Interior halts uranium mining at Grand Canyon

[IDemo]

Salazar bars new claims on 1 million acres for environmental impact study

Associated Press
updated 1 hour, 15 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce Monday that his department is temporarily barring the filing of new uranium mining claims on about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon, an Obama administration official said.

The land is being "segregated" for two years so that the department can study whether it should be permanently withdrawn from mining activity, said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The announcement comes ahead of Tuesday's congressional hearing on a bill to set aside more than 1 million acres of federal lands north and south of the canyon. The bill's sponsor, Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and environmental groups had been looking to Salazar for temporary protections at the Grand Canyon while the legislation is pending.

The Interior Department under President George W. Bush was unresponsive to efforts to ban new uranium mining claims. The House Natural Resources Committee invoked a little-used rule to stop any new claims for up to three years, but Interior officials refused to recognize the action and continued to authorize additional mining claims.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32004574/ns/us_news-environment/

[babylonsister]

1. Sounds like great news to me. nt

[ThomWV]

2. Shouldn't be a problem - there's plenty of uranium to be had elsewhere

Its not like oil where there's any chance of us running out any time soon.