The answer: Apparently not.

The question: Is anything sacred anymore when it comes to drilling?

That's about all we're certain of following the news today that the Forest Service has very quietly approved a permit allowing a British company to drill for uranium less than three miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The permit -- approved without a formal environmental review or public comment period, will allow Vane Minerals to drill as many as 39 exploratory wells on the claims in the Kaibab National Forest. Forest officials said that if Vane discovers clusters of uranium deposits and decides to mine, a formal environmental analysis would follow.

You can thank a 136-year-old statute for the no-questions-asked approval. The 1872 Mining Law that still governs mining activity on public lands leave government agencies almost no power to deny applications to mine on any of these claims.

According to the Forest Service, the law "authorizes the taking of valuable mineral commodities from Public Domain Lands. A ‘No Action’ alternative is not an option that can be considered.”

The Forest Service tried real hard to keep this one on the DL for as long as possible. The agency approved the exploratory drilling in December, and it was only this week that the Grand Canyon Trust obtained the documents.

Officials at the Trust aren't a happy bunch this week. “Uranium development at the borders of the park threatens to contaminate Park waters with radioactive waste, poses public health problems for those downstream communities dependent upon Colorado River water, and disrupts the Park's unique natural areas," said program director Dave Gowdey.

Vane Minerals says we're just overreacting: “After four or five years, you reclaim it, put it back the way it was, and no one would ever know you were there,” Matthew Idiens, the company's director of corporate development, told the New York Times. “We obviously understand it’s scenic and beautiful there, and we respect that enormously.”