Having Your Yellow Cake and Eating It Too: The Environmental and Health Impacts of Uranium Mining on the Colorado Plateau

Abstract

On May 6th, 2011, the Ninth Circuit upheld the Arizona District Court’s ruling in Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Salazar. The court determined that pursuant to current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was not required to review and approve a new plan of operations to allow mining activities at a uranium mine on the Colorado Plateau that had been dormant for almost twenty years. The court held that reopening the mine and acquiring the necessary permits did not constitute a major action, therefore not requiring a new plan of operations to be submitted to the BLM for review and approval pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This article agrees with the Ninth Circuit that, under NEPA regulations, no new environmental impact statement was needed. However, this article contends that NEPA regulations requiring certain safety precautions and environmental assessments be undertaken by uranium mines prior to the commencement of mining activities must be rewritten to further protect the environment as well as the health of the people that call the Colorado Plateau home.