Environmentalist: Edgemont uranium mine not financially feasible

By Steve Miller, Journal staff

The proposed Powertech uranium mining project northwest of Edgemont isn't financially feasible and won't provide enough protection against groundwater contamination, says Paul Robinson, an environmental critic of the project.

A local company spokesman disputed Robinson's arguments.

Robinson, billed as an environmental scientist with the Western Mining Action Network, spoke at the group's biennial conference in Rapid City on Friday.

In a news conference before his appearance, Robinson, research director of the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, N.M., said there isn't enough demand for uranium worldwide and that the current spot price of $43 a pound isn't enough to cover the cost of production for the uranium mine proposed in the Dewey-Burdock area, 13 miles northwest of Edgemont.

"My chief concern is that the company is marketing its program to produce uranium when there is no demand for new uranium mines or their products," Robinson told reporters. "Therefore, it is building interest around a project that has very little likelihood of producing because the market won't support new uranium mines."

Robinson said there aren't enough nuclear reactors being built to even replace the ones that are aging.

In any case, Hollenbeck said, the project won't proceed unless it is financially viable. Meanwhile, he said, project plans are moving forward.

Robinson also said state and federal reclamation rules are too lax for in situ uranium mines.

Like such mines in Nebraska, Wyoming and Texas, Powertech USA, a subsidiary of Canadian company Powertech Uranium Corp., plans to inject chemically treated water into wells to dissolve the uranium, then pump out the solution and collect the uranium for processing.

Opponents argue the process could damage the environment, contaminate water and threaten the health of area residents. The company says the process is safe.

"The NRC does a very bad job of protecting groundwater," he said. Robinson said disturbing the uranium and the accompanying heavy metals underground could cause release of contaminants into groundwater.

In Wyoming, Texas and Nebraska, regulators have allowed the in situ uranium mines to leave contamination at higher levels than existed before the mining, Robinson said.

Hollenbeck said the groundwater at Dewey/Burdock is already highly contaminated and unfit for drinking. "The radionuclides are through the roof on this groundwater. It does not meet any kind of drinking water standard whatsoever," he said. "If there weren't all these radionuclides in there, we wouldn't be going after it."

Hollenbeck acknowledged that the water after mining won't be exactly the same as before.

"It'll be the same kind of water when we started, but it won't be the exact same water," he said. "It is nowhere close to being drinking water today."

Robinson also said there is a danger of a plume of underground contaminants spreading out from the mine area and between monitoring wells that are spaced too far apart. Such an event is called an "excursion."

"These kinds of excursions have occurred beyond the well field at the Nebraska, Wyoming and Texas operations," he said.

Hollenbeck said that in addition to monitoring wells encircling the mine area, the NRC requires all in situ uranium mines to have buffer zones outside the monitoring wells.

"If, as these people claim, one of these excursions get out from the monitoring well ring, you have to go out and drill more wells and make sure it is controlled," he said.

Hollenbeck said that no excursion of contaminants has ever gotten outside the buffer zone of any of the NRC-regulated uranium mines.

Hollenbeck, the former mayor of Edgemont, said he and other area residents are going to make sure the environment where they live is protected.

He grazes some of his cattle on land he leases on the Dewey/Burdock mine site.

"I have a certified organic ranch," he said. "I raise grass-fed organic beef and lamb. So I have the highest standards of environmentalism for my ranch. That's why I'm involved in this project. I believe it's the safest environmental way of extracting minerals that we've come up with."

The Western Mining Action Network continues its conference through Sunday at Hotel Alex Johnson. The nonprofit organization says its mission is to foster a strong network to protect the environment by reforming mining practices.

About 160 people are attending the conference, organizers said.

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8415 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com
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Environmental expert not sold on mining technique

By Nate A. Miller,

Northern Colorado residents have a good reason to worry about the impact of a proposed uranium mine near Nunn, an environmental and mining expert said Tuesday.

“If I was living in this area, I would certainly have concerns about groundwater,” he said.

“Knowing the extent of problems they've had at mines in Wyoming and Texas, for example, I would certainly be concerned about protecting my groundwater quality,” Gavin Mudd said after a press conference Tuesday in Fort Collins.

Mudd holds a Ph.D in environmental engineering and is an assistant lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University in Clayton, Australia.

Mudd's assessment was the highlight of a press conference and lecture Tuesday in Fort Collins put on by Environment Colorado, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Poudre Canyon Group and Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction (C.A.R.D.)., that focused on the effects of in-situ leach mining, a process in which a fluid is pumped into the ground to extract a mineral.

Mudd addressed questions in relation to an effort by Denver-based mining company Powertech Uranium Corp. to locate a controversial uranium mine near Nunn. The project, which would use in-situ leach mining, is still in the exploratory phase.

Powertech President and CEO Richard Clement said if he could he would gladly live next to the project.

“I would be very happy to live next to one of those things,” he said. “Believe me, if I could move the project next to my house in New Mexico I would be more than happy to live there. I've been around these projects 30 some-odd years. There are no concerns.”

Clement said long-standing experience with projects in Texas that were much closer to residential areas than would be the case in Nunn shows there would be no problems.

Mudd, who is traveling to Canada to present several papers on mining at a conference, said while he doesn't have an opinion on whether the project near Nunn should go forward, environmental concerns shouldn't be brushed aside easily.

“We often hear that in-situ leach mining is benign, it's fine, it's actually a low-impact method, and in some respects it is — and there's no doubt about that — but that doesn't mean that we should be treating our groundwater as a bit of a sacrifice zone,” he said.

New legislation — House Bill 1161 — regulating mining, which Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law last year, is a good start because it requires that ground water be returned to its original, or baseline condition, after mining is completed, Mudd said.

“There's one clause in there that I think is the most fundamental and that is groundwater must be restored to baseline conditions,” he said. “If we look at the evidence elsewhere, the evidence is not very clear that you can actually achieve that. And it's actually more in favor of the fact that you can't restore it to baseline.”

Clement said there is no reason groundwater can't be restored to its original condition.

“There's always a tradeoff of how much water is consumed versus how clean you make the water. You can make water into essentially distilled water by removing ions,” he said. “There's no reason why you can't achieve that. It's just going to take more water consumption to achieve that. It won't be significantly more, maybe 10 percent more than would normally be done under normal restoration conditions. It's more costly, but that's what the state of Colorado has decided to make the standard for restoration so consequently those are the standards that companies will meet.”


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