A Collaborative Study on the Effects of Mining by the USGS and Havasupai Tribe

Towards a perspective of interconnecting environment and relationship with nature: incorporating indigenous wisdom and stewardship to increase compassion and empathy for All life

Red Butte (Wi’i Jgwal Gwa) in Arizona, near the town of Tusayan.

As the push for nuclear power grows, an United States Geological Society scientist and I spoke about her groundbreaking partnership with the Havasupai Tribe for a study regarding uranium mining in the Grand Canyon Watershed.

Environmentalists and the Havasupai say mining at the foot of Red Butte will compromise one of the tribe’s most sacred spots called Wii’i Gdwiisa by the Havasupai. The landmark is central to tribal creation stories and also holds significance for the Hopi, Navajo and Zuni people.

The Colorado River flows through the Grand Canyon and its tributaries are vital to millions of people across the West. The Havasupai’s water comes from aquifers deep below the mine. Legal challenges aimed at stopping the Pinyon Plain Mine have been repeatedly rejected by the courts.

The sites are within miles of Indigenous and many other communities, and, the ore is transported throughout the U.S.

Wars have left a legacy of death, disease and contamination with uranium use. Yesterday, the EPA decided to clean up seven abandoned uranium mines sites in the Navajo Nation.

Uranium is used for energy, space exploration, medical, industrial, military and defense all over the world.

Life in the Grand Canyon requires us to expand our perspectives. We must listen, observe, respect, learn and work together. It is our duty to be educated, responsible citizens and pay back our gratitude for our lives. We come from the stars and return to the soils. Our bodies are organic, and include water and minerals—We are nature.

Wildlands explores a variety of topics related to health, well-being and our connection with nature, with a mission to shift paradigms, increase cooperation and reduce harm.

I am honored to share an interview with Jo Ellen Hinck, a Scientist at USGS. We discussed her study with Havasupai Tribal Council Member, Carletta Tilousi. Ms. Tilousi is busy campaigning for the Havasupi’s health and well-being for nature and All life. Wildlands will feature the Havasupai’s history and connection with the natural world next week.

May we each increase peace and prosperity through stewardship to restore soils and souls of Nations and Nature.

Please share your comments and take an opinion poll at the end of this essay.

Uranium is used for energy, electricity, space exploration, medical, industrial, military and defense all over the world.

1. Should uranium mining near the Grand Canyon be banned to protect and honor the Indigenous, the Havasupai Tribe’s health, well-being, governance and connection with nature?

2. Do you think we should mine near the water that serves millions of people?

3. Is a peaceful agreement that honors All life and serves us all possible?

Ask your friends to take the poll. Results will be shared with USGS, the Havasupai, EPA and U.S. Forest Service.

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Jo Ellen Hinck, USGS, partnered with Carletta Tilousi, Havasupai Tribe, for an eight year study to close monumental gaps related to mineral rights, risk framework, risk assessment and science. Indigenous references and first-hand knowledge were utilized to promote, include and expand voices with Western science perspectives.

Ms. Hinck educated herself and read “several books about the Havasupai, making her more humble and interested in how the end product effects their culture and wildlife.” Hinck’s context expands science to connection, gives a sense of place, a “comfort zone” that links nature and Indigenous knowledge. Her work helps to reduce harm by giving an equal voice to help heal historical barriers by establishing relationships and incorporate people that are usually excluded from the conversation and problem solving. Her advice is, “find one or two people to work with and make the effort to establish a trustworthy relationship.” The importance of how Havasupai interact with the land, the Grand Canyon, and nature in general, culminated in a ground breaking liaison to include the Havasupai Tribe that has called the Canyon home for centuries. Together, Hinck, USGS, and Tilousi, Havasupai Tribe, presented results that included Havasupai traditions, wisdom, concerns and questions regarding air, soil and water quality, preserving their ancient stewardship and partnership with life. Their many years of work culminated in a paper, “Expanded Conceptual Risk Framework for Uranium Mining in Grand Canyon Watershed—Inclusion of the Havasupai Tribe Perspective”, By Carletta Tilousi and Jo Ellen Hinck.

USGS Partners with Havasupai Tribe to Identify Potential Contaminant Exposure Pathways from Grand Canyon Uranium Mining

Growing relationships were essential for their success. To fix problems, we must learn, trust, communicate and create a world with an understanding of our interconnection. Due to the details and scope of Havasupai wisdom, it is important to document their history and creation story. To do this they created the Inhalation Pilot Project, and collected dust in Red Butte for preliminary data collection to use as their baseline which included the concerns of the Havasupai.

Hinck worked with Savannah River National Laboratory for sampling to complete the analysis. Quantification and active air particulate collection added to the passive air particles that had been collected since 2013. A baseline number associated with toxicity levels helps to establish safety and health regulations, as well as environmental impacts.

During our interview, Ms. Hinck shared, Mallery Quetawki’s work through the METAL Superfund Research Center, which focuses on uranium health effects, along with other artists, “really made me consider how we (as USGS) communicate our science to non-technical audiences.”

Over a span of eight years, several days were spent with Havasupai’s Tribal Council leaders to learn about the Havasupai’s interconnectedness with nature to incorporate their knowledge and to understand their perspective. The Havasupai also retain the document for their Tribe, which currently has a population of 755 people, the smallest recognized tribe in the United States.

Expanded Conceptual Risk Framework for Uranium Mining in Grand Canyon Watershed—Inclusion of the Havasupai Tribe Perspective

Jo Ellen Hinck, USGS, and Havasupai Tribal Council Member, Carletta Tilousi, included a Tribal Council letter of support in their presentation. Executive Orders to incorporate Indigenous knowledge were given by President Joe Biden stating, Tribal resource impacts could not be mitigated and cultural degradation may result should mining occur within sacred and traditional places of Tribal peoples.

In 2012, Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, placed a 20-year limit on mineral extraction on Federal lands in the Grand Canyon watershed to permit further study of the environmental effects of uranium mining. Pinyon Mine was “exempt” and allowed to remain open because the mine was established in the 1980’s.

U.S. Department of the Interior, 2012, Record of decision, Northern Arizona withdrawal, Mohave and Coconino Counties, Arizona was accessed on November 8, 2023.

The Hinck-Tilousi report presents “an updated conceptual risk framework for uranium mining that includes indigenous knowledge components informed by the Havasupai Tribe perspective.”

“The expansion of the framework relied on connecting to the foundations of the Havasupai ceremonial wheel—food, environment, belief system, and ceremony. The framework is applied to uranium development near Red Butte, an important gathering place for multiple federally recognized Tribes including the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni. Plants and animals important to the Havasupai for subsistence, ceremonial, and medicinal practices and how mining affects these practices are described. The final framework is presented in English and Havasupai to aid Tribal members in understanding how the framework relates to their community and to help preserve the language and historical cultural practices for future generations. New or expanded exposure pathways include inhalation, ingestion, and absorption from traditional food and medicines as well as ceremonial practices.

“The updated framework has allowed the U.S. Geological Survey to take first steps in understanding resources important to the Havasupai and to build relationships to improve co-production in our research. Ideally, the framework and other research can be used, along with indigenous knowledge, in Federal research and decision making for mining in the Grand Canyon region.”

Ms. Hinck noted that Ben Siebers and Katie Walton-Day, U.S. Geological Survey, were instrumental with their helpful discussions. Applying the updated framework, presented in this document, could help guide future studies by DOI agencies.

The conceptual risk framework developed for this report was based on standard risk analysis approaches (for example, Hinck and others, 2014; Park and others, 2020) but modified to include indigenous knowledge of Tribal members, components and pathways. Information was also obtained from other published sources.

The Havasupai Tribal Council approved the conceptual risk framework and granted permission to share this report (April 12, 2023; appendix 1). This report also meets guidance from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality on including indigenous knowledge in Federal research and decision making in 2022.

Expanded conceptual risk framework identifies new exposure pathways relevant to indigenous communities and includes Havasupai nomenclature to help preserve the language and historical cultural practices for future generations. The report includes the official geographic names as referenced in the U.S. Board on Geographic Names as well as the Havasupai nomenclature.

The Pinyon Plain mine (foreground) is located near Red Butte (near background) in Northern Arizona. Photograph by Blake McCord, freelance photographer.

Uranium Mining near Tribe’s Sacred Mountain

The Pinyon Plain Mine is within the Kaibab National Forest about 5 kilometers from Red Butte (Wi’i Jgwal Gwa), which is one of the sites related to Havasupai creation stories (fig. 3; Atencio, 1996). Red Butte is also sacred to the Hopi (Oawinpi), Navajo (Tse zhin e’ahi), and Zuni Tribes (Hedquist and Ferguson, 2010). The uranium and copper mine is owned and operated by Energy Fuels, Inc., and is in an area the Havasupai call Mat Taav Juudva, roughly translated as “sacred meeting corridor”.

Designated as a Traditional Cultural Property by the U.S. Forest Service in 2010, did not exempt Red Butte and the surrounding area from renewed mining operations at the Pinyon Plain Mine (Winters, 2016). Previously known as the Canyon Mine since at least the 1980’s (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1986), Energy Fuels, Inc., changed the name of the mine to Pinyon Plain Mine in 2020. As of December 2023, no ore was extracted since founding; future mining is possible dependent on decisions by Energy Fuels, Inc. USGS does not consider exploratory drilling to show it was a mineral deposit worth mining as “extraction”. The Mining Law of 1872 protects mining rights as long as the mine is in operation prior to newly passed laws or land protections. 

The Havasupai Tribe has spoken out against mining at the Pinyon Plain Mine through lawsuits, injunctions, and protests. They voiced concerns to the U.S. Government and the international community that uranium mining may cause death and destruction to their waters and to the existence of their life and traditional practices (U.S. Congress, 2019). In 2012, the Havasupai believed that DOI heard their voices when enacting the 20-year mining withdrawal, for two decades there would be no new uranium mines on Federal land on the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon (DOI, 2012); however, existing permitted mines, including the Pinyon Plain Mine, were grandfathered into this withdrawal. The Havasupai have continued to oppose the opening of the Pinyon Plain Mine through partnerships with nongovernmental organizations including the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Grand Canyon Trust. Federal courts have ruled against their appeals to stop mining at the Pinyon Plain Mine (United States District Court for the District of Arizona, 1990, 2015; United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1991, 2017, 2022; Winters, 2016).

Do you know the properties, history and uses of uranium?

Uranium is used to power commercial nuclear reactors that produce electricity and to produce isotopes used for medical, industrial, military and defense purposes around the world.

Uranium was used in dinnerware, ceramics, photography, geochronology, and more.

Next week, Wildlands will share the Havasupai’s history and connection of the natural world.

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Action Steps for You

Take the Poll:

Engage in your community and in your world. Share your thoughts:

Please let the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Environmental Justice and the U.S. Forest Service know whether you support or oppose Canyon Mine (renamed Pinyon Plain Mine) near the Grand Canyon.

Next week, Wildlands will feature the Havasupai’s history and connection with the natural world, and will include the same poll. Results will be shared with USGS, the Havasupai, EPA and U.S. Forest Service.