Biden’s Newest National Monument Blocks Uranium Mining Near The Grand Canyon

LOADING ERROR LOADING President Joe Biden on Tuesday established a new national monument protecting nearly 1 million acres of federal lands adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining and other development. “The Grand Canyon region is sacred to each of us; it is a place where we see and understand our history,” the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition said in a statement celebrating Biden’s action. “The Biden Administration aims to support domestic nuclear & clean energy, but an ill-designed monument could hobble those efforts.” Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history, stressed the importance of Indigenous knowledge in public land management and said sites within the new monument are much more than a “passthrough on the way to the Grand Canyon.” “They are sacred and significant in their own right,” Haaland said Monday. The northern region on the Colorado Plateau features what the Uranium Producers of America described as “the highest grade deposits identified in the United States.” The Grand Canyon sits right in the middle of the yellow-shaped area of a map that the trade group illustrated to show where ore can be found ― but the deposit stretches well beyond the contours of the new monument.