Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar poked his finger in Utah's eye again. And hardly anyone noticed.
On July 20, Salazar, at the urging of the usual list of extremist environmental groups, withdrew (or locked up) almost 1 million acres from mining on the Arizona Strip — the area north of the Colorado River and south of the Utah state line. The goal was to shut down uranium exploration and mining that was just beginning to start again after a 15-year absence. In this all too familiar scenario, the area will be withdrawn for two years while the federal government studies the issue to determine whether the area should be closed for another 20 years.
Currently, the United States imports more than 90 percent of the uranium used in our 104 nuclear power plants. These plants provide clean-air electricity for one in five homes and businesses in the country. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arizona Strip and areas south of the Colorado River contain more than 40 percent of the nation's richest uranium. In fact, the uranium in northern Arizona has an energy equivalence of 13.3 billion barrels of crude oil — an amount equal to all of the recoverable oil in Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America. One of the mines on the Arizona Strip, the Pigeon Mine, produced nearly 6 million pounds of uranium, enough to provide electricity for a city the size of Phoenix for 20 years.
The uranium companies had planned to mine up to six mines per year with another six being reclaimed over roughly a 20-year period. That translates into about 1,000 direct and indirect jobs and an infusion of $1.3 billion annually into the economies of Mohave and Coconino counties in Arizona and Washington, Kane and San Juan counties in Utah.
The mines' impact to the environment is hardly noticeable. They are underground mines, averaging less than 20 acres per site, and have a life span of only seven years. They are indistinguishable from the surrounding lands.
So now another government study begins duplicating studies done in the past. We hope their objective is to use good science and not to let the extremists use the Grand Canyon as a foil for their agenda.
Our country needs this uranium to fuel our nuclear power plants and our region with well-paying jobs and revenue.
Alan D. Gardner, James J. Eardley and Dennis Drake are members of the Washington County Commission.