Comment: Do you think this happening in Virginia now, the uranium corporation vultures, circling our hills for the state to lift the ban on uranium? Ban uranium mining now!
Other companies closely watching Powertech USA
BY BOBBY MAGILL • BobbyMagill@coloradoan.com
December 21, 2009
In situ leach uranium mining has a lot of followers these days.
Also called solution mining, it is the method Powertech USA plans to use in extracting uranium at its Centennial Project site in Weld County, about 15 miles northeast of Fort Collins.
But Powertech isn't the only solution uranium mining player in Weld County. Two other companies, Geovic Mining Corp. and Black Range Minerals, are on the sidelines waiting for the right time to push their in situ leach uranium mining plans forward.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in July issued a report describing the environmental impacts of several in situ leach uranium mines in Wyoming and New Mexico. The report doesn't cover Colorado because the federal agency doesn't have jurisdiction over uranium here. In Colorado, Utah and a few other states, the state government has authority over uranium.
The report found most of the in situ mines' operations would take at most a small toll on the groundwater, depending on specific geologic conditions unique to each site. The report did find, however, the mines' impact on deep aquifers could be large depending on site-specific conditions.
A 2008 Colorado law, HB 1161, requires companies doing in situ leach mining to clean the mine's contaminants out of the groundwater once mining is complete and leave the water in the same condition in which it was found.
Solution mining has been used in Texas and Wyoming for decades, but many of the mines have been cited by state environment departments for a slate of violations.
One of those came as recently as Dec. 8, when the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality cited Cameco Resources for failure to clean a chemical leak, or "excursion," at its Highland Uranium Project near Glenrock.
Cameco settled with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality earlier this year for a 2008 excursion and paid a $5,000 fine.
Those in the industry are convinced in situ leach uranium mining can be done safely.
Weld: More uranium on the horizon
Economics will dictate whether other companies will fall in line behind Powertech to explore and exploit the uranium beneath northern Weld County's bluff-riddled plains.
Black Range Minerals and Geovic Mining have their sights set on mostly private land near Keota and Grover in an area that was the site of uranium exploration in the 1980s in Weld County near the Pawnee Buttes.
Geovic Mining, a Denver-based company whose primary business is a cobalt mine in Cameroon, is holding its breath waiting for Powertech to move its Centennial Project through the regulatory hurdles imposed by a 2008 state law.
The law, HB 1161, requires companies operating an in situ leach uranium mine to ensure no contamination is left in nearby groundwater once the mine shuts down.(Now let's not laugh at this statement!)
Geovic also is waiting for the price of uranium - currently about $45 - to increase enough to justify a new mine.
Company officials, he said, have been meeting recently with Grover and Keota area landowners who have granted them leases to mine on their land. He expects Geovic to make further progress next year.
"We may bring some uranium companies together and do some concerted effort," he said.
One of those companies may be Black Range Minerals.
Like Geovic, Australia-based Black Range, which owns property northwest of Keota, is waiting for the right moment to make its next move.
"The project's sitting idle at the moment," said Ben Vallerine, exploration manager for Black Range. "We haven't secured the land we need. We've got some leases from the federal government, and we have to do a plan of operations to complete that leasing process."
He said Black Range has secured about 35 percent of the land it needs for a uranium mine.
Black Range's land sits near federal land in the Pawnee National Grassland, but U.S. Forest Service spokesman John Bustos said the agency is not analyzing any uranium leasing proposal for the grassland and no leases have been granted.
The Forest Service denied leases for in situ leach uranium mining operations on the Pawnee National Grassland near Keota in the 1970s and 1980s "because of concern for rehabilitation of aquifers in the formation containing the uranium," according to a 1997 Forest Service environmental impact document for the plan that currently governs how the grassland is managed.
Private landowners have granted leases, however.
"We're looking to see if we can secure some land out there and do some drilling," Vallerine said. "We'd need to do a joint venture with Geovic."
With the potential for Powertech to go forth with the Centennial Project as it attempts to jump through Colorado's new regulatory hoops and Geovic and Black Range waiting in the wings, Jay Davis said people who thought HB 1161 derailed the Centennial Project may be wrong.
Davis, a member of Powertech opposition group Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction, owns land adjacent to the Centennial Project site and fears the mine will hit his air and water quality and property values hard.
Read more:
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20091221/NEWS01/912210315/1002/CUSTOMERSERVICE02
