particularly our witnesses who some of them had to go to considerable lengths to be here with us and we're very appreciative of your presence and look forward to your testimony like the statue of liberty or the dome of the u s capitol building just just across the street from us the grand canyon is one of the most instantly recognizable icons of the world the canyon sandstone walls and jagged formations are shorthand for what makes this country that those who come before us have the foresight to save this place for us and we in turn bear the heavy responsibility of preserving this place for those who will come after us like the grand canyon itself this kind of large landscape preservation is uniquely american and and also worth however in the past several years in response to booming demand for uranium thousands of mining claims have popped up along the park's edge threatening the natural cultural resources of the park as well as watershed this is a deeply troubling to the business people who depend on the park its visitors for their lives the park and its visitors for the live for their livelihood t last year the natural resources committee notified the previous administration that the pressures placed on the canyon and its resources by exploding demand for uranium constituted an emergency unfortunately the previous administration refused to act in contrast the obama administration has announced a decision to segregate one million acres of the critical as adjacent to the park to conduct a thorough study of the appropriateness of allowing mining on these last this is a vital step i commend the president and secretary salazar for their leadership on this issue and thank them for responding to the committee's notification until we have a better understanding of the impact to do its part by devising permanent protection for the national treasure extending the work be done with the field here in the subcommittee conducted in flags at flagstaff we will continue today to build a record documenting what is at stake if you are a new mining goes forward on these lands we will hear testimony from witnesses about the risks of uranium mining to the grand canyon ecosystem to the colorado river and we will hear some here the sometimes tragic impacts of past mining participation in today's meeting would be inappropriate for a variety of reasons one independent of litigation desire to avoid repetition the fact that thanks to some part game and ship that's going on the interior department still lexy full leadership staff i am eager to allow the ministration to testify regarding the decision announced yesterday their reactions and their recommendations regarding the legislation before us a hearing that may actually be a moot issue which is legal talk for useless since the secretary salazar is actions of monday it actually takes the place of what this legislation was intending to do without ever having gone through the process of input hearings or understanding the situation secretary salazar was given a letter of questions that we thought was imperative to be answered before any kind of action took place not only was the letter ignored but there were no answers to any of those questions given before he did his unilateral action i could do an entire red button monologue of people who aren't here that should be here yes the administration should be here to answer why they did what they did and what is the rationale for doing but they're not here the member who represents this area should be here to tell her input on what she wants to do but once again she is not here in  eighty four this issue was solved by bringing the special interests together government leaders and the business who is impacted in something that was called by mo udall himself as an amazing process that was built from the bottom up in arizona not imposed on arizona from washington something that didn't happened on monday he went on to say that this was an extraordinary example of what cooperation and compromise between business and conservation groups can produce he was accurate when that took place they went on to say that yes they could and that they that this decision by informed wilderness and non wilderness decisions could be extended in delayed by years but it would i would unlikely to result in any new da a becoming available now they produced a compromise back there many members of congress still were part that are here today we're part of that process and they will say the same thing that the compromise worked back then i'm assuming we're going to hear others today that say that will tell us that the conditions have changed since one thousand nine hundred three and eighty four they're wrong there are some that will say that water conditions have changed they will be wrong there was some of that say that energy mans have changed and those people are spot on accurate this bill is having a hearing if this issue was to go through the process in regular order the way it was intended to do we would have a hearing here and in the senate there would be votes here and in the senate and that if you did that process you might be able to wrap replicate what former congressman you doll was able to do in the one nine hundred eighty s but we didn't do that because the secretary of interior unilaterally and arbitrarily made a multi year decision for a moratorium without input without science and obviously without understanding he did also not take away the takings issue from these people who are involved because he didn't necessarily take it they just put on hold any kind of development of new areas and kill the cost can possibly run out the time so those businesses will have no opportunity to become involved again it is interestingly south the state legislature of arizona passed a resolution that condemned the action the secretary of interior took on monday condemning this bill the county where where this will be resident passed a resolution condemning this bill and this particular action of this interior secretary when aristotle started writing about government penchant for always trying to come up with lists and giving names to those lists he said the only difference between good and bad government was the added to the person involved and then he divided them into governments of the one the few in the man and each of those he gave a name he said to the worst form of government government of the man in which there was a bad attitude was called a democracy because in a democracy power property can be taken by about of the many this didn't happen this was property that was taken by the decision of one aristotle had a name for that as well he decided that kind of government was called the secretary salazar participated on monday in making that kind of unilateral decision it was wrong if this bill should go forward it needs to have hearing it needs not what secretary  hearing on the twenty to sixty five the magna water district water reuse and ground water recharge act of two thousand nine i'm sure every american  proposed uranium mining near the grand canyon national park as you know coconino county is the second largest county in the nation a company more than eighteen thousand square miles it includes many national treasures including canyon sense that crater national monument wanted can national monument and most notably grand canyon national park our county includes thirteen percent privately with remaining land owned by the federal government five native american tribes and the state of arizona in coconino county we  ourselves on the relationship that we have with native american tribes state and federal land managers as well as our neighboring counties and communities in arizona and utah however we are very concerned when decisions are made by agencies that may affect the health and safety of our holes for your rainy and seven project sites within the district according to the national forest the primary purpose of the project is for being minerals to locate and assess quantity and from russia resource potential for uranium ore deposits within the tuesday on ranger district the location of the drill exploration site is less than two miles from a national park with coconino county according to the national forest because the eight hundred seventy two mining loss arises the taking of valuable mineral commodities from public domain land a no action alternative was not an option for the national forest therefore the decision by the national forests is based on whether mitigation measures are sufficient to reduce or eliminate environmental impact at the surface but not on whether or not to allow the exploration activity it's important to point out that two thousand mining claims have been filed in the tucson ranger district of the national forest since two thousand and three the majority of these claims are within ten miles of grand canyon national park in response to this decision on february fifth two thousand and eight the coconino county board of supervisors adopted a resolution opposing uranium development in the vicinity of the portions of the grand canyon national park and a watershed within coconino county and that decision has not been rescinded that resolution still stands coconino county has witnessed various serious health and environmental impacts associated with the long term impact of uranium mining uranium development operations in coconino county have caused considerable contamination and environmental degradation touch weekly on the navajo and hopi nation awful providing public drinking water in the grand canyon national park or for mine operated within the park in one nine hundred sixty nine the remnants from the orphan line are approximately two miles northwest of the south rim village between maricopa point  decommission mind and continue to put the residents of tuba city as well as the surrounding areas that risk contaminated drinking water in national parks is a national and international treasure attracting almost one point five million visitors to northern revenue to our communities in northern arizona it's estimated the total annual impact of all grand canyon national park visitors to the north and south rim is approximately six hundred eighty seven million dollars the economy in co primarily based on revenue generated by tourism therefore the potential negative impact a tourism in northern arizona from uranium mining near the grand canyon cannot be overstated in two thousand and nine coconino county alone generated almost twelve point five million dollars in sales tax revenue a large portion of which is done generated by tourism related industries you combine this with the state sales taxes collected and distributed to counties and municipal municipalities the sales tax revenue accounts for fifty eight percent of you know counties general fund revenues while coconino county supports regional economic development opportunities we also congressman a potential impact from industries uranium mining and certain portions of county has always remained a concern county as outlined in our resolution passed on february fifth two thousand and eight the coconino county supports the permanent withdrawal of lands in coconino county from uranium development on the tuesday on ranger district and house valley while we certainly support the markedly higher thirty million researchers at the university of arizona and new mexico with funding from the arizona water sustainability program and agricultural interests have used i said the methodology is along with mines in operation at any one time over the over twenty year period during operation there will be a thousand new jobs in the community the total economic impact will range between twenty three point five and twenty nine point four apply to the others on the strip mining in the nineteen and nine in the region has demonstrated that there was no damage to the environment and that the house and safety of the miners was not compromised the number of claims industry has also created an over ninety percent of the required for nuclear plants in the united states is imported sixty four percent of that uranium is being mined from just mines that makes the supply prone to disruption foreign countries are now exerting that have been thank you very much you have been here before you're one of the usual suspects we round up to bring here but you've spoken on behalf of nato national association of counties in those situations is my i understand that the arizona legislature recently passed a concurrent resolution requesting congress to hold off on enactment of legislation that would remove any uranium development and obviously your county board  no we do not have any but i would like to point out that all the workers that are there are americans all the supervisors there are americans and in many cases the presidents of the companies are also americans and categorical exclusion for exploration to drill a hole is not the same thing as a category exclusion from mining operation which would have to happen further please when you talk about need not make sure you're exactly right what you're talking that category  and i appreciate your concern about the water coming down the colorado and i hope you are also listening to the studies the doctor was talking about how those levels are still significantly below what standards would be in there but there was one question that i'm a lifelong resident and third generation business owner in the gateway community located one mile south of grand canyon national park many of my colleagues and local entities support for we are concerned about potential uranium mining on public lands located in the national forest we do not believe that an area so close to such a natural wonder as the grand canyon should be open open to mining on public land mining on this federal property would negatively impact our area no for the impact that they would cause such as emergency services fire protection and wrote our area cannot afford more improvements on federal lands that do not pay property taxes to our local needs as president of our local school board of the impact they cause when they don't pay property taxes they have an unfair market advantage over the companies on private property this is an unfair market advantage that the federal government has created for them as a community county state and country i'm appalled almost  these companies are good corporate citizens they should offer it up and agree that this is the right thing to do there is only one grand canyon national park it is special and the area should not be desecrated when you look at a map of all of these tests that national forest service is dealing with in some form or another even a small percentage of these becoming mines could be just too much for our area to handle for free i'm also concerned that this large scale mining will impact wildlife in the area which is located in the national forest is an area known for producing world  the large acreage that could be affected would likely destroy habitat and disrupt wildlife populations and migration patterns i would think that this mining would directly contradict the arizona game and fish and rocky mountain elk foundation goals for wildlife in the area they have achieved many of these goals and paid for many improvements for the wildlife around grand canyon and should be conducted on impact wildlife if these lands are not withdrawn from new mining development there it cannot handle and the area cannot handle a major influx of new residents housing is extremely limited near the grand canyon and private property taxes are already some of the highest in the state of arizona more recreation facilities are needed just for the current residents bonin power needs are already stretched and our water is limited and valued like gold to see and has done everything it can to conserve water with while i was out of the nobel peace prize in two thousand and five the race for military nuclear supremacy during the following world war two result of the rapid development of a worldwide uranium production industry the pursuit of these early military programs created environmental and health throughout the world that left a multi billion dollar cold war uranium production legacy lessons learned from have had a profound influence on modern uranium production the industry has come a long does not support the claim of increased cancer due to uranium mining it is natural for people to fear what they don't understand a common comment against uranium mining has been around homes and old uranium district has been as high as one hundred parts per million such a level is no more than what is a mid by massive rannoch course in many mountain ranges a good frame of reference for the average american concerned about your contamination is to remember that a rock containing one percent natural uranium ten thousand parts per million or what is the maximum average rate of rich a pipe can be held on a person's head for four hours and the person will receive no more radiation than they would from a medical  financial strife previous uranium mining and ten separate mines has had absolutely no detectable negative impact on tourism quite the contrary the old head frame of the or for mine that was located within the grand canyon national park was a tourist attraction a symb allowed the mine to remain under a plane until present despite an offer from energy fuels nuclear to reclaim the mine for free now there are claims of millions of tax dollars needed to clean it up when there should have been no cost to taxpayers only the industry that number of jobs and how do you balance the grand canyon and its environment and its watershed and the dependency so many communities have on that how do you balance that