On a sunny and warm October day between storms, Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council Member Marilynn House stood before a large crowd gathered at the White Mesa Community Center for a spiritual walk to protest the effects of Energy Fuel’s nearby White Mesa Uranium mill. It’s about “getting the word out about what this mill is doing to our community and our children and the people that live here,” she said.
The spiritual walk, from the Ute Mountain Ute community of White Mesa to the entrance of the mill, has taken place for ten years to rally support and raise awareness of the issues surrounding the mill. It is not only built on sacred ground, but its tailings ponds have been known to leak and contaminate groundwater aquifers. The concern is that the contaminants will migrate into the community’s drinking water and culturally significant springs.
“Me and my family are fighting for the mill because we care for our kids, our grandkids, we care for them … They’re ruining our water, we got well water here, every time we run the water it don’t smell good,” said Thelma Whiskers, who, along with her daughter Yolanda Badback, founded White Mesa Concerned Community to push back on the mill.
The speakers — and singers — were emotional, impassioned, and their words and songs poignant and moving. More than a protest, it was a demonstration of solidarity with the White Mesa community’s cause.
This year’s turnout was substantial, and included members of the American Indian Movement from southern California and the Navajo Nation, as well as Havasupai tribal members who are grappling with the other side of the uranium fuel cycle. They have been pushing back on Energy Fuels’ Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon for years. Pinyon Plain has been trucking ore to the White Mesa Mill via accident-prone highways for the last couple of years.
⛏️ MINING MONITOR ⛏️
DISA Uranium considers establishing a headquarters — with an associated 118 jobs — in Grand Junction, Colorado, after the Colorado Economic Development Commission approves nearly $1.6 million in tax credits. The firm plans to use its patented high pressure slurry ablation method to extract uranium from historic and abandoned mine waste piles in the Four Corners Region and has signed agreements with various firms to try its technology; it is still awaiting BLM approval to use the method at a Montrose County mine. Thirty-six of the new mining claims staked in areas removed from Bears Ears National Monument were on historic mining sites with associated waste piles, leading to speculation that Disa is behind the claims. Disa did not respond to Land Desk queries concerning the matter. (Hoodline)
Dan Proctor, a self-employed exploration geologist from Pleasant Grove, Utah, stakes more than 40 new mining claims in areas President Donald Trump illegally removed from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, including several right on the boundary of the remaining monument. (Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance)
A new analysis finds that average arsenic levels in groundwater in the Pinyon Plain uranium mine’s monitoring wells near the Grand Canyon are uncharacteristically high, again raising concerns of more widespread contamination of area aquifers. (Grand Canyon Trust, Inside Climate News)
Anfield Energy says the Utah Department of Environmental Quality has sent it draft copies of its proposed radioactive materials license and groundwater discharge permits necessary to restart its Shootaring Canyon uranium mill near Ticaboo. (Mining)
👩🏽🔬 SCIENCE! 🧫
Utah Geological Survey paleontologists find a new species of dinosaur near Arches National Park in the Ironstone Bonebed, believed to represent the aftermath of a mass extinction event during the Jurassic-to-Cretaceous transition some 140 million years ago. (SFGate)
🐮 GRAZING GAZETTE 🥩
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issues a Secretarial Order to “support domestic livestock production by expanding grazing opportunities” on public lands by making vacated allotments and other lands available for grazing, expediting grazing permit renewals, reinstating inactive or suspended animal unit months, weakening regulations that “unnecessarily limit” grazing, and making it easier to kill predators that may threaten livestock. (Western Watersheds Project, Interior Department)
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sends a letter to U.S. Forest Service grazing permittees introducing its Ranchers First webpage and reaffirming the administration’s commitment to open more public lands to livestock operators, gut regulations, and to be the “most pro-rancher administration in history.” (USDA)
🛢️ FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES 📈
Navajo Transitional Energy Company signs up to export $100 million worth of coal from its Spring Creek Mine in Montana to a Malaysia firm. (US Energy Department)
⛈️ WACKY WEATHER WATCH⚡️
Archuleta County, Colorado, officials estimate last week’s flooding affected 800 structures, shut down 13 Forest Service roads, and rendered 150 miles of county roads impassible after the San Juan River rose 15 feet and sent some 44,238 cubic feet per second of water into Navajo Reservoir. (Colorado Sun)
Floodwaters in the Rio Puerco swept away and killed a woman in the San Francisco area of Socorro County, New Mexico, after heavy rains lift the waterway high above flood stage last weekend. (KKOB)
🤖 DATA CENTER DIGEST 👾
Peabody Energy considers building coal-fired generating plants at its mines in the Powder River Basin to power data centers to offset declining coal sales. (Cowboy State Daily)
Prometheus Hyperscale drops plans to build a 1,250-MW data center complex near Casper, Wyoming, amid widespread opposition to the facilities, but says it is moving forward with its $32 billion data center and power plant near Evanston. (WyoFile)
The Center for Western Priorities launches an interactive map tracking data center proposals on public lands that is currently tracking 35 cases on 24,000 acres in six states. (Center for Western Priorities)
🔋ENERGY TRANSITION 🔌
Western Colorado electric cooperatives estimate that buying power from Accelergen’s proposed 125-megawatt solar-plus-storage facility east of Cortez could save ratepayers $20 million, but the development has raised concerns over impacts to views and property values and the risk of battery fires. The project would use lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which are less susceptible to thermal runaway and fires than more conventional lithium-ion batteries. (CPR)
Boulder, Colorado-based Scout Clean Energy proposes two huge utility-scale solar-plus-storage projects on public and private land southeast of Pyramid Lake in northern Nevada. With a combined capacity of 2,000 megawatts, they would dwarf even the largest existing arrays. (Nevada Independent)
📝 COMMENTARY
Diné leaders categorically reject President Donald Trump’s proclamations shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, saying, “No sitting president has the right to disregard the voices, leadership and land-management practices of tribal sovereign nations, including the ones that comprise the Bears Ears Commission, or to sideline the meaningful consultation owed to the tribes who are inextricably tied to these ancestral lands.” (High Country News)
🌞 ANNOUNCEMENTS 😎
The Wright-Ingraham Institute begins accepting applications for its Field Workshop 2027, a three-week advanced fellowship for graduate students and early-career practitioners from any field. The workshop will be centered in the San Luis Valley and Taos Plateau in Colorado and New Mexico. (Wright-Ingraham)
The Bluff Community Foundation is accepting donations to assist flood-recovery efforts for residents of Bluff and neighboring communities that were affected by the recent storms and high water. (Bluff Community Foundation)
📸 PARTING SHOT 🎞️
