A Havasupai content creator is speaking out against mining operations near the Grand Canyon.
Cree Watahomigie, also known as PlanetCree, made a TikTok in early August about her concerns with mining operations and its impacts on her community, the land and water.
Since then, her TikTok video has been shared more than 13,000 times with 200,000 views. Cree was surprised to learn that many people weren't aware of mining operations so close to the Grand Canyon.
"You would think a place like the Grand Canyon wouldn't have any sort of dangers like that," she told ABC15. "People seem to really care whether it was because they cared for my tribe, because they want to visit someday, or they want to visit Havasupai someday, or just to care."
The Pinyon Plain Mine is extracting uranium and shipping it via trucks to Utah, passing through indigenous communities in northern Arizona.
The content creator fears that work on the mine will pollute the Grand Canyon and Havasupai Reservation water.
Learn more about the mining operations and the concerns of some people from the area about in the video player above.
The new mining at Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon's South Rim entrance is happening within the boundaries of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukv National Monument which was designated in August of last year by President Joe Biden. The work was allowed to move forward since Energy Fuels Inc. had valid existing rights.
The Pinyon Plain Mine, formerly known as the Canyon Mine, was permitted in 1984. Because it retained existing rights, the mine effectively became grandfathered into legal operation despite a 20-year moratorium placed on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region by the Obama administration in 2012.
Low impact with zero risk to groundwater is how Energy Fuels spokesman Curtis Moore described the project.
According to the Associated Press, no other sites are actively mining uranium in Arizona.
