The trucking of uranium ore began unexpectedly from the Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon — traveling through Arizona and the Navajo Nation, en route to a processing mill in Utah on — on Tuesday.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says doing so without providing advance notice to local, federal and tribal stakeholders is “unacceptable,” in a statement she released earlier Wednesday.
She stated that the mine’s owner, Energy Fuels, failed to provide notice or an emergency plan to local and tribal communities along the 300-mile haul route, which includes Coconino County and the Navajo Nation.
Coconino County Supervisor Patrice Horstman told Mayes, according to her statement, that the county and other stakeholders asked Energy Fuels to share its emergency plan on several occasions, but the company still hadn’t released it as of Tuesday.
Mayes shared that her office is also “researching our options.”
A spokesperson for Energy Fuels told KJZZ News that it isn’t legally required to provide any notice, nor did it agree to do so — despite the county and neighboring tribes saying the company had made that promise.
Although the Navajo Nation Council passed a ban on the transport of uranium on the reservation in 2012. Energy Fuels has the right to haul the low-level radioactive material on highways that cut through their land, because the Navajo government lacks jurisdiction to enforce that law.
Despite that, Mayes is reaffirming the tribes’ sovereignty, saying their governments “have the right to protect the health and safety of their people.”
Later Wednesday, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren issued an executive order, demanding that an agreement be reached between them and Energy Fuels prior to any future hauling.
This decision followed after the Navajo Nation reported that two semi-trucks carrying an estimated 50 tons of uranium ore traveled along U.S. 89 and 160 on Tuesday to the White Mesa Mill, which is also owned by Energy Fuels, in southeastern Utah.
Navajo Nation Chief of Police Ron Silversmith says in a statement that officers encountered the contracted trucks Wednesday morning upon their return from Utah to the Pinyon Plain Mine. Their trailers were empty, prompting Silversmith to suggest that they’re preparing to fill another load.
