National News

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-uranium21-2009jul21,0,5681114.story

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday called for a two-year "timeout" on new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres near Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona. The move reverses a decision by the George W. Bush administration to open the land flanking the park to hard-rock mining.

The Interior Department says it is placing a two-year hold on leasing of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land -- mostly on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and much of it within miles of the park -- while it studies the environmental effects of hard-rock exploration and mining.The department could extend the mining ban for up to 20 years.
Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who co-sponsored legislation that would permanently prohibit uranium mining on federal land around the Grand Canyon, said: "This is a treasure that we cannot risk contaminating."

The Grand Canyon is so widely known it’s not worth the contamination that mining could cause. Studying the environmental impacts before any mining or hard-rock exploration takes place, I think is a wise thing to do. It would be a better idea to make a decision on the extended amount time for the mining ban, after seeing what possible results of the environmental effects could be.