A lot of people hike the Grand Canyon because of the scenery or because it’s on their bucket list. Flagstaff author Kevin Fedarko is hiking to raise awareness about environmental threats to one of the country’s most beloved national parks. He’s doing it in sections for a total of 650 miles. He’s documented the trek in this month’s National Geographic in an article titled, “Are We Losing The Grand Canyon?” Kevin Fedarko joins Arizona Public Radio’s Aaron Granillo to talk about his concerns for the canyon’s future.
Aaron Granillo: First off, how are you holding up? It sounds like it’s been a grueling adventure so far.
Kevin Fedarko: It’s been a bit of a torturous odyssey. It began last September. My partner, Pete McBride, who is a National Geographic photographer, and I have been doing this in sections. We’ll cover maybe 50 or 100 miles inside the canyon and then come back out for a rest period and go back in.
And, one of the main reasons you're doing this hike is to highlight some potential threats to the canyon, specifically human-caused threats. Can you talk about some of those?
Yea, this wasn’t really an adventure intended to give Pete and I bragging rights. It had everything to with the idea that moving through the canyon on foot was the best way to get a sense of what the park contains. Some of the treasures and secrets that reside inside of it, and also how vulnerable and fragile those treasures are to threats. It turns out there’s not just one or two. There’s literally a ring of threats from every cardinal point of the compass. Some of these threats are coming from the air, primarily in the form of unregulated helicopter and air tourism. And some of them are underneath ground in terms of uranium mining. So, the crown jewel of the America’s national park system is literally under siege.
So Kevin, you’re for creating what’s known as the proposed “Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument.” It would add protection against some of these threats that you mention. But, many lawmakers and state agencies oppose the monument. They call it a federal land grab and just another level of unneeded bureaucracy. How do you respond to that?
Yea, I respond by saying that that’s wrong. It’s a wrong way to think about a piece of landscape, which needs to be protected and needs to be kept intact by mandate and by law. I think that at the state and the local level there’s a very poor record in the West of protecting landscapes, and so I really don’t accept those arguments and those rebuttals. I think the landscape of the Grand Canyon is too important to be trifled with and to be gambled with.
In the article, you write about stopping at the Canyon Mine, located just outside the park boundary near Tusayan. The mine is expected to start producing uranium as early as next year. How do you think that would impact the local ecology?
The best hydrographic studies that we have indicate that the faults in the rock in that area are sending water directly toward the rim of the Grand Canyon. And included in that drainage is Havasu Canyon and the reservation of the Havasupai Tribe. These are people who stand to lose the most if there is an accident, if there is a spill, if there is a leak. Once uranium seeps into the aquifer at that point, it’s essentially uncorrectable. So, I think it’s necessary to kind of frame these sorts of questions in terms of larger issues. In this case, the connectivity of the environment itself and the potential impact that this could have inside the canyon even though the mine itself is on the periphery of the park.
Kevin Fedarko will be speaking at an event Friday, September 9th at Cline Library on the NAU Campus. Find more information below:
"Grand Canyon End to End," featuring author Kevin Fedarko and two other Grand Canyon thru-hikers, Rich Rudow and Chris Atwood.
6:00—7:30 pm: Rich Rudow and Chris Atwood
Intermission
8:00-9:30 pm: Kevin Fedarko
FREE and open to the public.