Biden dedicates new monument for Arizona tribes and 'the soul of the nation'

RED BUTTE — President Joe Biden visited a windswept sage flat at this sacred Havasupai landmark on Tuesday to proclaim it and nearly 1 million acres of federal lands as Arizona’s newest natural preserve, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

The new monument north and south of Grand Canyon National Park is meant to protect against future uranium mining claims and to honor 12 Native American tribes for whom the canyon and surroundings are a cultural and spiritual touchstone. Biden said protecting it honors them and all Americans who will enjoy the lands in the future.

“It is good for the soul of the nation,” the president told a crowd of more than 200 dignitaries, many of them members and leaders of Arizona’s diverse tribes or environmental groups who had worked decades for this day.

Biden signed the monument proclamation while flanked by the leaders of 12 tribes. It was an emotional event for many, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation’s first Native American Cabinet member. She choked up while addressing the crowd as she explained that the government will collaborate with tribes and rely on Native wisdom in the monument's land management.

“We will usher in a future that our grandchildren deserve to inherit,” Haaland said.

The president noted that the Havasupai people were forcibly removed from Grand Canyon when it was designated as a national park more than a century ago. Remembering those ancestors and honoring their struggle to regain access and to protect the land is an important responsibility, he said. Alluding to a recent wave of book bannings and attempts to stifle honest discussions of the country’s racial history, he said Americans can only heal by learning the truth.

“That’s what great nations do,” Biden said, “and we are the greatest of all nations.”

The ceremony incorporated tribal traditions throughout, starting with a Havasupai dance and welcome, and then a rendering of "The Star Spangled Banner" sung in the Diné language by Valentina Clitso, the reigning Miss Navajo Nation. Maya Tilousi-Lyttle, who is Havasupai and Hopi and a high school senior in Cave Creek, introduced the president. She said she grew up swimming at Havasupai Falls, where some of the region’s groundwater surfaces in Grand Canyon. It’s one of the resources the tribe fears could be polluted by uranium mining.

“This is our home and we are committed to protecting it,” Tilousi-Lyttle told Biden.

Her mother, Carletta Tilousi, beamed then and after the ceremony, when she shared tearful embraces with friends. “I’m elated,” she said.

Tilousi is a Havasupai leader and activist who said she has fought for this day alongside friends and family members for 30 years. She said she never believed it would happen until now.

“I’m sad that my relatives who worked on this have passed on and aren’t here,” she said. “But I know they’re here in spirit.”

Her hope for the new monument’s co-stewardship plan is that federal managers will rely on tribal knowledge of the locations of thousands of archaeological sites, as well as traditional plants such as tobacco and, in traditional Shivwits Paiute lands north of Grand Canyon, wild rice. Cattle grazing is allowed on the monument, but Tilousi said she hopes for actions to protect those resources.

Monument part of Biden's pledge to conserve lands, waters

The president touted his action as one in a series he is taking to make good on a pledge to conserve 30% of American lands and waters by 2030. He also tied it to billions of dollars in investments that his administration and Congress are putting toward clean energy and climate resiliency. Among those measures are payments to farmers to keep Colorado River water in Lake Mead, which he said is critical to the drinking water supply of 40 million Americans.

He reminded the crowd that Phoenix had just experienced a full month of high temperatures at or above 110 degrees, an example of the warming climate that he believes his agenda and climate legislation can alleviate by driving down carbon emissions.

“These are investments in our planet, our people, and our nation itself,” he said.

The president will discuss other climate resilience measures on Wednesday in New Mexico as part of a four-day Western tour that ends Thursday in Salt Lake City.

Biden delivered his remarks on Tuesday at Red Butte, a knob jutting out of the shrubland flats south of Grand Canyon and north of Williams. It’s a traditional gathering place for the Havasupai people, some of whom say elders call it “the abdomen of the Earth,” and is about 6 miles from the recent focus on anti-uranium activism at Pinyon Plain Mine. The area, which has been managed as part of the Kaibab National Forest until now, grows a mix of piñon-juniper and ponderosa pine stands, broken up by sweeps of tallgrass and sagebrush.

Places of prayer: President Biden announced new monument at Red Butte. Here's why it is sacred to tribes

The Havasupai Tribe on Tuesday released a statement celebrating the monument and noting that it represents a further restoration of tribal recognition on lands the tribe lost when federal agencies took over. The Havasupai were removed from the canyon starting in 1882 and regained a reservation surrounded by the national park 70 years later.

“Designating areas like Red Butte as a national monument will help protect them from contamination, destruction, exploitation, and the other harmful effects of mining,” said Havasupai Chairman Thomas Siyuja Jr. “The threat of contaminating our water is real and current. The pure water that flows through Supai Village is under constant attack by uranium mining. We know the threat is real, but with these protections, our suffering from the harmful effects of mining is lessened.”

That mine, operated by Energy Fuels Inc., has piled up rocks as it excavates underground, and is intended to truck ore to a mill in Utah. The company this past week said its environmental practices are “highly protective,” and that the monument strikes against the administration’s stated goal of producing carbon-free energy. While the monument would block new uranium claims, Pinyon Plain is grandfathered under federal mining law and can continue to operate.

The monument designation covers federal lands including parts of the Kaibab National Forest and rangelands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. It does not include private or state lands and will not affect livestock grazing leases or recreational access on its federal lands, administration officials said. Trout Unlimited was among those praising the move on Tuesday.

“Given the toxic history of uranium mining in this region, we commend the leadership of this Administration for enacting the wishes of millions of people hoping to preserve the beauty of this idyllic landscape,” Trout Unlimited Arizona Field Coordinator Nathan Rees said in a written statement. “As sportsmen and sportswomen, we value a multiuse approach on our public lands and insist on practical and science-based management of our natural resources. A national monument does just that.”

The League of Conservation Voters, Chispa, the Sierra Club, Wild Arizona, Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations also released statements praising the president’s action on Tuesday.

“In addition to helping to preserve the stories, histories, and sacred sites of the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, and Navajo people, this new monument helps protect a vital source of clean drinking water in the Southwest and create jobs in the outdoor recreation economy,” League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said.

Critics say the monument comes at a cost to local residents

Mohave County officials, whose jurisdiction includes the northwestern section of the new monument, criticized the designation and the administration for blocking economic opportunity and ignoring their calls for a meeting about it. On Monday night, they hosted Arizona legislative resource committees that voted to oppose the monument.

“The federal government already controls too much of our land,” Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli said in a statement released before the meeting. “The President should not be allowed to take away our land and economic opportunities without the consent of the legislature.”

Opposition: State Republicans formally oppose new national monument near Grand Canyon

The monument is broadly supported by Democratic officials in the state. U.S. Reps. Raúl Grijalva, a longtime proponent of the monument, and Ruben Gallego met the president on the tarmac at Grand Canyon Airport on Monday evening. Gallego said he couldn’t make Tuesday’s formal proclamation, and wanted to thank Biden while also urging him to direct FEMA to aid Arizona with heat disasters that kill more people than many natural disasters.

“This is a real Arizona treasure,” Gallego said of the Grand Canyon region. “It’s a national treasure, and now we’re going to make sure it is in perpetuity.”

Grijalva was first to the podium at Tuesday’s ceremony, and he thanked the tribes for the enduring struggle and advocacy.

“Today is about the identity of this nation of ours,” the congressman said. “Today is about respect for the first of our species to have touched this land.”

Grijalva had introduced legislation, hoping to get Congress to do what Biden ultimately did on his own through the powers of the Antiquities Act, the same law that President Theodore Roosevelt first used to preserve the Grand Canyon before it became a park.

Uphill battle: President Joe Biden is visiting Arizona, where he's been deep underwater in polling

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., also introduced legislation, and on Tuesday thanked every Arizonan who made it come true. She also thanked the president for traveling here to personally dedicate new protections around the Grand Canyon, “a symbol of our state” and a key to its cultural and economic strength.

Gov. Katie Hobbs quoted data attributing more than $700 million a year to tourist expenditures in gateway communities around Grand Canyon. It’s also a cultural icon to tribes and others, she said.

“I can think of no better use of the Antiquities Act than to protect our state’s namesake feature.”

Biden concurred, saying that America’s natural wonders are “our nation’s heart and soul,” and the Grand Canyon rises to the top.

“There is no national treasure, none, that is grander than the Grand Canyon,” he said.

Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Reach him at brandon.loomis@arizonarepublic.com or follow him on Twitter @brandonloomis.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Biden dedicates Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument in AZ