[NukeNet] EPA and Forest Service Sued to Stop Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon - Kathy Helms, Gallup Independent

[Russell Honicker]

> EPA, Forest Service sued.
> Groups challenge uranium exploration near Grand Canyon.
>
> By Kathy Helms
> Dine Bureau
>
> FLAGSTAFF – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.
> Forest Service were slapped with lawsuits on Wednesday and Thursday
> over the lack of financial assurance required to clean up hazardous
> wastes, including mine wastes, and the permitting of new uranium
> exploration near Grand Canyon National Park.
>
> The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Grand Canyon
> Trust filed suit Thursday against the Forest Service and Tysayan
> District Ranger Richard Stahn challenging the approval of up to 39
> new uranium drilling sites by VANE Minerals within a few miles of
> the Grand Canyon. There are more than 2,100 mining claims for
> uranium in the Tusayan district alone.
>
> The suit comes one day after Earthjustice attorneys sued EPA
> Administrator Stephen Johnson and Department of Transportation
> Secretary Mary Peters on behalf of Sierra Club, New Mexico's Amigos
> Bravos, Nevada's Great Basin Resource Watch, and Idaho Conservation
> League.
>
> The groups claim EPA and DOT failed to comply with CERCLA, the
> Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability
> Act, also known as Superfund.
>
> "As you know, Congress passed Superfund in 1980 to ensure cleanup
> of the Nation's many hazardous waste sites and to make sure that
> the companies responsible actually perform the cleanup," attorney
> Lisa Evans said via telephone press conference.
>
> "To ensure that the industry would do its part, Congress
> specifically required EPA to write regulations that require high-
> risk industries to demonstrate financial responsibility. Congress
> gave EPA five years to do this and it's now been 27 years, so we
> are asserting that it's long past time for EPA to abide by this
> mandate, and today we are filing our complaint to ask the court to
> require EPA to write critically important regulations addressing
> financial assurance."
>
> Wendy Chavez of EPA's Region 9 press office referred calls to
> Roxanne Smith in Washington, who was out of the office until
> Monday. Chavez said, however, that "with this lawsuit just being
> filed, and without sufficient time to review it, they wouldn't be
> able to comment on it."
>
> The lawsuit to protect the Grand Canyon stems from the Forest
> Service's Dec. 20, 2007, decision to grant British firm VANE
> Minerals approval to conduct exploratory uranium drilling on
> national forest lands along the park's southern boundary. It is the
> first of five such projects slated for the area.
>
> The suit claims that the Forest Service violated the National
> Environmental Policy Act, Administrative Procedures Act, and
> Appeals Reform Act when it approved the uranium exploration using a
> "categorical exclusion," the least rigorous analysis available to
> the agency.
>
> The Forest Service had not returned calls by press time, however,
> Clark Arnold of VANE Minerals U.S., in Tucson, said, "The reason
> the Forest Service is willing to grant a categorical exclusion is
> because the disturbance is extremely minor. There is very little
> damage, remediation is extremely effective. It takes a couple
> weeks, we're gone, and the site is clean.
>
> "There are a number of safeguards in place to ensure that proper
> procedures are followed. We do post a financial bond with the
> Forest Service. Our activities are closely monitored."
>
> The company has been exploring for uranium on the Colorado Plateau,
> drilling on state and private land for almost a year in northern
> Arizona and southern Utah, Arnold said. "We have had no problems
> with the authorities involved, we've had no problems with land
> owners. We have very good relations with everyone that we've been
> dealing with as far as I know.
>
> "What we are doing is we're drilling a hole in the ground which is
> exactly analogous to drilling a water well. If you came on the site
> while the work was in progress, you could not tell that it was not
> going to be a water well. When the hole is completed, we lower a
> probe into the hole to test for the presence of uranium and then
> the hole is filled and abandoned and the site is reclaimed."
>
> The groups filing suit say the analysis failed to consider the
> controversy attending uranium development, the significance of its
> proximity to the Grand Canyon, and the overall cumulative impacts
> of four other future uranium exploration projects and the potential
> opening of Denison Corp.'s Canyon Mine — all located in the same area.
>
> Arnold said the nearest site is located about 3 miles from the park
> boundary. Ron Hochstein of Denison was out of the office until Monday.
>
> "Grand Canyon simply isn't the place for uranium development," said
> Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Our
> national treasures deserve better than the calamity of an adjacent
> industrial zone."
> The Forest Service claims it has little power to deny uranium
> development under the 1872 Mining Law. But the mining law doesn't
> go against the agency's separate obligation under NEPA to carry out
> in-depth public and environmental reviews of such proposals, the
> suit contends.
>
> "Some places should be off-limits to noise, heavy equipment
> traffic, drilling, and potential contamination from uranium
> exploration and drilling; the rim of the Grand Canyon is one of
> those places," said Dave Gowdey from Grand Canyon Trust.  "Congress
> should act now to protect the park and its surrounding public lands."
> During a Senate committee hearing Wednesday on hardrock mining,
> Tony Ferguson, director of Minerals & Geology Management for the
> U.S. Forest Service testified that analyses of its 1995 data
> indicated there are 27,000 to 39,000 abandoned mines of all types
> on Forest Service lands, of which 18,000 to 26,000 are abandoned
> hardrock mines.
>
> "Currently no single source of funding alone can completely reclaim
> all impacted sites to applicable standards," he said.
>
> The Government Accountability Office said the Forest Service does
> not have readily available information on the financial assurances
> in place for hardrock operations on its lands. Although Forest
> Service regulations do not require financial assurances for all
> operations, the Forest Service's policy is to require them.
>
> EPA administers the Superfund program, established under CERCLA, to
> address the threats that contaminated waste sites pose to human
> health and the environment. The act also requires that the parties
> statutorily responsible for pollution bear the cost of cleaning up
> contaminated sites, including abandoned hardrock mining operations.
>
> GAO said some contaminated hardrock mine sites have been listed on
> Superfund's National Priorities List — a list of seriously
> contaminated sites which are expensive to clean up, with the
> cleanup taking many years. EPA's Office of Inspector General said
> in 2004 that 63 hardrock mining sites were on the National
> Priorities List and another 93 sites had the potential to be added
> to the list.
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