Protest at La Sal Junction highlights uranium tensions near Moab

About 60 people gathered at La Sal Junction on Highway 191 and Highway 46, roughly 20 miles south of Moab, and turned a busy travel stop into a sharp reminder that uranium conflict in southeast Utah is happening right where visitors drive to reach the La Sal Mountains and the Moab backcountry.

The May 16 protest unfolded under the banner No Uranium / Protect Sacred Land. Members of the White Mesa Ute Community, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo and Diné people, and other supporters lined the roadside in a show of opposition to Energy Fuels’ uranium mines and mill. The gathering was organized by the White Mesa Concerned Community, Bidii Roots, Moab Mutual Aid, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, and Uranium Watch.

The stakes run far beyond a single junction. Energy Fuels says its La Sal Complex is a series of uranium and vanadium mines in eastern Utah, including the Beaver, Pandora, La Sal, Energy Queen and Redd Block projects, and that ore from those operations is shipped to the White Mesa Mill. The company says the mill is the only fully licensed and operating conventional uranium mill in the United States and that it has a licensed capacity of more than 8 million pounds of uranium per year. Energy Fuels also said in 2026 investor materials that it expected to continue mining at its Pinyon Plain and La Sal mines during the year.

For the White Mesa Concerned Community, the protest was part of a much longer fight. The group describes itself as a grassroots organization of Ute Mountain Ute tribal members from White Mesa, just south of the mill, working to protect health, water, air, land, culture and sacred sites from toxic contamination. Grand Canyon Trust says the community has organized an annual spiritual walk to protest the mill, and Moab Sun News pointed readers back to coverage from 2019, underscoring how long this argument has been unfolding.

That history matters for anyone moving through the region on public land. Highway 191 is not just a route to trailheads, campgrounds and overlooks. It is also part of a mine-to-mill corridor that communities say carries uranium through landscapes tied to cultural protection and water concerns. In May 2025, more than 20 organizations signed a letter opposing the White Mesa Mill, and Utah regulators held a community meeting at the White Mesa Community Center on May 18, 2026, about a pending Energy Fuels license amendment tied to rare earth processing.

The roadside scene at La Sal Junction was brief, but it captured a larger reality around Moab: the same corridor that brings hikers, climbers and cyclists into the region is also where tribal communities and environmental groups keep pressing the question of what should happen to these lands, and at what cost.