- Why so much turnover in mayor's office?
- Hearing on the Ruby Hill towers
- Let freedom ring
- Promoting socialized medicine
- Immigration Laws or Lack Thereof
- Atheist Diversionary Tactics
- The "Melting Pot" is unique to America
- Many mighty hearts covering the world
- Roan Drilling Bad for Colorado, country
- Americans entitled to universal health care
Fort Collins: Soon the Worst Place to Live?
This Speakout has not been edited
By Marina Mayer, Fort Collins
Just four weeks ago, my husband and I moved to Fort Collins, CO. We bought a beautiful house with ten acres where we were planning on keeping life stock and growing vegetables. This house was the result of a two year long search for paradise.
We visited Fort Collins just once last February and knew immediately that we found it, our paradise. There is beautiful scenery with views of the Rocky Mountains, very friendly people who are looking after themselves and their environment. All in all, a great community where we hope to grow old.
Everything changed on April 24th when we first heard about Powertech Uranium, a Canadian company that is planning on mining uranium in Nunn, CO.
A lot of people will now say: “Nunn, that’s far from Fort Collins. This will not affect us.” I say different.
This will affect all of Northern Colorado. And I will explain to you why: Water is the most precious commodity of Colorado. So how is it possible that a company, which is in the business of uranium mining only since 2006, can buy 5,760 acres of uranium mineral rights and start to mine for uranium with the result of contaminating the groundwater and aquifer with radioactive metals?
Powertech states on their web site that they estimate to recover 9,581,000 pounds of uranium U308 in Nunn which has a resell value of roughly $125 per pound as of June 5, 2007. That would mean that Powertech could make $1.2 billion by selling the uranium to China or India which are the countries with the highest demand in uranium today.
So, I guess this sounds great – for the investors! This company makes billions of dollars by exploiting natural resources of Colorado. They might even be able to get around paying taxes in the United States since it is a Canadian company and they’ll make enough money on paying good tax consultants.
In addition to the money they’ll make they will make a big mess!
The technology they say they want to use is called “in-situ” leach mining. That means they will drill holes in the ground and inject a caustic solution (chemicals) into the groundwater to get to the uranium. With this solution they can extract the uranium from the original rock and pump the water back to the surface. During this process other heavy metals like arsenic, selenium, molybdenum and other radioactive elements will be released into the groundwater and aquifer. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated 2007: “Although these “in-situ” leach mining techniques are considered more environmentally benign then traditional mining and milling practices they still tend to contaminate the groundwater.” So, what does that leave us with? Radioactivity in the groundwater that spreads into the drinking water and eventually finds its way into crops, life stock, and finally people. As most of you already know: The result is cancer!
If Powertech starts to mine uranium a lot of people will move away from these dangers.
As a result real estate prices will drop, businesses will go bankrupt and unemployment will increase. Fort Collins will no longer be “the best place to live”. It will be the worst.
But, is moving away really the solution to this problem? I don’t think so. Nunn is not the only victim of the new “gold rush”. Since prices for uranium increased from $10 per pound in 2003 to now $125 per pound no place with uranium resources is safe. There were more than 3,000 new uranium mining claims filed in Colorado in 2005.
Few will benefit from this “gold rush”, many will suffer.
Maybe, we should think about another way to save our environment and our health. Indigenous peoples from around the world, victims of uranium mining, nuclear testing, and nuclear dumping, issued a global ban on uranium mining on native lands during the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, held November 30 through December 2, 2006.
Australian aboriginals, villagers from India and Africa and Pacific islanders joined with indigenous peoples from the Americas to take action and halt the cancer, birth defects, and death from uranium and nuclear industries on native lands.
Let’s ban uranium mining in Colorado!
If you would like to get more information, please go to www.nunnglow.com and ask your elected representative about what you can do to stop uranium mining in Colorado.
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4 To anonymous : How interesting that to you, I am the racist. MY definition can best be summed up with Webster`s Dictionary. And yeah, since property rights still mean a little something in this country, the above mentioned nasty people were able to repeatedly vandalize my house and threaten me and romp around my property with impunity! bdh Ms. Mayer. I appreciate you concern about Colorado's water, regarding the in-situ extraction of Uranium. It is inconvenient to ban uranium mining in Colorado tho. bdh, your comments show you to be the racist. To both you and Marina, mineral rights were either granted to the receiver of the patent when the homestead was issued by the U.S. Gov. or they were retained by either the state or federal government. If they were granted in the patent and then severed in a subsequent sale, all of that is recorded in the county records and is available to anyone by law. You could have and should have known that you didn't own the mineral rights. Moreover, since property rights still mean a little something in this country, they can be leased to be developed. You are entitled to damages if there are any, but you are not entitled to take away someone else's right to ownership. Marina Mayer, welcome to reality! bdh [boondock heretic] P.S. I know nothing about this newspaper, but my respect to it for allowing a dissenting opinion such as Marina Mayer`s! That is uncommon in SD papers. Culturally incorrect and out of the Anglo mainstream contributions are often banned, and writers can be black listed [my persoal experience]. The big lie: The sky is falling! The sky is falling..... Unless the OP is living in a grass hut and has no electrical appliances, I really don't want to hear the gripes. We use metals, such as Iron and Uranium for various things, including all the stuff in your new house... we also use it to create power plants that allow you to hop on the internet. That metal has to come from somewhere. Cry me a river, sell your land and move back to whatever paradise you left. Marina, Thank you for discussing the effects of mining on groundwater. And for caring about where you live, contrary to others I admire and respect people who show stewardship of resources. Especailly Water. Trade issues are at stake thruogh-out our nation due to poor oversite from the people who live here. We must start to get our resources and our government to think first of the people they represent and thier lives. Ms. Mayer, did you do any due diligence on your one visit to Ft. Colllins before you bought your home? Did you use a real estate agent who should have known about the mine? Maybe the seller knew and you made a bad investment decision (not much fun being the greater fool, is it?). On the other hand, so what? How did you and your spouse earn your money to buy your 10 acres? Think maybe you "exploited" someone along the way to earn the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars to buy your little slice of paradise? As someone who was moved to this state when I was eight years old (not a native, but close), if I was to think like you, I would ask you to go back to where you came from. We didn't invite you and you're just one more burden on our local water supply, feeding livestock (life stock?? are you sure you're a rancher?) and growing tomatoes. The uranium company almost certainly owned those leases for years and has every right to mine for uranium (btw, its a virtual certainty they had to file for and receive an EIS, so your disaster scenario is false). Consequently, adequate due diligence on your part would have steered you clear of Ft. Collins. Rather than whine, just sell now and go back home. Ms. Mayer...you are an uniformed paranoid geek.
Especially since you do not know me anymore than I know you.
The nasty acting people I called racists are those I happen to have the misfortune to be aquainted with!
Therefore, your definition of racist must be someone who disagrees with you...........on mining or whatever!
"Racism : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an INHERENT SUPERIORITY of a particular race." [Emphasis mine]
It is bloody obvious property and other rights are for the "right kind" of folks - not for just anybody!
Our history is tied to extractive industries, long before the four weeks ago that you moved here to dictate policy.
Please keep up the pressure to maintain very strict environmental control of the wells. Secure casing
of the well is vital. Cement off aquifers of non-productive wells. Avoid any breach of aquifers through strict monitoring. Allow no spent
tailings into the aquifers or onto the ground at the site; demand that it be dealt with as is any hazardous material. Keep after the industry so that they don't ever pollute. The technology exists to extract it safely if you and those concerned keep up pressure on our elected officials and stockholders. They want a clean environment too, although perhaps wilh less alacrity as others!. It isn't as easy as banning uranium extraction. If you really care, you will follow up as a citizen monitoring these minimal steps outlined above.
I am in a very similar situation to your`s.
One difference is that I am already disabled from a massive pesticide poisoning.
I moved to my "paradise" in the southwestern BlackHills two years ago to get away from the toxic chemical loving [and racist and cruel] folks in the town where I lived.
Dear PowerTech is exploratory drilling now, and will be doing ISL uranium mining next year, five miles from my sanctuary.
No, there wasn`t a clue that this would happen when I moved here, as those people responding to you with condenscending arrogance are now assuming.
The SD legislature, in their infinite wisdom and concern for us civilians, decided in 2006 to open the entire state to uranium mining and building of new nuclear power plants!
SD rulers have never turned down a mining permit, as far as I know!
Their motivation is limitless greed, and their goal is to expand their power and wealth! No amount of wealth and power is ever enough! That`s the AngloAmerican way! Accumulation of "stuff" and domination over others is the Anglo definition of success.
It doesn`t matter if civilians, especially those who are culturally incorrect, get sacrificed along with the land and other living creatures!
But, as in your case, Marina Mayer, they will human sacrifice their own "kind" too! In a heartbeat!
You are becoming as disposable as those of us who are regarded and treated as "lower life forms". Shoot, they`ve got 500+ years of practice in getting rid of undesireables!
And PowerTech, like any self-respecting mining company, is simply operating in harmony with the 1872 Mining Law, according to which mining [ANY mining] is THE BEST USE OF LAND [ANY LAND], and gets preference over all other "uses" every time! PowerTech needs no steenking EIS - didn`t in SD!
Colorado portrays itself to be this environmental paradise. Hardly true, as any rational person who lives in CO can tell you. Dravur, Bunny Slippers, and Golden probably have eaten too many veggies grown near Rocky Flats to know the difference.
Thank you for speaking up and raising awareness!!!