The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) just released its annual report on renewable energy. It contains much to ponder, and at least one real head scratcher:
Uranium mining and milling employed thousands of workers in the Four Corners region during four decades following World War II. But that first boom ended in the early 1990s when the price of uranium plummeted on world markets. It also left behind a hundreds of contaminated sites, sorely in need of cleaning up.
Yesterday, Utah Public Radio reported:
Production at White Mesa Mill near Blanding, Utah will be paused indefinitely beginning August 2014. America’s last active uranium mill, near Blanding in San Juan County, announced plans to shut down for at least a year, beginning August 2014. It’s going to have a devastating effect on a would-be revival of uranium mining in the Four Corners.
Concurrently, the Associated Press is reporting another plan “to train up to 40 people over three years to safely handle radioactive materials and to find a job in a place where the unemployment rate hovers around 50 percent. About 4 million tons of uranium ore were mined from the reservation from 1944 to 1986 for wartime weapons, leaving a legacy of death and disease.” Continue reading
Closing our national park system was a bad idea. Giving it to states would be worse.
In Climate Progress, Jessica Goad comments on new ideas from House Republicans for managing national parks — and all federal lands:
…the House Committee on Natural Resources on Thursday discussed a bill that would enable state governments to manage national parks and other public lands (despite the fact that the concept of turning public lands over to states and private companies has been shown to be highly unpopular among voters in the West).
House Republicans’ New Idea: States should manage the Grand Canyon and other national parks. Continue reading
As the digital age advances, conservation organizations like the Grand Canyon Trust are finding new ways to inspire the public to respond to climate change, habitat and biodiversity loss, and energy development; issues that threaten all communities and species throughout the Colorado Plateau. This past month artists have been doing just that within the forests of Utah, sacred sites on the Navajo Nation, and public lands associated with Kane Ranch. Continue reading
In 2013 more than 200 volunteers donated 15,000 hours of their time, sweat, and brainpower to important on-the-ground conservation and restoration work. It was quite a year for the Volunteer Program!
We all had tons of fun making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and seeing some incredibly beautiful places along the way. Here is a rundown of your accomplishments for the year, followed by a quick look toward a very exciting and promising future together.
Over the course of our 2013 field season, our volunteers did great things in three large, charismatic, and ecologically important landscapes.
First on this list is Utah forests, where we started the year by closing six miles of illegal roads and travel routes, defending the integrity of an important roadless area. Utah volunteers built two fences on private lands to protect sensitive habitat and protect passive restoration sites for use as reference areas – which are badly needed to see what it looks like when areas are left ungrazed. Continue reading
Facing a lagging uranium market, Grand Canyon’s zombie mines may be falling back into their graves. But their pollution problems remain alive and well—along with agencies’ refusal to require updated reviews or reclamation.
Citing market conditions, Energy Fuels Inc. on Friday announced plans to halt mining at a second Grand Canyon-area mine–the Pinenut Mine, located just north of Grand Canyon National Park. It is to be shuttered in August 2014.
This news comes after the company shuttered the Canyon Mine earlier in November, pending a federal district court ruling. It agreed to those terms with the Trust, the Havasupai Tribe and other plaintiffs who last year sued the Forest Service for allowing the mine to reopen absent Tribal consultations and additional environmental reviews.
On Friday the company also said that it plans to close the nation’s only conventional uranium mill. Continue reading