Uranium mine will hurt Fort Collins

Comment:  Great Letter and uranium mining will hurt Virginia too!  Ban uranium mining and milling now!
opinion
By Jessica Hellyer
Posted: 11/16/2008 01:00:00 AM MST

A recent article in the Denver Post depicted the struggles that Cañon City residents are facing as a result of a uranium mill within their community.

There is concern that the pollution from the mill which has contaminated the groundwater has led to a high rate of cancer and neurological problems in the area.

In light of these issues, I am concerned about the "In Situ Leach Mine" proposed for Nunn, Colo., a mere 17 miles from Fort Collins where I call home.

This issues that Cañon City is facing could become very real to the Front Range if Powertech's proposed uranium mine is allowed to commence.

By taking a look at the disadvantages of mining and the possible impact on our community, it becomes obvious that in situ leach operations in Nunn should not commence.

In order to understand the impact of the proposed in situ mine, it is first imperative to gain a thorough understanding of the mining that will be occurring in the Nunn area.

The proposed Powertech operation is called in situ leach mining. The drawback to this type of mining is that it contaminates the aquifer used in the mining process.

As Chris Shuey at the Southwest Research and Information Center explains, uranium deposits occur naturally in rock formations; they are not toxic because they are bound by the rock.

In situ mining works by pumping sodium bicarbonate down an injection well into an aquifer. Upon the addition of sodium bicarbonate, the uranium is freed from the rock and becomes extremely mobile; the newly contaminated water can then be pumped out and into the processing plant where the uranium is removed. The water is added back into the aquifer and this cycle continues until most of the uranium is extracted.

While these techniques seem clean in theory, one of the problems is that the sodium bicarbonate liberates arsenic, molybdenum and other heavy metals which are left in the water along with excess uranium which could not be extracted.

Kidney disease, for example, is one of the many illnesses correlated to ingesting high levels of uranium.

Radon gas, often implicated as a cause of lung cancer, is also in this toxic mixture and released to the surface through the injection pits. The other chemicals stay in the ground water long after the mining operations have been completed.

While mining companies are required to reclaim the ground water, even John Indall, an attorney who represents the uranium industry, admits that in the history of in situ leach mining there has never been a mine that was restored to pre-mining conditions.

Beyond the obvious hazards of contaminating an aquifer that supplies multiple communities with water, there is also the potential threat of spreading that pollution.

The rock layers which encase the aquifer are heterogeneous, full of cracks and crevasses which can allow contaminated water to escape.

While monitoring wells are positioned outside of the aquifer to check for the spread of pollution, at 400 feet apart, the wells are not close enough to catch contamination.

Years of geologic depositories have resulted in the formation of dry, sandy streambeds which could allow the radioactive water to quickly escape.

Moreover, once the contamination reaches the monitoring wells, it is already too late and little can be done to reclaim that radioactive waste from the ground water.

Thus, by looking at the facts behind in situ leach mining and the destruction of previous uranium mining and milling communities, it becomes obvious that allowing Powertech to mine uranium in Weld County would have a devastating effect on the health of the people and environment.

Cañon City is an example of how the destruction of community water can affect the lives of those who use it and I am adamant that no amount of tax revenue promised by the industry is worth our lives or those of our children.

Jessica Hellyer lives in Fort Collins.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10986609?source=searchles#ixzz0bUSlMg5Y