President Joe Biden will create a new national monument in Arizona on Tuesday that will protect the sacred ancestral sites of Native Americans around the Grand Canyon but block extensive uranium mining.
The new monument, named Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, will preserve nearly 1 million hectares of public land around the canyon. It is the fifth monument Biden has named since becoming president, using his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
The name means ‘where indigenous peoples roam’ in the Havasupai language and ‘our ancestral footprints’ in the Hopi language.
As tribal chiefs and environmentalists pushed for the designation, Republican lawmakers and the mining industry have resisted, citing the economic benefits of mining, adding that it is also a national security issue.
The Grand Canyon is seen during the flight of Air Force One, with President Joe Biden aboard, en route to Grand Canyon National Park Airport
The monument site comprises about 1.3% of the country’s known uranium reserves. Uranium is used to power commercial nuclear reactors that produce electricity and to produce isotopes used for medical, industrial, and defense purposes.
Officials say there are significant resources in other parts of the country that will remain accessible.
And existing mining claims in the area will not be affected by this designation, the White House said.
“Mining is off limits to future development in that area. What the monument does recognize are existing rights that were previously established,” said Biden’s national climate adviser Ali Zaidi.
In 2012, over concerns about contamination of the water supply, the Department of the Interior issued a 20-year moratorium on filing new mining claims around Grand Canyon National Park.
With the new monument designation, that ban becomes permanent.
Ranchers also expressed concern that the designation could affect grazing land and impose restrictions on the use of their property.
White House officials said existing uses of the land, including grazing and ranching, will remain as they are today. No private land will be affected by the memorial, they said.
The new monument will preserve nearly 1 million acres of public land around Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River Basin
The new monument is called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, which means ‘where indigenous peoples roam’ in the Havasupai language and ‘our ancestral footprints’ in the Hopi language
Biden arrived in Arizona Monday night. He will speak Tuesday in an area between the Pinyon Plain Mine, which is under development and has not yet opened, and Red Butte, a place culturally important to the Havasupai and Hopi tribes.
The memorial is a reminder of a “new era” in which tribal cooperation and stewardship is valued, said US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary.
“It will help Indigenous people continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting and gathering of plants, medicines and other materials, including materials found nowhere else on Earth,” Haaland said.
“It will protect objects of historical and scientific importance for the benefit of tribes, the public and future generations.”
Native Americans are also a crucial political ally of Biden. They helped Biden win Arizona in the 2020 contest and will be just as important in next year’s election.
In 2017, Democratic President Barack Obama withdrew from a full landmark designation. The idea was met with hostility from Arizona’s Republican governor and two senators. Dan-Gov. Doug Ducey threatened legal action, saying Arizona already has enough national monuments.
Opponents of the monument’s creation have argued that it will not help combat an ongoing drought and could prevent forest thinning and deter hunters from controlling wildlife populations. Ranchers in Utah, near the Arizona border, say the landmark designation would deprive them of private property.
The landscape of Arizona’s political delegation has changed significantly since then. Gov. Katie Hobbs, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, are all on board. Hobbs, a Democrat, has openly urged Biden to issue an nomination. In a letter to Biden in May, Hobbs claimed she heard from people across the political spectrum, including sports groups and outdoor groups, in support of a monument.
Mining companies and the areas that would benefit from their activities remain strongly opposed.
Buster Johnson, a Mohave County supervisor, said the monument proposal feels exclusively politically driven and that another hearing on the matter should have taken place.
He sees no point in not tapping uranium and making the country less dependent on Russia. Russia and former Soviet republics now supply nearly half of all US nuclear fuel.
“We need uranium for the security of our country,” Johnson said. “We’re out of the game.”
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., upon arrival at Grand Canyon National Park Airport
There are no uranium mines operating in Arizona, although the Pinyon Plain Mine just south of Grand Canyon National Park has been under development for years. Other claims are within grace.
The federal government has said nearly a dozen mines in the area that have been withdrawn from new mining claims may still be open even with the monument designation because their claims were established before 2012.
After Arizona, Biden will continue to Albuquerque on Wednesday, where he will talk about how the fight against climate change has created new jobs.
He will visit Salt Lake City on Thursday to celebrate the first anniversary of the PACT law, which provides new benefits to veterans who were exposed to toxic substances. He will also hold a re-election fundraiser in each city.