.S. had imported about $1 billion worth annually.

Last year President Biden created the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. This year he signed a law banning the import of Russian uranium

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Amid these changes in the global market, in late July Energy Fuels sent its first truckloads of ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine to its White Mesa Mill in southern Utah for processing. The route crosses a large part the Navajo Nation, and the unexpected move by the company ignited numerous protests in the region.

“Our people are still dying today. They’re suffering. There’s so much generational trauma that uranium has brought to our people,” says Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren.

He spoke to several dozen community members, activists and others in early August in the reservation town of Cameron, which is along the haul route on U.S. Highway 89, just days after the ore shipments passed through. Nygren then led a protest march along the highway, which backed up traffic as leaders sang traditional songs in the Diné language and held a large yellow and red banner calling for the closure of the mine and respect for tribal sovereignty.

The tribe outlawed uranium ore hauling in 2012, and Nygren has vowed to stop any future shipments. Energy Fuels, however, says it’s well within its rights to use state and federal highways through the reservation for its deliveries. And they are adamant that the ore has low levels of radiation and is safe to transport.

But soon after the first truckloads crossed the Navajo Nation, the company put the shipments on hold at the request of Gov. Hobbs, who is mediating talks between the Energy Fuels and tribal officials. There’s no timeline for when hauling may restart, but the pause has done little to quell opposition to Pinyon Plain as activists, tribal members and leaders continue to fight uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

“It’s a humanitarian issue that we face here on Navajo because it’s killed thousands of our people,” Nygren says.