Rally calls for government to protect Grand Canyon
Group seeks buffer zone against uranium mining around national park
Caitlyn Roth will never forget riding a mule down into Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
“It was magnificent,” Roth said, speaking of the experience and not necessarily the mule.
Hallie Neuhaus was at the Grand Canyon in May.
“I was just there for a day and did some hiking,” Neuhaus said. “It was beautiful. I would like to go back and do some rafting there.”
On Wednesday, Roth and Neuhaus joined fellow Environment New Mexico organizers Sarah Lukins and Hannah Perkins and Environment New Mexico state director Sanders Moore in urging President Obama to protect Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining by creating a national monument out of 1.7 million acres around the park.
“The Grand Canyon is one of the most amazing places on Earth, and it’s part of what makes Arizona so special,” Perkins said during a news conference at Central Avenue and the Rio Grande. “But without action to stop it, reckless uranium mining could ruin this area for generations.”
Supporters of the proposed national monument maintain that old mines around and inside Grand Canyon National Park have contaminated water in the area and that new mines could do more harm to the Colorado River, which provides drinking water to more than 25 million people downstream.
Mining is not permitted within Grand Canyon National Park itself, and a 20-year moratorium, initiated by the Obama administration in 2012, prohibits new mining in the area outside the park. But Environment New Mexico said recent increases in uranium prices has mining companies working for the abolishment of the moratorium.
Moore likened the threats posed to the Grand Canyon by uranium mining to potential damages caused by the proposed extraction of oil and gas near New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
“Oil and gas would like to drill right outside Chaco,” she said. “There are thousands of archaeological sites outside (Chaco) as well as people who live in that area.”
Environment New Mexico; its parent organization, Environment America, and other state affiliates are citizen-funded groups whose mission is a cleaner, greener future.
The organization chose this week to push the proposal because today is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. The Grand Canyon is the country’s 15th-oldest national park. More than 50 organizers focused campaign efforts in Albuquerque and eight other cities in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada.
Roth said efforts in Albuquerque had resulted in 600 petition signatures and 100 calls to the White House. When added to numbers generated in other cities, Environment America said the push produced 4,350 petition signatures and 1,300 phone calls.
“We’ve seen this week how thousands of young people want President Obama to say, ‘Yes We Canyon,’ and create this national monument,” Perkins said.