The Pinyon Plain uranium mine is a decades-old, but recently activated uranium mine roughly 10 miles from the Grand Canyon National Park.  … The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has said that the rock layer between the Uranium deposits and the aquifer beneath is impermeable, so the risk of water contamination from the mine is unlikely. The surety that contaminated water will not enter the groundwater is not universal. A 2024 study, looking at decades of data, has come to an alternate conclusion—that there is little evidence that the Pinyon Plain Mine will not contaminate groundwater. The risk that the uranium mine will pollute the springs in the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River—a waterway relied on by 40 million people—is too great.