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RENO (MINEWEB) - The latest battle between the GOP leadership of the House NaturalResources Committee and the Obama Administration heated upWednesday as committee chairman Doc Hastings and subcommitteechairman Rob Bishop said federal agencies "grossly overestimated"the impacts of uranium mining to justify a 20-year ban on newuranium development on one million acres in northern Arizona. Internal emails obtained by the House Natural Resources Committeereveal National Park Service scientists discussing how thepotential environmental impacts were "grossly overestimated" in theObama Administration's Draft Environmental Impact Statement for theproposed withdrawal of lands near the Grand Canyon National Parksfrom uranium mining and exploration. In a March 7, 2011 e-mail, Larry Martin, a National Park Servicehydrogeologist with the Water Resources Division, wrote, "The DEISgoes to great lengths in an attempt to establish impacts to waterresources from uranium mining. It fails to do so, but insteadcreates enough confusion and obfuscation of hydrogeologicalprinciples to create the illusion that there could be adverseimpacts if uranium mining occurred." Bill Jackson of the NPS Water Resources Division wrote in anothere-mail, "This is obviously a touchy case where the hard sciencedoesn't strongly support a policy position. " Jackson goes on tostate that Martin's immediate supervisor, Gary Rosenlieb, andJackson "think Larry basically has it right, and that theinformation in both the USGS report and the DEIS support hisgeneralized conclusion." "There exists no information we could find that would contradicthis conclusion, not any hypotheses suggested as to howcontamination of park waters might physically occur" from uraniummining, Jackson stressed. Earlier this year, the Department of Interior withdrew one millionacres in northern Arizona from new uranium mining claims. At thetime, the DOI said, that without the withdrawal, there could be 30uranium mines near the Grand Canyon National Park in the next 20years. The withdrawal does not prohibit previously approved uraniummining and new uranium projects that could be approved on claimsand sites with valid existing rights. The National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institutehave sued federal agencies in U.S. federal court in Arizona to tryto rescind the withdrawal. In a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Wednesday, ResourcesCommittee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington, and Rob BishopR-Utah, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest andPublic Lands, requested all documents, including emails, notes,briefing papers, and memoranda concerning comments on the draft andfinal EIS and/or Record of Decision for the Northern ArizonaProposed Withdrawal created between Jan. 1, 2009 and the present.These documents include communications involving NPS, Bureau ofLand Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Indian Affairs andGeological Survey concerning the proposed withdrawal. The congressmen set a June 11 th deadline for the federal agencies to submit the documents andcorrespondence to the Natural Resources Committee. "These emails raise serious concerns about whether the ObamaAdministration's decision to block uranium production in Arizonawas based on politics rather than sound science," said Hastings. "Developing uranium in the United States will create high-payingjobs, boost the economy, lower our dependence on foreign countries,and support clean American energy," he stressed. TheAdministration's unilateral action to block uranium development onthis land threatens America's energy security and ignores numerousstudies showing that it can be done safely in an environmentallyconscious manner." SUBSCRIBE to Mineweb.com's free daily newsletter now. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Gas Outlet Casing , China Shroud Ring for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Shroud Ring.
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