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Questions about uranium mining in Weld CountyMonday, August 13 at 1:09 PMThis Speakout has not been edited.
Robert Pennyfather A Canadian Company, Powertech Uranium Corp, has acquired the mineral rights to mine uranium on 6,880 acres in west Weld County next to the Larimer County line approximately 14 miles northeast of Fort Collins and 16 miles northwest of Greeley. The price of uranium has increased significantly in recent years to a current $133 a pound. At this price it is estimated that a profit of over $100 per pound is anticipated and as initial estimates of the uranium yield are some 9.67 million pounds there is a resulting total profit approaching $1 billion. Consequently, Powertech (and other companies in other locations) are extremely anxious to capitalize on their mineral rights. At present Powertech is in the process of applying for the necessary permits.
Powertech proposes to extract the uranium oxide from the ground by “in-situ recovery” (ISR) a process by which numerous holes are drilled 250-600 feet into the ground and a caustic liquid inserted that dissolves the uranium oxide, as well as other heavy metals. The solution is then pumped to the surface for processing after which the “cleansed” liquid is re-inserted back into the ground and is cycled round again. Powertech may, on the southern part of their site where the uranium deposits are 80-120 feet down, also use conventional surface mining.
The Geologists – Report on the Centennial Project, Weld County, Colorado prepared for Powertech on March 28, 2007 Section 4.4 glosses over the potential environmental impacts for both ISR and surface mining devoting a mere half page out of a 41 page report to this most important issue. However, recent history has shown that the mining industry has been extremely unreliable in its environmental practices. ISR mining is prone to regulatory breaches; review of existing and previous sites shows numerous leakage events ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of gallons of toxic liquids. On June 22, 2007 the Smith Ranch ISR site in Wyoming reported a 198,500 gallon spill of liquid containing 8ppm uranium and two days earlier a spill of 840 gallons of liquid containing 41.2ppm uranium.
The proposed “in-situ recovery” process gives rise to a number of major concerns the chief of which is water quality.
The Denver Basin ground water aquifer underlies about 7,000 square miles of Colorado from Weld County to Colorado Springs and from the Front Range to Limon. Within the Denver Basin there are four separate aquifer systems on top of each other, one of which, the Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer, will be use by Powertech for the ISR mining. Due to the complex nature of geologic and hydrogeologic systems there is no guarantee, nor can any such guarantee ever be given, that the caustic leaching solution with dissolved uranium and other heavy metal will not overtime leak into the Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer and from there into the other aquifers potentially poisoning the water upon which hundreds of thousands of people, agriculture and industry depend. Additionally, surface equipment and pipe breakage and containment pond leakage can again cause contamination of the groundwater.
It is extremely questionable whether at the end of the mining operations the groundwater and site itself can be returned to pre-mining conditions.
At the Bruni ISR mine in Texas which was run by Wyoming Minerals a subsidiary of Westinghouse there were significant issues. While in operation it had continual problems with surface spills and underground excursions contaminating the soils and groundwater at the site. Additionally cleanup efforts were ineffective and ultimately the company had to ask that the restoration standards be lowered to allow for higher residual contaminants in the groundwater. Even after several years of restoration the company still had significant problems meeting those standards.
The case shows that the costs of good restoration are prohibitive, if such restoration is possible at all given the nature of ISR. Companies are reluctant to invest the amount of money to adequately restore the site as there is no return on investment for cleaning up contamination. Where authorities have required bonds to cover costs they have often been totally inadequate and the cost of such problems have typically been transferred to the taxpayer once the company is allowed to walk away from the site. The clean-up costs of the Canadian owned Summitville Mine in Colorado cost the taxpayer $147.5 million not to mention the sterilizing of 18 miles of the Alamosa River with cyanide run-off.
The residents of Northern Colorado need to be aware of this proposed ISR uranium mining and should make informed decisions about whether it is in their and their families’ long term interests and, if necessary, take appropriate action accordingly. For more information a good starting point is www.nunnglow.com.
[PS]Robert Pennyfather is a resident of Greeley. - Innovative thinking needed to solve traffic congestion
- No upside to Piñon Canyon expansion
- Questions about uranium mining in Weld County
- Don’t polarize health-care debate
- Store-front clinics, like those at Wal-Marts, a good option for health-care consumers
- Democrats depriving kids of a decent education
- Architects find much to like about Denver’s Downtown Area Plan
- Union Pacific railyards will cripple Brighton
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