This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Some people can't tell the Grand Canyon from a hole in the ground.
To hear the outcry from some, including two Utah congressmen, attacking a recent decision to cut off any new proposals to mine for uranium in an area around the Grand Canyon, one might think that the Obama administration had turned the entire Southwest into a Forbidden Zone.
But the decision, announced the other day by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, grandfathers four uranium mine claims that have already been approved. Experts estimate that another seven mining operations, at least, might still be carried through in the affected area under claims that are already pending before federal regulators.
All Salazar did was take the reasonable step of letting everyone know that there would be no further mining applications considered in, on or under about 1 million acres of National Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management properties around the nation's most striking natural feature. The limit is supposed to last for 20 years, though, should circumstances or administrations change, the decision could be changed, too.
Two members of Utah's congressional delegation — one typically, the other perhaps not so — objected to the decision.
Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican in a Republican district, called the move "unconscionable" and an attack on America's energy security. Rep. Jim Matheson, a Democrat running in a Republican district, criticized what he described as the top-down nature of the decision that didn't go through a process of consulting stakeholders.
And, of course, the mining industry said it was a job-killer.
But stop and think for a minute. The uranium roped off by this decision amounts to many times more hot rocks than the nation is likely to need for many years to come. Existing mines elsewhere, and in the Grand Canyon area, won't be exhausted for decades, if ever.
The jobs argument habitually raised by the extractive industries and their allies always ignores the benefits of careers in the tourism, hospitality and outdoor recreation sectors. These are jobs that only exist when our nation takes pains to preserve the natural wonders that attract people, and their money, to our region, jobs that have the potential of basically lasting forever, compared to the boom-and-bust cycle inherent in mining.
But the most important reason why the mining limits are a good idea is as big as the Grand Canyon. Because it is the Grand Canyon.