Author(s)

Jane Danowitz

Author(s) Description

Director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. public lands program

The theme of this year's National Park Week, April 16-24, "Healthy Parks, Healthy People," frames the annual opportunity for lawmakers to invoke the name of President Theodore Roosevelt and issue proclamations championing what filmmaker Ken Burns has branded as "America's Best Idea."
The message seems particularly apt this year, as President Obama prepares to render a decision that will determine the future well-being of a crown jewel of America's parks, the Grand Canyon. At issue is whether to extend the current moratorium on new mining claims around the park or allow what the administration admits will be expanded uranium mining at the doorstep of this national icon.

The mining industry has coveted the Grand Canyon for a long time. Fortunately for the public, some of our most visionary presidents protected the landmark. Fearing development from mining and other industrial interests, in 1908 Roosevelt used his authority under the Antiquities Act to protect what he called "one of the great sights which every American ... should see."

Roughly a decade later, Woodrow Wilson rebuffed efforts by mining companies, signing a law that established the Grand Canyon as a national park. John F. Kennedy, at the urging of his legendary Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall - after whom the Department of the Interior headquarters is named - struck a deal with a mining company to halt construction of a massive hotel on its claimed land near the canyon's South Rim.

But the industry has not been deterred. A recent analysis of federal data by the Pew Environment Group found that since 2004, more than 8,000 claims for uranium and other hardrock minerals have been staked in public land around the park - representing a 2,000 percent increase. Yet the Grand Canyon is not the only natural landmark at risk from new mining claims. National parks like Yosemite, Arches, Joshua Tree and Mount Rushmore National Memorial are threatened by a deluge of new mining claims staked within miles of their boundaries.

This rush to dig around national parks, monuments and other special places stems from the 1872 Mining Law, a frontier-era statute, which allows anyone "free and open access" to nearly 350 million acres of public land. The law includes the ability to take what is now more than $1 billion annually in precious metals from federal holdings without paying a royalty to U.S. taxpayers, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

While members of Congress in both parties have called for modernization of this antiquated measure, reform has never crossed the finish line. So in 2009, with uranium claims proliferating at the Grand Canyon's door - and downstream metropolitan water districts of Las Vegas and Los Angeles raising concerns - the Obama administration's Interior Department did the right thing: It issued a two-year claimstaking moratorium on about one million acres of public lands surrounding the park.

Today, however, the prognosis for what the administration will do next remains uncertain. In February, the White House appeared to back away from its original position on the moratorium by failing to endorse a long-term continuation of the order. Instead of supporting the initial proposal, the administration presented it as one of four options. The other three alternatives would allow new claimstaking to resume on all or some portion of the federal holdings around the Grand Canyon that are currently off-limits.

Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the president has until July to deliver his final recommendation on whether to extend that ban for the next 20 years or to open part or all of the area to new uranium and other metal mining. And American businesses wouldn't necessarily even benefit. Several foreign-owned companies, including one whose majority shareholder is a Russian state-owned entity, have planted their flags at the edge of the canyon and now hold multiple claims.

As we celebrate our national parks, President Obama has a unique opportunity to add his name to the list of champions who understood that the heart of a vigorous and healthy America was a robust system of parks, forests and other public lands. For the longevity and well-being of the Grand Canyon, permanently ending the rush to mine nearby uranium is just what the doctor ordered.