14 DAY TRIAL // The recent resolution of the Bush administration managed to lift the ban on the exploitation of uranium mines in the Grand Canyon. This could cause the contamination of the Colorado river's water, severe wildlife damage and increased toxicity of the area.
According to the associated news release, a last year's report issued by the Environmental Working Group indicates that uranium mining registered an explosion in the recent years, reaching 815 claims in a 5-mile (8 km) area of the Grand Canyon National Park alone. The worldwide need and soaring prices of the material caused the entrepreneurs to knowingly exploit the 1872 federal statute which gives such mining projects priority in relation to conservation or recreation ones. “The global economy has created a modern day land rush in the American West, while our outdated mining law leaves federal land managers with the legal equivalent of a pick and shovel in their efforts to protect our national parks,” explains Dusty Horwitt, Public Lands Analyst at EWG. “In effect, this means that speculative Chinese demand for nuclear fuel has more influence over the fate of mining in the American West than the people who work and live there.”
The exploitation of uranium mines will lead to exposing the waters of the Colorado river, which are used by approximately 25 million people, to intense toxic radiation. It will do the same with plants, fish and animals of the region in Arizona, as it did in the past as well, not to mention that it will turn a world's landmark into a junkyard. The American Congress tried to stop all this by a resolution which proposed the immediate ceasing of uranium mining processes on a million acre (about 4.050 square kilometer)-wide zone, but that was quickly rejected by a rule coming from the Bush administration. Not only that, but in addition, the grounds on which such proposals are made were eliminated, while the comment period for their rule was as short as two weeks. Raul Grijalva, Chairman of House Parks Subcommittee, publicly accused this action, “This last-minute move by this 'see if we can get it under the clock' administration is cowardly”.