The Best of America

Big victory for the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is one of the world’s natural wonders, from its jagged cliffs to the winding Colorado River that runs through it.

Incredibly, mining companies had staked more than 1,100 claims to mine for uranium right next door to the Grand Canyon. The consequences could have been devastating. Toxic uranium mining poses a serious threat of contamination to the park itself, and to the 25 million people who drink water from the Colorado River.

After 300,000 speak out, Obama administration puts more than 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon off-limits to new mining

Together, Grand Canyon advocates across the country mobilized 300,000 Americans to demand stronger protections for the canyon. More than 10,000 of our online activists joined us in petitioning the administration to protect the canyon. Anna Aurilio, the director of our office in Washington, D.C., released a report on the risks of mining near the canyon alongside Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Ed Pastor. The report, Grand Canyon At Risk, exposed the devastating legacy of mining near the canyon and throughout the west.  We told this story in Arizona and western states, as well as national media outlets like the Los Angeles Times and the Huffington Post.

Your action and support helped protect one of our nation’s greatest treasures.

Your activism and our advocacy are a powerful combination: the Obama Administration did the right thing.  If you’d like to join us in thanking the Obama administration, click here to sign our thank-you note.

But mining companies and their allies in Congress haven’t given up the fight — and neither can we. Several of Arizona’s own lawmakers introduced a bill that would stop the administration from protecting the Grand Canyon. We need you to get involved if we’re going to defend the canyon once and for all, and to make sure other places around the country are safeguarded from mining.

Defending the best of America, from Maine to Washington and everywhere in between

From Maine’s North Woods to Mount Rainier in Washington, our staff are working across the country to protect the places that mean so much to so many of us.

• In 2011, Maine Gov. Paul LePage pushed to open Maine’s North Woods — the largest undeveloped forest east of the Rocky Mountains, and home to spots like Mount Katahdin and Rangeley Lake — to unrestricted development. After Environment Maine members inundated their legislators with phone calls and emails, the Legislature rejected the governor’s worst proposals.

• Environment Washington’s staff have spoken to thousands of people about the opportunity to expand Mount Rainier National Park to include the threatened Carbon River Valley, one of the nation’s last inland rainforests. In June, we delivered more than 2,000 petition signatures urging Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to expand the park, and the next day both committed to support the program that would make it possible.

• Texas’ pristine Christmas Mountains, near Big Bend National Park, will stay wild despite government efforts to sell the land to a private owner. Environment Texas’s Luke Metzger helped negotiate a deal to turn over control of the mountains to the Texas State University System, which will preserve the rugged wilderness and leave them open to the public.