Tell Secretary Salazar to protect the Grand Canyon and Colorado River

The Power of Information

Tell Secretary Salazar to protect the Grand Canyon and Colorado River

Since 2003, the number of mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park has increased from 10 to more then 1,100.

Send the email below urging Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to protect this national treasure.

November 21, 2009

Subject:
Protect the Grand Canyon

Dear Secretary Salazar

I am joining with Environmental Working Group to ask you to act now to protect the Grand Canyon from toxic uranium mining.

Since 2003, the number of mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park has increased from just 10 to more than 1,100.  Most, if not all, of these claims are for uranium mining that has left a legacy of cancer and contamination through out the southwestern United States.  The federal government is currently spending $1 billion to remove uranium mining waste near Moab, Utah that has contaminated the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon.  The Navajo, who live near the Grand Canyon, have watched their friends and relatives die from cancer and a strange degenerative disease known as Navajo neuropathy - the likely result of uranium mining during the Cold War.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Geological Survey and the Arizona Game and Fish Department and Commission have found that uranium mining pollutes water.

Yet under the 1872 Mining Law, the government takes the position that it is virtually powerless to stop mining on federal land, even if it is right next to the Grand Canyon and the Colorado that provides drinking water for 25 million Americans including residents of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Diego.  Just last month, the Interior Department gave the green light for a Canadian company to conduct exploratory drilling for uranium near the Canyon and there is little to prevent more mining activity.

Please use your own authority under federal law to put one million acres of land near the Canyon off-limits to mining activity on an emergency basis for three years.  This action is required by a Congressional committee and has the support of former Arizona Governor (now Homeland Security Secretary) Janet Napolitano among many others.

Thank you for your consideration of this important issue.

Sincerely,

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Tell Secretary Salazar to protect the Grand Canyon and Colorado River