GSN Southern Nevada Chapter Meeting – Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Description

Contact: liz_macdonald@outlook.com

Joint GSN – AEG Meeting! Please note time/date and you must RSVP!

Tuesday, January 13^th

6-8 PM, Dinner 6:30 PM, talk 7:15 PM

Embassy Suites Las Vegas, 4315 University Center Drive (https://maps.app.goo.gl/URk48SF4t4Pmiz8W6)

Cost is $45 per person.

GSN Members, please register by JANUARY 6TH under the AEG Members rate using the link here: https://www.aegsnv.org/rsvp

Sponsors: BEC Environmental, Inc. & Lightbox EDR

Speaker: David Kreamer, Ph.D.

Title: “Update on Environmental Issues Dealing with Uranium Mining Near the Grand Canyon”

Abstract: Grand Canyon National Park exemplifies a challenge facing many Western National Parks in the United States of America. Specifically, increased tourism, pumping of groundwater for increased visitors, and mining activities outside the Park boundaries have the potential to affect the quality and quantity of spring flow within Parks. Tracking, tracing, and dating groundwater using water quality parameters indicates hydrologic connection between these activities and the springs, helping managers to predict the effects of groundwater extraction and mining activities. Springs in the Canyon support a multitude of groundwater-dependent ecosystems, recreational activities that are a mainstay of the economy of Northern Arizona, and traditional Native American cultural and religious values. For the last two years, Pinyon Plains Uranium Mine has operated in a geologic formation called a breccia pipe less than nine miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The mining industry in the past has insisted there was no appreciable groundwater in the upper aquifer associated with the projected subsurface mining depths, that these underground mining areas were isolated from the deeper Redwall-Muav regional aquifer, and that the dip of the geologic strata was to the southwest (away from the Canyon) and all groundwater would flow in that direction. Multiple lines of recent evidence suggest that these assertions are not the case, and that the subsurface area perturbed by mine is in direct hydrologic contact with the regional deep aquifer and associated vulnerable springs.

Biography: David Kreamer, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus of Geoscience. Dave currently serves as Past President of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) and is a past President of the Universities Council on Water Resources. Dave’s research includes work on water and international security, maintaining quality water supply for people and ecosystems particularly in economically developing regions, and combating environmental contamination.

 

For more information, please contact Southern Nevada Chapter President, Liz MacDonald at: liz_macdonald@outlook.com.