Follow the Water

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument

The 45th president of the United States Department of the Interior has just short listed the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument for decommissioning.  It is on the list of natural treasures under review. Removing it from National Monument status would remove this region to toxic uranium mining. The uranium mining lease was actually entertained first by the State Department under the direction of Hillary Clinton, and was to be let to a consortium which included Russia.

The beauty of this land

There are so very many reasons to protest this move by our politicians , The awesome beauty is just a small fraction of those. And if your concept of what a uranium mine looks like is a shaft into the ground with all the workings hidden from view let me say you are wrong as the picture below indicates. And it does not go away when the mine is closed. Even the waste hauled out of the mine is radioactive and must be constantly washed with water to keep it cool. Water which goes into the aquifers below all western lands. It seeps through canyon walls and the sandstone and goes into the precious few rivers which cross the land.

Uranium mine in New Mexico

I want to protest this move by the despot in office currently because of the water. As I have stated in this blog platform before the next war will be over water. It is a resource we cannot live without. And while there may be alternate sources of energy there is no alternative to water. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument is in the Colorado River watershed. What happens there drains into the biggest river in the southwest.

The water from the Colorado River goes into Lake Meade, a major water recreation area, and is used by Colorado for irrigation of its crops. Phoenix has built a canal to siphon some of this precious resource to mist its sidewalks. Ultimately it goes to the Gulf of Baja. We have a treaty with the Mexican government about the amount and quality of the water it receives from us via this international river.

Colorado River as seen from the cliffs of the monument

Tailings from uranium mines retain 85% of the radioactivity of the ores which are mined. And uranium can have a half-life of 5,730 years. So it is possible, if this mine is allowed, that your strawberries will glow in the dark for millenniums. 

Take another look at the map beginning this article. The blue line at the bottom edge is the Colorado River. And canyons and streams in the monument drain into it. Those are the visible parts of the watershed. The west also has the below ground parts of the watershed. 

This is about so much more than beautiful scenery or, if you will, just more red rock. This is about the water. Please protest this action by the Department of the Interior.

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240

202-208-3100

feedback@ios.doi.gov

Why should we mess up the west? Again

Mount Taylor by Dave Arnold

I lived and went to school in Albuquerque during the 1960's when the power brokers were beginning their destruction of the west with the building of the Glen Canyon Dam. They argued very few people went there and ergo who would miss it. And the greater good was to provide energy for the area and prevent the flooding of the Colorado River and build a great recreational reservoir. The fight to stop the Glen Canyon Dam and a proposed other three dams along the Grand Canyon was spear headed by Ansel Adams and the newly formed Sierra Club. It is Ansel's images which remind us of what is buried beneath the waters.

We did not stop Lake Powell, we personally get no power from it, and the Colorado never flooded below that point because the Grand Canyon controlled it naturally. But the environmental movement did stop the other dams proposed. I have heard rumblings on the net that the dam proposals are getting active again.

This is so wrong and so is the proposed largest US Uranium mine on Mt. Taylor. Thousands of people daily in Albuquerque watch the sun set behind this 11,000 foot peak which includes sacred lands for several First Americans. However, you hear the argument that nobody cares about the back side. I have seen the backside. My sister has off roaded on the back side. And it can be argued that the west central area of the state looks at dawn from its backside.

My sister took me to the San Mateo area behind Mt. Taylor in 2011. It is an area open to mining for coal and uranium even though much of it is government land. There are also huge ranches in the area and a sparse population.  It was formed by the same volcanic activity that made Mt. Taylor and is mineral rich. And it is beautiful! That seems to get lost in this whole argument about Canada and Japan needing our uranium. I cannot post pictures of the forests on the back of Mt. Taylor but I urge everyone that can to do so. Please link in a comment to this blog.

I can however personally post my photos of the mysterious and beautiful San Mateo landscape.

Goblins by J. Binford-Bell

Red formations by J. Binford-Bell

Sandstone cliffs by J. Binford-Bell

 This area held by the BLM is used for camping, hunting, grazing of cattle and protection of wildlife in the area. And photographers. It is abused only by geologists looking for mining areas. They obviously want to open new uranium mines even though we have not cleaned up the mess from the old ones mostly closed in 1990 and we still have not a clue what to do with spent uranium fuel rods, etc. It is relatively safe hidden in the earth so let's destroy the earth and dig it up.

Stock pond by J. Binford-Bell

Vista of the valley from one of the cliff walks

Another poly-chrome cliff by J. Binford-Bell

My sister recording the beauty of the area

It was so quiet the day were were there in October. It was the New Mexico of my youth when you could hear the ants crawl if you listened. And the sky was such a vivid clean blue. Mining roads up and down through here to the proposed biggest uranium mine in the world just across the valley would ruin that. And leave a patina of dust all over the beautiful rocks, choking the life out of vegetation that struggles with the arid environment.

Just because you have not been there do not let them destroy it. Or contaminate the aquifer for all the residents in the area and anywhere on the aquifer. The closed uranium mine near Milan just a few miles south is already doing that. And the uranium is not even for us.