Arizona Navajos act to stop potential uranium rush
Jan 03 14:19
PHOENIX (AP) -- As the price of uranium continues to rise, so does the potential for another uranium rush in Arizona -- something Navajos are trying to stop.
Last year, 700 mining claims were filed and 100 test holes were bored into the remote high desert in northern Arizona, The Arizona Republic reported.
Scott Florence, director of the Bureau of Land Management's Arizona Strip district in St. George, Utah, said those numbers are significantly higher than any year since the frenzy of the 1980s.
"Finding the right mine site is a real art. But it seems like everyone and their mother is trying now," Florence said.
Fueling the hunt is the price of uranium, which has tripled in the past two years to $36 a pound on the spot market. At the height of the last rush in 1979, uranium got to $43 a pound.
Fearing another rush, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. issued an executive order in November banning negotiations with uranium companies or uranium exploration on the three-state Navajo Nation.
Arizona, which has the richest deposits of the ore, also has the worst legacy associated with its mining, along with New Mexico.
After the first wave of uranium mining began on its reservation in the 1950s, the Navajo Nation became embroiled in a public health tragedy. Dozens of premature deaths of Navajo miners and passed-on genetic defects have been attributed to uranium exposure.
"You look around the reservation and see so many elderly people who are crippled and can barely breathe," said Robert Stewart Sr. of Tuba City, a Navajo who worked for five years in a mine in the mid- to late 1950s. "This pretty much devastated much of a generation."
Meanwhile, some say the exploration ban on the Navajo Nation could increase the urgency to look for ore on state, federal and private lands between Interstate 40 and the Utah border. There are dozens of potential uranium-ore bodies that would make financial sense to mine if market prices remain at their highest levels in 25 years.
Despite the creation in 2000 of two national monuments north of the Grand Canyon -- Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs -- fears remain about mining between the monuments and old claims.
Florence said the creation of the monuments restricts any future mining claims, but pre-existing claims have grandfathered rights.
"The richest area of uranium deposits is in a 50- to 75-mile area between the two monuments, and the exploration there won't be affected," Florence said.
Shirley's spokesman, George Hardeen, said the Navajo president spent two days in Washington meeting with members of Congress to re-emphasize tribal sovereignty and to try to keep uranium firms from "going in the back door" with the Interior Department and negotiating their own mining contracts.
"Uranium left a deadly legacy on the Navajo Nation, which (Shirley) has called genocide," Hardeen said. "The tribe is giving up millions of dollars in royalties to keep history from repeating itself."
Meanwhile, companies are eager to open more sites.
International Uranium Corp. of Denver hopes to have four mines operating soon between the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the town of Fredonia.
International Uranium Vice President Harold Roberts said the company is considering opening Canyon Mine, south of the Grand Canyon, a site that was partly developed before the uranium market crashed in the late 1980s.
"The mines are more developed north of the Grand Canyon, but we are very excited about the prospects south of the Canyon between Flagstaff and the national park," Roberts said. "We still have a ways to go before this becomes an all-out rush."
But the demand for uranium may soon shoot up, said Lyle Krahn, a spokesman for Cameco Corp. -- Canada's main uranium producer, which also has mines in Wyoming and Nebraska --
"The U.S. has been inching ever closer to announcing 10 new nuclear-power generating sites," Krahn said, "and this would have big ramifications for our industry."
Thanks to Glenda for this lead.
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January 2006 Reports
Last updated on January 24, 2006