勘探者们很快就在犹他州东南部那些原本受“熊耳国家纪念碑”保护的土地上提出了采矿申请。
It didn’t take long for prospectors to stake their claims on land in southeast Utah that was previously protected in Bears Ears National Monument.
9月11日，这片占地120万英亩的土地正式向公众开放当天，就有16份采矿申请被提交；而这距离唐纳德·特朗普总统将该纪念碑的面积缩减约90%仅过去了两个月。所有提交申请的者似乎都是当地的小规模矿工、小企业主，以及对铀矿开采感兴趣的人士。然而，这些申请的速度之快引起了环保组织（如“南犹他荒野联盟”）的警觉，他们预计未来还会有更多类似的申请出现。
On September 11, the first day the 1.2 million acres were opened up, miners filed 16 claims, two months after President Donald Trump shrank the monument by about 90 percent. All of the claims appear to have been filed by small-scale local miners with other jobs, small businesses, and an interest in uranium mining. But the rapid timing of those claims alarmed environmental groups like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and they expect more to come.
“那些只想在周末“体验”采矿乐趣的业余矿工，他们的活动只会留下破坏环境与污染的痕迹，这对纪念碑内的自然资源造成严重损害，”该环保组织的律师史蒂夫·布洛赫说道。
“Hobby miners who want to go locate claims, play miner on the weekend, leave disturbance and pollution in their wake, that really damages the monument resources,” said Steve Bloch, an attorney for the environmental nonprofit.
居住在莫阿布的越野旅行向导乔治·舒尔茨在洛克哈特盆地提交了三份采矿申请。他表示，提出采矿申请只是整个采矿流程中的一个“步骤”，并指出那些位于纪念碑保护范围之外的土地本来就允许多种用途的开发。
George Schultz, an off-roading guide based in Moab, filed three claims in the Lockhart Basin. He said staking a claim is merely a “step” in the mining process and noted Bureau of Land Management Lands outside of monument protections are meant for multiple uses.
舒尔茨拒绝透露自己计划在哪些地点开采哪些矿物，但他的LinkedIn个人资料中显示他有铀矿勘探的相关经验。
Schultz declined to say which minerals he expected to mine at his claim sites, but his LinkedIn profile notes experience in uranium exploration.
其中13份采矿申请是由总部位于莫阿布的Kimmerle矿业公司提交的；该公司是一家家族企业，他们还对现有的21英亩“Easy Peasy”矿区进行了两次扩建，并在周边地区又提交了11份新的采矿申请。
Thirteen of the Bears Ears mining claims were filed by Kimmerle Mining based in Moab, a family business, including two modifications to the 21-acre Easy Peasy mine and 11 additional claims nearby.
Kimmerle矿业公司的董事凯尔·金默尔拒绝对此事发表评论。他于2024年被任命为加拿大铀矿公司Urano Energy的董事会成员；此外，他还经营着一家位于莫阿布的承包公司以及一家轮胎修理店。
Kyle Kimmerle, a managing member of the mining company, declined to comment. He was appointed to the board of directors of Urano Energy, a Canadian mining company focused on uranium, in 2024.
2016年，巴拉克·奥巴马总统在任期最后几周内正式设立了“熊耳国家纪念碑”，将该州东南部135万英亩的联邦土地纳入保护范围。此后，这片地区立即成为了政治争议的焦点。
He also apparently operates a Moab-based general contracting business and a tire shop. Bears Ears became a political ping-pong ball immediately after the monument was established by President Barack Obama during his final weeks in office in 2016, adding protections to 1.35 million acres of federal land in the southeastern corner of the state.
次年，特朗普将这座国家纪念碑的占地面积削减了约85%。乔·拜登总统在任期内恢复了纪念碑的原始边界，并对其范围进行了小幅扩展；然而特朗普在今年夏天再次缩减了该纪念碑的面积。
The next year, Trump slashed the monument’s footprint by about 85 percent. President Joe Biden restored the monument’s original boundaries and also slightly expanded it during his term, only for Trump to once again shrink its size this summer.
位于犹他州南部的“Grand Staircase-Escalante国家纪念碑”（Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument）同样经历了特朗普和拜登政府之间的反复调整。这座纪念碑是由比尔·克林顿总统于1996年设立的。
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, saw a similar back-and-forth between the Trump and Biden administrations. In the latest proclamation shrinking the monuments, Trump disbanded the tribal commission that managed Bears Ears along with the Bureau of Land Management.
在最近一次缩减纪念碑面积的行政命令中，特朗普解散了负责管理该地区的部落委员会以及美国土地管理局（Bureau of Land Management）。布洛赫（Bloch）指出，特朗普的命令还列出了这片土地上“可能含有或不一定含有”的多种矿产资源，包括银、铜、钼、铅、铀、钒和锌。特朗普在声明中表示：“这些矿产资源能够创造就业机会、促进经济发展，并对美国的经济至关重要。”布洛赫解释说：“他试图向人们表明，他认为采矿才是对这些土地的更合理利用方式。”
He also listed a “grab bag of minerals” the lands “may or may not” contain, Bloch noted, including silver, copper, molybdenum, lead, uranium, vanadium, and zinc in Bears Ears. Trump’s proclamation said that these minerals “create jobs, fuel prosperity, and are essential to important sectors of the economy of the United States.”“He was kind of flagging for people that he [and] the administration think that mining is a better use of these areas,” Bloch said. Kimmerle was also party to a 2023 lawsuit challenging Biden’s restoration of Bears Ears’ boundaries in 2021.
金梅尔（Kimmerle）也参与了2023年提起的诉讼，该诉讼旨在质疑拜登在2021年对“Bears Ears国家纪念碑”边界所做的调整。他的公司拥有“Easy Peasy”矿场，曾在2018年挖掘出30吨矿石以寻找铀资源。不过当时铀的价格还不足以使采矿活动具有经济可行性，因此该矿场被迫停止了运营。
His company owns the Easy Peasy mine and dug up 30 tons of ore in search of uranium in 2018. Uranium prices weren’t high enough to make mining profitable at the time, however, and the mine stopped operations. But with the rise of artificial intelligence and massive projected demands on the electricity grid, the Trump administration and Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s own Office of Energy Development have championed nuclear energy as a solution for powering the country’s future.
随着人工智能技术的快速发展以及电力需求的持续增长，特朗普政府以及犹他州州长斯宾塞·考克斯（Spencer Cox）领导的能源发展办公室（Office of Energy Development）将核能视为推动国家未来发展的关键解决方案。铀是核能发电的主要燃料。金梅尔在2023年的诉讼中声称，由于他的采矿权被“限制在”该国家纪念碑范围内，这些采矿权变得“毫无价值”，导致他损失了高达300万美元的利润。
Uranium is the main fuel for nuclear power. Having his mining claims “locked up” in the Bears Ears monument made them “useless,” Kimmerle asserted in the 2023 lawsuit, and cost him up to $3 million in lost profits. Kimmerle attempted to file his Bears Ears claims in July, shortly after Trump issued his proclamation slashing the monument’s boundaries.
金梅尔（Kimmerle）试图在7月份提交他的采矿申请，当时特朗普刚刚发布了削减该自然保护区边界的相关法令。但根据南犹他荒野联盟（Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance）获得的记录，该法令直到9月11日才正式允许新的采矿活动；而就在同一天，圣胡安县（San Juan County）同时受理了金梅尔和舒尔茨（Schultz）两人的采矿申请。
But the proclamation did not open the lands to new mining claims until September 11—the same day San Juan County recorded both the Kimmerle and Schultz claims, according to records obtained by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. The CEO and chairman of Energy Fuels also bought thousands of shares of his company’s stock just days before Trump downsized the monument.
这位Energy Fuels公司的首席执行官兼董事长在特朗普缩减该自然保护区面积的几天前，还购买了该公司的大量股票。Energy Fuels公司运营着位于White Mesa Mill的铀矿厂，该工厂紧邻原Bears Ears自然保护区的边界，是目前美国境内唯一的传统铀矿加工设施。
Energy Fuels operates the White Mesa Mill directly next to the former Bears Ears monument boundary, the last conventional uranium processing site in the country. Utah was historically the third-most productive state for uranium, according to information from the Utah Geological Survey, with most of those minerals coming from the Colorado Plateau.
根据犹他州地质调查局（Utah Geological Survey）的数据，犹他州历史上曾是铀矿资源产量第三高的州，其中大部分铀矿资源来自科罗拉多高原（Colorado Plateau）地区。
Bloch said he doubts there is enough uranium available to justify the expense and environmental damage of mining on lands removed from Bears Ears.
布洛赫（Bloch）表示，他怀疑在那些被划出自然保护区范围的区域内，是否真的存在足够的铀矿资源来支撑采矿活动所带来的高昂成本和环境破坏。“早在Bears Ears成为自然保护区之前，以及特朗普政府首次缩减该保护区面积的时期，人们就已经在该地区进行过勘探活动、挖掘土壤、调查地质情况了。不过当时并没有任何真正投入生产的铀矿设施被建立起来。”
“It’s not like people weren’t poking around in the monument, locating claims, moving dirt, seeing what was there” in the decades before Bears Ears became a monument, and during the first Trump administration when it was originally shrunk, Bloch said. “There were no production-level mines that were established.”