Energy Fuels Inc. will stop trucking uranium ore across the Navajo Nation to Utah, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs announced, until the company and the tribe discuss safety concerns.
She called Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren on Thursday night to report that the company had voluntarily agreed to stop its shipments to Utah through the Navajo reservation, “to give both sides an opportunity to engage in good faith negotiations.”
A spokesperson for Hobbs’ office said that the governor reached the agreement with Energy Fuels on Tuesday night. It was not immediately clear why Hobbs did not tell Nygren about the deal when it was reached, or whether she had done so before the Thursday night call described in her Friday statement.
She added that the Arizona Division of Emergency Management will work with tribal law enforcement “in developing an emergency response plan in the event of a road incident.”
Energy Fuels also did not disclose the agreement in multiple statements, including one released as late as Thursday afternoon.
In a Friday afternoon statement, Energy Fuels confirmed its agreement with Hobbs to temporarily pause its transportation of uranium ore across the reservation. But the company also asserted that it can “legally restart transport at any time.”
“While Energy Fuels has already gone above and beyond any legal requirements,” Energy Fuels CEO Mark Chalmers said in the statement, “we are willing to voluntarily pause transport to work together to provide additional information and education to the Navajo President and learn what more can be done to alleviate any remaining reasonable concerns he may have.”
Chalmers continued: “We want to ensure those who may have concerns feel safe and understand that the loads we are transporting pose no threat to the community or the environment.”
A spokesperson for Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he had no comment on Friday.
Nygren on Tuesday had sent tribal police to stop two Energy Fuels trucks carrying uranium ore from the Pinyon Plain mine near the south rim of the Grand Canyon to the White Mesa Mill in Blanding for processing. He said he had not been notified in advance that the trucks would enter the reservation on Tuesday.
Energy Fuels, a Canadian company with headquarters outside Denver, owns the Arizona mine and the Utah mill.
The company’s trucks crossed the border into Utah before tribal police reached them, Nygren said, loaded with an estimated 50 tons of uranium ore.
On Wednesday, Nygren had issued an executive order banning the transportation of radioactive material across Navajo land without the consent of the tribe. The executive order will be in effect for the next six months.
The company had said Thursday that it was “greatly encouraged” that Nygren’s executive order “appears to invite a constructive dialogue,” without disclosing the agreement reached with the governor.
Nygren had argued Energy Fuels was “smuggling [an] illegal substance and illegal material through the Navajo Nation that is completely banned by the Navajo Nation government.”
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Wednesday also had condemned Tuesday’s uranium trucking.
“Hauling radioactive materials through rural Arizona, including across the Navajo Nation, without providing notice or transparency,” Mayes said, “and without providing an emergency plan is unacceptable.”
The Navajo Nation banned uranium transport across the reservation in 2012, but a legal loophole exempted state and federal highways U.S. 89 and U.S. 160. Nygren asked President Joe Biden in March to stop uranium transport on those roads and approved a resolution in April repeating the request.
Even without action from Biden, Energy Fuels’ failure to seek approval from the Navajo Nation for the transportation of radioactive materials across its land disregards the Nation’s governmental authority and sovereignty, Nygren asserts. The tribe still suffers from the harmful impacts of historical uranium mining, noted Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch, adding that anyone bringing the ore onto the reservation “should undertake that activity with respect and sensitivity to the psychological impact to our people.”
Energy Fuels said it had shared its safety plan at a July 19 briefing attended by federal, state, county and tribal officials, and it maintains that the transportation of uranium ore is safe.
“In the unlikely event of an incident on the highway, the contents will not explode, ignite or leak toxic chemicals,” the company reported in its Friday statement. “It is solid rock, and only has low levels of radioactivity.