KINGMAN, Ariz. (CN) — Republicans in Arizona staunchly oppose Joe Biden’s designation of more than 1.1 million acres of land around the Grand Canyon as a new national monument — a move the 46th U.S. president made official Tuesday morning.
Fifteen Arizona lawmakers, all Republicans, gathered Monday evening in the Route 66 town of Kingman, Arizona, to oppose what they call a “bureaucratic land grab.” The group was made up of the state House and Senate Natural Resource, Energy and Water committees as well as the state House Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs committee. They claimed to want to give residents of Mohave County another opportunity to voice their concerns about the designation.
“Our land is sacred to all the residents that live and thrive in Arizona,” Lake Havasu City Councilmember Nancy Campbell told the special joint committee. “We the people do not want the federal government interfering with our land.”
Arizona Democrats declined to attend the special joint committee hearing, accusing the Republicans of “distracting” from Biden’s environmental efforts and waiting until the last minute to plan a hearing.
"This last-minute special meeting calls for public testimony, but the community most directly impacted by this designation has already spoken," state Representative Stahl Hamilton said in a press release. "Efforts to establish this area as a national monument are spearheaded by a large group of Indigenous tribes seeking to have their land and their resources protected from harmful mining projects, our commitment is to support them."
The Biden administration confirmed Monday that the president will give Arizona its 19th National Monument — the most of any state. He will officially designate via executive order the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument Tuesday morning from the Red Butte Airfield just 17 miles south of the canyon, protecting land in both Coconino and Mohave Counties from any future uranium mining.
Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam” for the Havasupai Tribe and I’tah Kukveni means “our footprints” for the Hopi Tribe, according to Grand Canyon Trust, a nonprofit group that lobbied on behalf of the monument for years. It advocates for the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition, made up of 12 tribes that live near the canyon and want to see it preserved from uranium mining they say could contaminate Colorado River drinking water for thousands of Indigenous people.
There were no representatives of any of the 12 tribes or the Grand Canyon Trust present at the meeting.
However, tribes have pointed to decades of poisoning endured by the Navajo Nation after the U.S. government abandoned hundreds of uranium mines on Navajo land. Aside from potential radiation poisoning and associated health defects, the tribes look to preserve sacred, cultural and archaeological sites significant to Indigenous history.
Travis Lingenfelter, a supervisor of Mohave County, on which a large portion of the monument will fall, challenged those assertions.
“We would take exception to the claim that 445,000 acres is all one big cultural site,” he said.
He, along with Republicans on the committee, also dismissed the idea that uranium mining can contaminate drinking water.
“That was in the 40s and 50s,” he said about mines left on Navajo land. “That’s not 2023.”
He cited a U.S. Geological Survey report from 2021 that found uranium at “less than the maximum contaminant level” in 95% of sites surveyed in the Grand Canyon region from 1981 to 2020.
Members of the committee characterized Biden’s move not as one of environmental preservation but instead as an abuse of power, continuing what state Representative Gail Griffin of Tucson called “the war on the West.”
Griffin held up a map of federal lands, lamenting the fact that private property makes up only 13% of total land in Arizona, while most land is either federal or tribal. She and others, like State Representative Alexander Kolodin of Scottsdale, complained that the creation of the monument will further reduce private land in Arizona, even though the plan as presented by the Grand Canyon Trust and the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition specifies that only federal land will be used.
The proposed map includes numerous areas of state and private land cut out of the monument.
U.S. Representative Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona’s ninth congressional district, opposed the proposal and complained of “devastating effects” on Mohave County, most notably loss of economic opportunity for rural towns he said will become further isolated by the creation of the monument.
“The Biden Administration will stop at nothing to inject Joe Biden’s radical eco-agenda into every aspect of American life,” he said in a statement read at the meeting by his district director Penny Pew.
The Obama Administration in 2012 issued a 20-year moratorium on new uranium mining on the land soon to be designated. The monument will effectively make the moratorium permanent.
Mohave County Supervisor Hildy Angius asked why the feds didn't spend the next nine years further studying the environmental impacts of uranium mining in the area before rushing to a decision that may reduce the land’s usefulness for other important industries like cattle grazing.
“They’re making decisions on things they know nothing about,” Angius said.
Lingenfelter said Mohave County was “ignored” in the decision. A public meeting in Flagstaff last month was the first opportunity county officials were given to comment, he said.
The committee took public comment from local officials and county residents for nearly three hours Monday night. The vast majority spoke out against the monument.
Follow @JournalistJoeAZ
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
