Biden to Designate New National Monument to Protect Land Near Grand Canyon

President Biden plans to designate a new national monument that would protect lands near the Grand Canyon, a move that has been opposed by the mining industry. 

The Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in northern Arizona will cover more than 900,000 acres of public land. Biden, who is in Arizona as part of a three-state tour, will designate the monument on Tuesday. 

Biden has designated five national monuments, including the Grand Canyon one, as part of his administration’s conservation efforts. Several tribes have long sought permanent protection of their ancestral homelands in the Grand Canyon region, as have environmentalists. The mining industry has opposed curtailing access to uranium deposits in the area, arguing it will undermine the effort to produce more energy in the U.S. and increase dependence on Russia for the critical nuclear-power fuel. 

In 2012, the Obama administration imposed a 20-year ban on new uranium mining claims around the Grand Canyon. Those protections will become permanent in the newly protected areas. Existing mining claims won’t be affected, a senior administration official said. 

“These special places are not a pass-through on the way to the Grand Canyon. They’re sacred and significant in their own right. They should not be open to new mining claims and developed beyond recognition,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Monday.

Democratic officials in Arizona, including Gov. Katie Hobbs, Sen. Mark Kelly and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, have supported the creation of a Grand Canyon monument, as has Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic-turned-independent senator. 

The mining industry and some of the state’s congressional Republicans and local officials have criticized the Obama-era ban on new uranium mining and the prospect of the new monument, saying it could hurt economic growth. 

“Why would we permanently cut off access to some of America’s best uranium deposits for no scientific, health or environmental reasons,” Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development for uranium producer Energy Fuels, said before the monument was announced. 

The Uranium Producers of America said it opposes the creation of the monument, and added that U.S. mining practices are “the most environmentally sound and regulated in the world.” 

The areas covered by the monument contain roughly 1.3% of the nation’s known uranium reserves, according to a senior administration official.

Nuclear power supplies nearly 20% of U.S. electricity. Domestic uranium mining has dwindled in recent years and raw uranium prices haven’t been high enough to encourage U.S. mining over cheaper imports.

Uranium must be mined and milled, converted into a gas, and enriched to increase the percentage of the isotope needed for nuclear reactors before making fuel. 

Russia has been a critical supplier of enriched uranium to the U.S. and other countries. 

A group of more than a dozen tribes, the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition, had urged Biden to declare the land a national monument. “It’s a gift to the United States. It’s a gift to the entire world,” Hopi Tribe Chair Tim Nuvangyaoma said at a news briefing in April. 

The monument’s name comes from two native languages. Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam” in Havasupai and I’tah Kukveni means “our ancestral footprints” in Hopi, according to the coalition. 

Write to Talal Ansari at [email protected]