A dormant uranium mine located six miles from the Grand Canyon will be allowed to resume operations after an order in the Arizona District Court. The owners of the mine gave notice in 2011 that they intended to begin mining uranium, but a lawsuit was filed by the Havasupai tribe and environmental groups saying their mining rights should not be valid.
The Canyon Mine is a 17-acre facility in the Kaibab National Forest six miles away from the Grand Canyon, the Forest Service determined that the energy companies still had rights to the mine despite the time it was not in use. The mine was approved by the Forest Service in 1986, and was placed on standby in 1992 as a result of low uranium prices. The forest service determined that the energy companies retained the rights, called the VER Determination, and performed a mine review after notification in 2011 that they intended to resume mining.
“By its own terms, the Withdrawal did not extinguish mining rights that already existed. The Court previously held that the Withdrawal required a validity determination only for mines which required a new plan of operations,” the Order said.
The petitioners in the case are the Havasupai Tribe, Grand Canyon Trust, Center for Biological Diversity, and Sierra Club. They filed the lawsuit in 2013 against the United States Forest Service, represented by the United States Justice Department, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief. Owners and operators of the mine, including Energy Fuels Resources Inc. and EFR Arizona Strip LLC, intervened in the case as defendants and are represented by Gallagher & Kennedy.
The plaintiffs argued that the energy companies and the Forest Service did not consider environmental costs in their estimates, and that the evaluation instead considered if starting use of the mine again would be profitable, finding it would have an estimated 78 percent rate of return.
“Plaintiffs assert that environmental monitoring may identify contamination at the mine that will require future environmental mitigation measures,” the order states. “They argue that the Forest Service should have estimated these potential future mitigation costs, such as possible pumping and treatment of groundwater if it is contaminated by the mine, and included them in the VER Determination.” The businesses alleged that the Forest Service is not required to speculate on future costs.
The court said it agrees with the defendants in this case. “Even if the Court assumes that the VER determination omitted environmental monitoring, elk habitat restoration, and a net to protect condors, it cannot conclude that these relatively modest expenses would make the Canyon Mine unprofitable,” the order states saying a drop in profit would not be enough to invalidate existing mining rights.
