Lawmakers take aim at uranium mills

Comment: Pretty ugly, the tailing ponds, the uranium mill uses all kinds of chemicals and the waste water stays in ponds for years, just leaking!  Virginia, we do not want uranium mining and milling in our state, it is a step back for such a modern state!  No to uranium mining!

By Andy Koen, Bea Karnes -
News First 5
Posted : Jan 26, 2010 1:56 PM
The water in the containment ponds at the Cotter Uranium Mill near Cañon City is a dingy yellow/brown color, tinted by the million of tons of heavy metals and toxic waste stored in them.

The linings of the ponds are slowly leaking contaminating the groundwater around the mill.

The area has been declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, giving it federal priority for clean up. However, nothing has been done yet.

"I think it's absolutely absurd that 4.5 million tons of this kind of waste can be sitting a mile from somebody's house," said Sharyn Cunningham as she looked at the mill from an overlook nearby.

Cunningham is co-chairperson of the group Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, one of several groups to rally at the Fremont County Courthouse Tuesday in support of tougher legislation on uranium mills.

The Uranium Processing Accountability Act is being sponsored by in the Colorado Assembly by Representative Buffie McFadyen, (D) Pueblo West, and Senators Ken Kester (R) Las Animas and Bob Bacon (D) Fort Collins.

It requires uranium mill operators in the state to comply with all clean up orders before new applications are processed and it strengthens public oversight of bonding requirements for clean-up and decommissioning.

Fremont County Commissioner Mike Stiehl the bill has the potential to force Cotter to clean up its mess.

The mills will aslo need to amend their operating license before accepting new sources of "alternate feed" material, such as radioactive or toxic waste from industrial or medical operations. Small amounts of uranium ore can be extracted from alternate feed sources.

The bill has already ben endorsed by more than 30 organizations and businesses in Fremont County, and more than 50 groups state wide.

For the last four years, the Cotter Corporation has stopped processing uranium under a self-imposed "stand down," but last year they announced plans to start it up again.

A letter written by John Hamrick, Cotter's Vice President of Milling, to the state health department in March of 2009 indicates that the company plans to refurbish the Cañon City facility and begin processing uranium ore from a mine in New Mexico sometime in 2014.

Hamrick could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Read more:
http://www.newsfirst5.com/news/lawmakers-take-aim-at-uranium-processors/

16 million tons of uranium mill tailings moving away from Colorado River site

Comment:  No to uranium mining!

By GARY HARMON
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Sunday, December 27, 2009

Crews have taken the first bites out of the old uranium mill-tailings pile in Moab, Utah, beginning a years long process of transferring it far from the Colorado River.

Abut 630,000 tons will have been moved from Moab to the disposal cell near Crescent Junction by year’s end, said Wendee Ryan of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Energy Department and its contractor, Energy Solutions Corp., began moving the tailings pile this year.

Moab residents and downstream water providers lobbied for years to have the 16-million-ton pile of mill tailings moved from its spot along the north bank of the Colorado River to a cell up against the Bookcliff Mountains at Crescent Junction that is deemed less likely to contaminate the river.

The pile is being moved by train from Moab to the disposal cell 30 miles north.

There, the contents of each 33-ton and 40-ton container placed in the cell are marked via Global Positioning System, said Fred Smith of Energy Solutions.

The cell, in which native earth has been scoured out to form a half-mile-wide pit, will be filled with tailings and then recovered with the native earth.

Once the tailings pile has been moved, it will fill a cell about a half-mile wide and a mile long, Smith said.

The cold temperatures of recent weeks slowed the removal process a bit because moisture in the tailings wouldn’t evaporate as quickly, Ryan said.

“When there’s less evaporation in the tailings, it takes longer to condition them to an optimum moisture content” for compaction at the Crescent Junction cell, Ryan said.

When the red containers are lined up outside the cell for emptying, they’re visible from Interstate 70.

The cell itself is fenced off, and a retired uranium miner, Gilbert Randall, greets visitors at the main entry.

Read...
http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2009/12/27/122809_3a_Mill_tailings.html

NM awards contract on abandoned mines

Posted at: 12/14/2009 1:56 PM
Updated at: 12/14/2009 2:01 PM
By: The Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - A company with offices in Albuquerque and Carlsbad will assess more than 35 abandoned uranium mines in New Mexico under a contract awarded by the state Mining and Minerals Division, which is working with federal and tribal groups to catalog and clean up abandoned sites.

Intera Inc. will assess sites on federal and private lands throughout New Mexico.

State Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard calls the project a step forward in reducing exposure to health and safety hazards associated with abandoned mines and their legacy of radiological contamination.

Read more:
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s1310542.shtml?cat=514

Uranium News:LEGACY ISSUES

Comment: People of Virginia, demand our state to ban uranium mining and milling because we do not want to be the future SuperFund Site! No to uranium mining!

GRANTS - On Oct. 20 agencies from the state, nation and tribes focused on some of what was left behind because of little regulation - abandoned mines and issues involving the environment, people's health and water.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is the primary agency that is organizing the effort to gather legacy information in the Grants Mineral Belt from a variety of sources, including the public. A listening session, a first of many more to come, according to EPA Superfund Division Project Manager John Meyer of Dallas, Texas, was held at the Cibola County Complex on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

Nearly 30 state, federal and tribal agencies are joining the EPA to assess the legacy - the damage, what should be done, who's paying for what, and other concerns.

Head had many specific questions in regard to the legacy. “Why is it that migratory birds do not land in the clean-up ponds at the Homestake site?” Head asked in which no specific answer was given.

Components of the five-year plan are: assess and remediation of contaminated residential structures; water contamination sources assessment; assessment and remediation of abandoned area mines (130, according to the EPA) in the area; assessment and long term management of mills; and assess impact to human health and the environment.

A five-year plan is scheduled to be released in the spring of 2010, according to the EPA.

Bill Brancard of the state Mining and Minerals Division was also at the meeting. “In regard to the legacy,” Brancard said, “there are 259 uranium mines in the state, 95 percent of them are within the Grants Mineral Belt.

Some have been reclaimed, some not. There are 130 mines that we have no record of reclamation.” The Grants Mineral Belt is described by the EPA as being from Prewitt on the west to Tohajillee on the east and from the Cibola/McKinley County line to the southern border of Acoma Pueblo.

A representative of the BLM announced at the meeting that the agency has $400,000 for assessment and can possible invest $3 million the following year to actually help cleanup.

Kelly Gallagher from the state Department of Health informed attendees that a recent study done by her department indicated that there are several spots in the state that have a high level of uranium in their water and it is affecting person's kidneys. However, only 1,000 people were tested and no one within the Grants Mineral Belt. (See next week's Beacon for more information on this study.)

Head asked if another study can be done specifically in Cibola County and asked if the EPA could pay for it? The question raised a discussion between agencies as to how the study can be paid for.

"Every agency has its own purpose and they do not work together. So, to see them, the EPA, the health department, BLM, NMED, tribal representatives, the Mining and Minerals Division, and so on… all here, to find solutions to the uranium mining legacy issue, it is great.”

Brancard noted during his speech that local legislators Ken Martinez, David Ulibarri and Linda Lovejoy need to be recognized for raising the importance of the legacy issue. “They are the leaders that are working behind the scenes saying that something needs to be done,” he said.

A date for the next public meeting has not yet been scheduled.

http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2009/10/22/news/doc4ae0eab6e6c6b652488716.txt

EPA to develop rule to ensure hardrock miners will pay for environmental cleanup

The Environmental Protection Agency, complying with a court order,” is made to charge Huge Foreign Corporation for ruining the environment! EPA answers to Corporations and does not protect people from hard rock mining companies! Uranium mining is hard rock, so look out Virginia; they are going to ruin our land and our lives!

Sandy Shore, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 13, 2009

DENVER - The Environmental Protection Agency, complying with a court order, will develop a rule to guarantee companies that mine everything from copper to uranium will pay for needed environmental cleanup, not taxpayers.

The announcement on Monday comes in the wake of a federal judge's order in February requiring the EPA to close loopholes that allow some companies to get out of paying for such costly cleanups when they file bankruptcy.

The agency said it will develop similar financial responsibility requirements for other types of operations but started with hardrock mining because of the size of the operations, the amount of waste and the number of mining sites on its Superfund's national priorities list.

The EPA did not release specifics on how it will establish financial assurance requirements but said it will propose the rule by spring 2011. An email message asking the agency for more details was not answered.

The National Mining Association trade group said the industry already is regulated by other state and federal laws establishing financial responsibility for cleanup.

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignored critical facts and used inappropriate data in singling out U.S. hardrock mining for financial assurance requirements under Superfund," association CEO Hal Quinn said in a statement.

The EPA's announcement came a day before a Senate hearing on proposed changes to a 137-year-old hardrock mining law that would bolster environmental restrictions and implement royalties.

Under the existing law, private companies haven't paid royalties to taxpayers for an estimated $245 billion worth of minerals extracted from public lands in more than a century. It also allows companies to buy public land for as little as $2.50 an acre.

In 2008, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups sued the EPA, arguing it failed to establish financial responsibility mandates as required under the Superfund act.

Among the cases they cited were 94 Superfund sites in 21 states operated by Asarco, which filed bankruptcy in 2005; the Smoky Canyon Mine in southeastern Idaho, and a molybdenum mine near Questa, N.M.

Earthjustice Attorney Jan Hasselman, who handled the lawsuit, called the EPA's decision "an important first step."

http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/investing/news/businessnews/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20740053

Midnite Mine

Comment: Virginia does not need any open pit uranium mine! We do not want to be the future superfund site, 30 years from now!

Public comment period open from May 20, 2009 to July 20, 2009.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) requests comments on its Public Health Assessment for Midnite Mine (PDF) (126 pp. 1.6MB). Comments must be submitted by July 20, 2009.

Please address comments regarding this report to:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Attn: Records Center
1600 Clifton Road, N.E., MS F-09
Atlanta, Georgia 30333

You may contact ATSDR Toll Free at 1-800-CDC-INFO or visit their website at http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov.

Summary

Midnite Mine is an inactive former uranium mine in the Selkirk Mountains of eastern Washington. Located within the reservation of the Spokane Tribe of Indians, the mine was operated from 1955 until 1981.

Two open pits, backfilled pits, and a number of waste rock piles and ore/protore stockpiles remain on site. In addition to elevated levels of radioactivity, heavy metals mobilized in acid mine drainage pose a potential threat to human health and the environment. The site drains to Blue Creek, which enters the Spokane Arm of Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake. Contaminated water emerging below the waste rock and ore piles is currently captured for treatment in an on-site treatment system.

The final cleanup plan (Record of Decision, or ROD) for the site was issued September 29, 2006.

Record of Decision

Midnite Mine Superfund Site Spokane Indian Reservation Washington Record of Decision (PDF) - September 2006 (248pp., 6.2MB, About PDF)
Record of Decision, Revised Table 7-6 (1pp., 73K, PDF)

The cleanup plan calls for a cap over an area of pits filled with waste during mining, consolidation and engineered containment of remaining waste in the two open pits, removal of water entering the pits, and operation of a treatment system to treat contaminated water from the pits and seeps.

The Record of Decision initiates the design phase. Design of the cleanup will include data collection to support detailed construction plans and is expected to take several years.