eneregy independence and safe water

Perspective for your consideration …What does it look like when it’s fixed…?
Do uranium mines belong near Grand Canyon? …Mining companies stake claims on federal land adjoining the park, while opponents say drinking water will be at risk….By Mark Clayton| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ August 19, 2008 edition …GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ. …On a ragged outcrop just a short walk from a Grand Canyon overlook where millions of visitors annually come to gawk at one of the world’s most stunning vistas sits the old Orphan uranium mine. Soil radiation levels around it are 450 times higher than normal. It’s encircled by a protective fence. …A sign warns: “Remain behind fence – environmental evaluation in progress.” In the canyon hundreds of feet below, another sign by gurgling Horn Creek instructs thirsty hikers not to drink its radioactive water. While another group notes in the mighty Colorado River, the old Orphan uranium mine’s radioactive dribble is diluted to insignificance. But what if a dozen new uranium mines leached uranium radioisotopes into this water source…?
“IT” will be fixed when warning signs such as those noted in the above article are no longer required and we can with honest safely ingest the water from the mighty Colorado River.

Is it not ludicrous on the one hand to report water in the Colorado River is 450 times higher in radioactivity than normal, while on the other we continue to allow unrestricted mining exploration on this water body serving over 25 million American citizens…? And exactly what does … dilute to insignificance … honestly mean…?

We all know everything has a price and a cost and providing safe water is most assuredly one of them. Generations earlier, Sir Issac Newton noted that … "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" … it would seem logical then to conclude that permitting unrestricted mining of uranium near a water body like the Colorado River invites contamination and pollution of that water body as accidents in mining are part and parcel to its activity coupled with the destructive nature of mining itself.

Confining our “energy” dreams to only those activities which we have been educated to believe are the only ones only promotes stagnation and limitation. John Kennedy as President invigorated a nation impelling them with a burning desire to … put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth … When he spoke those now immortal words we did not have the technology to achieve this feat. So, we collectively went out and created it, which is exactly what we can do respecting our energy dream. All it takes is our individual and collective willingness to think outside the box.

Obtaining energy independence and safe water in the Colorado River are not mutually exclusive goals. It is not a choice of one or the other, rather it is a both, and, paradigm, achievable when we make the honest intent to manifest it. We sent a man to the moon and returned him safely to earth and we can have energy independence and safe water simultaneously.