oil-and-gas fields of Wyoming and the coal-filled mountains of West Virginia. John Leshy, a law professor at the University of California-Hastings and former solicitor for the U.S. Interior Department, said the "split-estate" dividing surface and subsurface rights applies to around 65 million acres in the United States.
"The surface owner has some vague right to say 'be nice' " about subsurface development, said Leshy, "but the surface owner can't say 'no' [to development]. They don't have a veto."
Still, the Bridger Jack community hopes something good will come out of their experience.
"It's about balance and fairness to everybody," said resident Kira Schneider.
"Times have changed," she said. The law "needs to be changed to how [the land is used] now."
To the north of their home on the top of a mesa, Davis and Gore can see the sandstone fins of the Behind the Rocks Wilderness Study Area. From their bedroom, they look out toward Canyonlands National Park. The Abajo Mountains rise up in the south, and the snowy La Sals form a majestic skyline to the east.
Rubble piles mark spots uranium miners abandoned in the past. And mining could mean noise and trucks 24 hours a day, dust and contaminated piles, not to mention an enduring radon risk.
The Bridger Jack group, adamant that government has a role in protecting citizens, has sought help from state and local agencies.
The state Division of Oil, Gas and Mining has established a $11,025 reclamation bond to clean up after the uranium exploration. The residents want a $872,000 bond to cover the cost of providing safe water in the event their wells are contaminated.
They've also gone to the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which leased the subsurface mineral rights to South American Minerals when uranium prices hit a 40-year high two years ago. San Juan County approved the 42-lot subdivision in the early 90s.
Both agencies say the lot buyers created their own predicament.
"Some people bought a bill of goods," said county commission Chairman Bruce Adams. "They didn't do due diligence, and now they want the county to solve their problem."
The Bridger Jack community's attorney presented a proposed ordinance last fall to create no-drill zones of a mile around subdivisions like theirs. The county recently hired an outside lawyer to review it.
"I'm sympathetic," says Adams. "I want to help those folks, but I can't do something to encumber the county legally or ethically by doing it."
At SITLA, executive director Kevin Carter notes that signs of past uranium are everywhere at Bridger Jack. The lot owners, he says, "want us to subsidize their Shangri-las by giving up the children's rights to the minerals."
SITLA retired subsurface rights beneath the 2,000-acre Cloudrock property outside Moab that it is developing in partnership with a private company. He disputes that a double standard is being applied at Bridger Jack.
"The standard is the same," he said. "The standard is we are trying to operate in our best interests."
The trust lands agency has formally objected to the proposed San Juan County ordinance. Carter believes it would amount to confiscation of SITLA's property.
In Moab, Phil Gramlich, the former mineral-lease holder for the Bridger Jack area and a South American Minerals stockholder and consultant, says if the uranium deposits prove fruitful, the site will be developed safely.
The son of a uranium miner, Gramlich has been in the uranium industry most of his 79 years, not including the past 18, when prices were down and he worked as a realtor. He insists the new mining techniques will protect against dust and the wells will be fine, because the aquifer is hundreds of feet below the uranium.
"They can work together in harmony if they get rid of their hysteria about uranium," he says of the lot owners.
Back on the mesa, lot owners are stumped by the chilly reception they've received. Many are retired or planning to retire at Bridger Jack. Most are highly educated in such areas as physics, medicine, biology, chemistry and geology.
But they wonder why local government would approve the subdivision over potentially active mining leases -- especially when, they assume, government wants the kind of tax revenue their homes and lots can generate at a higher value.
"You can't have your yellowcake and eat it too," says Gore.
The property owners can't fathom why the state and county would want people living alongside uranium mining, given the havoc it's caused in the region, triggering $635 million in compensation to miners, millers and truckers, $446 million in mill cleanups so far and $1 billion budgeted to clean up the Atlas Corp. tailings north of Moab.
"They haven't been living with it," says physician Alicia Landman-Reiner. "They've been dying with it. I would hope our mentality is somewhere past that."
"It's almost a lack of common sense," adds Nancy Wade, a breast cancer survivor uneasy about uranium's hormone-mimicking behavior.
In the end, the residents hope they can find a solution that will allow uranium mining to continue in southeastern Utah without putting neighbors like themselves at risk.
Bryan Hurley, a surveyor and father of four, moved his family to Bridger Jack last Thanksgiving Day, exactly four years after he and his wife had begun hammering their own dream home together at the base of the redrock cliffs.
"The point we want to make is, we're not opposed to mining at all," he says, noting he worked for years at Kennecott's Bingham Canyon mine west of Salt Lake City. "We think there needs to be a reasonable buffer between incompatible uses."
Meanwhile, Alan Clark, a retired nuclear physicist, has got construction-ready drawings for his 1,800-square-foot dream house on Bridger Jack Mesa. He's scrapped the building contract for now.
"Of course, our view is right where the mines would be," he says, pointing to the staked out area about 1,000 feet away. "It's worth nothing now."
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11804942
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