Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality is allowing a uranium mine operator to spray water laced with uranium and arsenic on the ground to keep dust down on its site, but it is considering the status of the mine’s permit.

The decision to cut more than 1,300 old-growth trees last summer in an Arizona forest has been criticized for breaking trust with the thinning project’s backers.

Citing the release of millions of gallons of toxic wastewater into a southwestern Colorado river earlier this month, a coalition of conservation groups, two Arizona Native American tribes and two county governments petitioned federal agencies Tuesday to tighten mining regulation on public lands.

A federal appeals court Monday upheld the government’s decision to let a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park continue to operate under environmental standards now decades old.

A trio of environmental groups has followed through on a threat to sue the Bureau of Land Management for giving a green light to a uranium-mine north of the Grand Canyon.