We Saw This Coming: Restarting Utah’s Toxic Uranium Industry Is Not the Future We Need
Utah faces renewed pressure to open public lands to mining, including uranium.
Utah’s public lands are once again at the center of a fight over who gets to decide what these landscapes are worth, and what risks communities should bear. In July 2026, the federal government dramatically reduced the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, removing nearly 3 million acres from monument protection and opening those lands to mineral leasing and mining under applicable laws. For Utah, this is more than a debate about public lands: it is a continuation of a decades-old story of uranium mining, radioactive waste, and communities living with the consequences.
The Background
On July 13, 2026, President Trump issued proclamations reducing Bears Ears National Monument from approximately 1.36 million acres to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante from approximately 1.87 million acres to about 182,000 acres. The lands removed from the monuments are slated to become available for mineral and geothermal leasing and, where applicable, mining claims and we are already seeing mining claims being filed for uranium and lithium. The Grand Staircase-Escalante proclamation explicitly identifies uranium among the critical minerals present in the region.
That matters because southeastern Utah already has a long and painful history with uranium. During the uranium boom of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the federal government encouraged prospecting across the Colorado Plateau, offering guaranteed prices, bonuses, and other incentives to expand domestic uranium production. By 1962, Utah had produced approximately 9 million tons of uranium ore.
Today, Utah remains at the center of the uranium industry. The White Mesa Mill near Blanding is the only operating conventional uranium mill in the United States, processing uranium ore into uranium concentrate and serving as a major part of the nuclear fuel chain. The mill was originally licensed in 1980, and Utah assumed primary regulatory oversight of uranium mills in 2004. The mill is also a center of concern for residents living nearby, including the Ute Mountain Ute White Mesa Community. Opening additional lands to uranium mining risks expanding this legacy rather than learning from it.
Environmental and Health Impacts
- Radioactive contamination does not end when the mine closes. Uranium mining and milling can generate radioactive waste, contaminated rock and tailings, and can create pathways for radionuclides and other contaminants to reach air, soil, and water. These risks are especially concerning in southeastern Utah, where communities, wildlife habitat, cultural sites, and watersheds are closely connected.
- The health burden of uranium development has never been evenly distributed. Uranium workers and communities in the Four Corners region have experienced decades of exposure associated with mining and milling, while Tribal communities have often lived closest to mines, mills, waste sites, and transportation routes. Expanding uranium extraction without addressing this history risks placing another generation of health and environmental burdens on communities that have already carried them.
- Bears Ears is a cultural landscape, not simply a mineral reserve. The monument contains places of profound cultural, spiritual, archaeological, and ecological importance to Indigenous peoples. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and other Tribal nations have repeatedly raised concerns about threats to sacred places, water, air, and community health from uranium development near Bears Ears.
- The White Mesa community is already living with these risks. The White Mesa Ute Community is only a few miles from the White Mesa Mill, and community members have spent years organizing to protect their water, air, land, health, culture, and sacred sites. The community’s annual spiritual walk is a powerful reminder that the impacts of Utah’s uranium industry are not merely historical, they are ongoing.
HEAL Utah Solutions
- Protect public lands from renewed uranium expansion. HEAL Utah supports keeping culturally and environmentally significant lands protected from mining and other extractive activities that threaten public health, water, wildlife, and sacred sites. We are working with community members, Tribal advocates, conservation organizations, and allies to push back against policies that sacrifice long-term protection for short-term extraction.
- Listen to communities most affected by uranium development. Decisions about mining and radioactive materials must include meaningful participation from the people who live closest to these facilities and landscapes. Tribal nations, rural residents, workers, emergency responders, and local communities deserve transparency, a meaningful voice in permitting decisions, and strong protections for their health and water.
- Learn from Utah’s uranium history instead of repeating it. Utah should not expand the uranium fuel chain without honestly confronting the environmental and health consequences of past mining and milling. HEAL Utah is advocating for stronger oversight of uranium mines and mills, rigorous environmental review, long-term monitoring, adequate financial assurance for cleanup, and policies that put public health and Tribal sovereignty ahead of industry expansion.
- Stand with the White Mesa Ute Community. On Saturday, October 17, 2026, the White Mesa Concerned Community and Ute Mountain Ute community will hold the 10th Annual White Mesa Ute Community Spiritual Walk and Protest against the uranium mill and uranium mining. The annual walk brings Tribal members, elders, youth, allies, and community members together to protect their health, water, land, culture, and sacred places, and to remind Utah that communities living alongside the uranium industry deserve to be heard.
Resources
- Utah Department of Environmental Quality. (2025). Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc.: White Mesa Uranium Mill.
- Utah Historical Society. (n.d.). Uranium mining in Utah. Utah History to Go.
- White Mesa Concerned Community. (2026). 10th Annual White Mesa Ute Community Spiritual Walk and Protest.
- Grand Canyon Trust. (2023). Tribal leaders speak out at White Mesa spiritual walk.
- The White House. (2026, July 13). Modifying the Bears Ears National Monument.
- The White House. (2026, July 13). Modifying the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
- Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. (n.d.). White Mesa.