On Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took a trip to the Grand Canyon. Given some of his recent missteps as steward of America's public lands, many Westerners were worried that he'd go over the brink by approving thousands of new uranium-mining claims on land near the canyon; land whose streams flow into the mile-deep abyss and the Colorado River at its bottom.

But he stepped back — for now, anyway: Salazar extended the ban he had issued not long after taking office in 2009. It was to have expired next month. Instead, the claims are on hold until the end of this year — at which time a 20-year extension might get his consideration and, it appears, his blessing: The secretary said he favors protecting the million acres eyed by the uranium interests.

It's a good call — but it doesn't go far enough; the Bush administration's Interior Department, embracing faulty or even bogus data, OK'd 9,000 claims. They should be challenged for failure to follow environmental law.

Since digging on those Bush-approved claims hasn't begun, thus any "takings" involved in repealing them are so far speculative, Salazar should turn his attention to them. The Colorado River, after all, is the main drinking- and irrigation-water source for 25 million people downstream. Why threaten it with radioactive contamination?

At the very least, Interior should impose high standards of mine safety and cleanup — including provisions for inspection and bonds posted by the get-rich-quick guys, some of whom can be expected to disappear once they've made their fortunes. Many of the mine companies' plans are aimed at the "Arizona Strip," that vast and isolated stretch north of the river where they figure they might get away with any number of environmental atrocities. There's lots of high-grade ore out there — so the uranium lobby is already whining about Salazar's continued timeout.

But it's not as if he's killing the industry; there's plenty of uranium ore all over the West. To the extent that companies will try for a full-bore assault on New Mexico, Utah or Wyoming, the pressure on environmentalists here and there is likely to intensify.

Uranium mining along some stretches of the Colorado has been going on since the 1950s, and grateful taxpayers have footed many of the cleanup bills. But there's been no reliable study into the extent of the damage. That would be a starting point for demands on land and watershed protection and cleanup.

Presumably, our nation has learned something about environmentally safer extraction during the past six decades. But the process can't be left open to chance; however plentiful uranium may be, water out here rarely is. We've poisoned too much of it during more than a century of exploitation. That's got to stop.