Under the cover of chaos and distraction, the Trump Administration begins to destroy and contaminate our National Monuments in Utah today. This is an assault not only on the land and water, but also on indigenous people’s rights along with their sacred sites.
Despite protests from conservationists, local tribe leaders, Democratic lawmakers and even the United Nations' expert on Indigenous rights, at 6 a.m. on Friday the Trump administration will allow citizens and companies to start staking claims on sections of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah so the new stakeholders can conduct hard rock mining on the formerly protected lands.
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In spite of widespread opposition, the Trump administration's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to move forward with allowing stakeholders to claim plots of land on Friday, and has determined the process will be governed by the General Mining Law of 1872, which covers mining for metals such as copper, gold, silver and uranium (but not coal and petroleum).
"The process for staking a claim remains much as it did during the Gold Rush," Reuters reported:
A prospector hammers four poles into the ground corresponding to the four points of a parcel that can be as big as 20 acres, and attaches a written description of the claim onto one of them. A prospector then has 30 days to record the claim at the local BLM office ...
The costs of claiming are low: a $212 filing fee, and an annual maintenance fee of $150. Unlike laws governing petroleum extraction, there are no environmental guidelines specific to hard rock mining, and no requirement to pay a royalty. The claims provide prospectors mineral rights but not ownership of the land.
Reuters:U.S.-based uranium mining companies Energy Fuels (UUUU.A) and Ur-Energy (URG.A) - both of which are pressing the White House for limits on uranium imports - also said they were not currently planning to run out into the Utah wilderness with poles to stake claims.
Energy Fuels wrote a letter in May asking the administration to adjust the monument’s boundaries to accommodate its existing operations and said there were “many other known uranium and vanadium deposits located within the [original boundaries] that could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future.”
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When Trump announced his decision to shrink the monuments in December, he billed it as a victory for local governments against what he called abusive federal overreach on western lands.
“Families and communities of Utah know and love this land the best, and you know the best how to take care of your land and how to conserve this land,” he said at the time.
The administration has denied that it intended to boost drilling or mining in the region, a policy it has pursued on other federally protected lands.
What a crying shame. Resist!
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