Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has convinced Energy Fuels to temporarily halt the hauling of uranium ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine, south of Grand Canyon National Park, to the White Mesa Mill near Blanding, Utah.
In a Friday statement, Hobbs says her dialogue with Energy Fuels began Tuesday night, resulting in the mining company voluntarily agreeing to “pause ore shipments through Navajo lands to give both sides an opportunity to engage in good faith negotiations.”
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren shared he had a phone conversation with Hobbs on Thursday evening, informing him about Energy Fuels’ decision to cease hauling operations for now.
This truce follows Tuesday’s unannounced transport of an estimated 50 tons of low-level radioactive uranium ore by a pair of semi-trucks. It caught the U.S. Forest Service, Coconino County and neighboring tribes off-guard.
In a statement on Wednesday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called the hauling without advanced notice “unacceptable.”
Her condemnation of the company came after Coconino County, the Navajo Nation and Havasupai Tribe alleged that Energy Fuels pledged to give two weeks’ advanced warning to stakeholders, before any hauling would begin.
It’s a promise that Energy Fuels has flat-out denied making.
The governor also instructed the state’s Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to partner with the Navajo Nation Police Department and Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety in developing an emergency response plan in the event of an accident.
Earlier Friday, Nygren and first lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren traveled to the town of Cameron, one of the first Diné communities along the 300-mile route, to support a protest against the Canadian-based mining company.
“This is our community, and we need to take care of it,” said Navajo Nation Council Delegate Casey Allen Johnson. “Like I said, like you heard, sovereignty. We should walk, put a barrier up over there.”
He shared the news at Friday morning’s demonstration along U.S. 89.
“I just got a text message saying that Governor Hobbs has paused the transportation. Is that true?” Johnson asked. “They don’t have my consent. They don’t have our president’s consent. They don’t have your consent, so that’s why it’s illegal.”
The Navajo Nation Council banned the transport of uranium through its reservation by passing the Radioactive and Related Substances Equipment, Vehicles, Persons and Materials Transportation Act in 2012.
But the tribe lacks the authority to enforce that ban on highways, which gives Energy Fuels the legal right to transport the uranium ore through Navajoland.
Johnson represents the Navajo chapters of Cameron, Coalmine Canyon, Birdsprings, Tolani Lake and Leupp, all of which are near the uranium haul route.
“We’re not going to stand for this,” Johnson said. “I’m going to make sure those laws interpret what we’re saying, it’s illegal to transport uranium across [the] Navajo Nation.”
Last month, Hobbs received more than 17,000 petition signatures, mostly from Arizonans, asking her to shut down Pinyon Plain Mine. But the governor later stated that she wouldn’t close it without any reason to do so.
