Remember that old saying when we were all kids in high school..."Gee, I'm so sorry my heart bleeds purple kool-aid for you"? Well, here's a crowd that's eliciting that sentiment. U prices are way down, the NRC just might be responding to the ground-swell of citizen protest, investors losing patience...all of these things make my heart bleed purple Kool-Aid.
By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Casper Star-Tribune
Several proposed uranium mining projects in Wyoming and across the West will be delayed due the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's recent decision requiring a more thorough site-specific analysis for each project.
The NRC will require a supplemental environmental impact statement for each mining project rather than a more simplified environmental assessment, which the agency had considered.
Some officials in the uranium industry claim the NRC overreacted to a groundswell of public concern that they say comes from either ignorance of the in-situ leach mining process or a desire to block uranium mining.
Industry officials have also told the Star-Tribune they worry that investors are losing patience.
However, those who scrutinize the emerging next generation of uranium mining say both the industry and government regulators have a history that deserves skepticism. Shannon Anderson, community organizer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, said she has researched dozens upon dozens of spills and excursions documented by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
The Star-Tribune has also reviewed DEQ documentation describing dozens of violations related to in-situ recovery of uranium in the state.
Most recently, a 2007 DEQ investigation documented yearslong, regular violations at Cameco Corp.'s Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ uranium mine in Converse County. It resulted in a $1 million settlement, although Cameco and DEQ insist no one was injured as a result of the violations, and there was no long-lasting environmental damage.
"Asking questions isn't necessarily opposition to these projects. We are citizens of Wyoming, and we want to promote development that is beneficial to the state. But we also want to protect citizens and the environment," Anderson said.
Industry officials counter that there have been at least 15 commercial-scale in-situ uranium well-fields successfully restored in Wyoming, and not one documented case of damage to human health or contamination of drinking water.
NRC's caution
Uranium One controls more than 100 million pounds of historically identified uranium resources in Wyoming, and says it has 61 potential mine projects in the state.
The predecessors of Uranium One first filed applications with the NRC and DEQ in October 2007 for the proposed Moore Ranch in-situ mine and processing plant near the Pumpkin Buttes in Campbell County. Company officials said the NRC's decision to require a more thorough environmental analysis means production will begin in 2011 rather than 2010.
"We have been told various firm dates by the NRC, yet every time we get close to ending the process, something changes," said Donna Wichers, senior vice president of Uranium One, Americas.
In moving to the supplemental environmental impact statement requirement, NRC reportedly told some in the uranium industry that the extra analysis makes the new mining projects less susceptible to lawsuits and legal delays.
Wayne Heili, president of mining for UR Energy, said he's obviously disappointed with the delay. However, he said it's hard to blame the NRC for doing its best to satisfy the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.
Heili said he believes the NRC's move toward a supplemental environmental impact statement has more to do with public comments insisting on more public involvement in the licensing process, and less about the industry's past track record.
"To the NRC's credit, they're being cautious and making sure these licenses are being issued on solid legal grounding," Heili said.
Anderson said the Powder River Basin Resource Council's membership is pleased with the NRC's decision. However, the group remains concerned that neither the federal nor state government has addressed the "legacy" issues of the industry's past, nor have they addressed the cumulative impacts of possibly dozens of new mines.
Although the in-situ recovery process is supposed to be contained within uranium ore-bearing aquifers that never have been sources of drinking water, individual landowners still deserve to know details about what's taking place underground, Anderson said. There's still no estimate of how much groundwater might be consumed cumulatively.
"(In-situ uranium recovery) can reduce aquifer pressure and affect artesian wells, and it can create draw-down in areas already impacted by coal-bed methane or other industrial development," Anderson said.
Fletcher Newton, executive vice president for marketing and strategic affairs for Uranium One, said the uranium industry is much more sophisticated than it was in the 1970s and 1980s.
"(The industry) certainly learned a lot about safe practices and protecting the environment. There's a big difference between today and the way things were 25 years ago," Newton said. "Nobody wants to go back and repeat the mistakes of the past."
White House uncertainty
Some uranium mining officials say they feel the Obama administration isn't as supportive of domestic uranium development as the previous administration. As evidence, they say the U.S. Department of Energy hasn't made good on loan guarantees promised to the industry under the Bush administration.
While there were 19 applications made to the DOE under the Bush administration, so far the DOE under the Obama administration has issued only $18.5 billion in loan guarantees to four companies that plan to build new nuclear reactors for electrical generation.
"I think this administration is moving very carefully," Newton said. "If they impose a carbon tax on utilities, then that would be an indirect way of supporting nuclear power because, suddenly, nuclear power becomes much more cost competitive."
Last week, the DOE announced it will provide $2.9 million in scholarships and fellowships to 86 U.S. nuclear science and engineering students, and will offer $6 million in grants to 29 U.S. universities for nuclear research infrastructure. None of the grant money was allocated to the University of Wyoming, according to a DOE press release.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, about half of the nuclear industry's work force will be eligible to retire during the next 10 years.
Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com. Check out Dustin's blog at tribtown.trib.com/DustinBleizeffer/blog.
* The energy derived from 1 pound of uranium is equivalent to 20,000 pounds of coal.
Source: Wyoming Mining Association
* More than 200 million pounds of uranium has been mined in Wyoming since 1954. More than 300 million pounds of "historic" reserves remain.
Source: Uranium One
About in-situ mining
The conventional method of uranium mining involves carving large pits into the earth to recover ore-bearing material. In-situ recovery involves a series of wells to flush oxygen and carbon dioxide (and sometimes sodium bicarbonate) into a uranium ore-bearing aquifer, which breaks down the uranium ore.
The solution is brought to the surface through production wells where the uranium is recovered. From there, the uranium is isolated through a drying process and trucked to market in secure containers.
This ongoing circulation between injection wells and production wells takes place for two to three years in order to produce about 85 percent of the uranium resource. Monitor wells surround the production zone -- in the formations above and below -- to detect any leaks.
After production is complete, a yearslong remediation process begins. Using the same injection and production wells, the water is circulated through an ion-exchange facility
-- Dustin Bleizeffer
Uranium boom
The price for uranium neared $140 per pound in 2007, sparking renewed interest in the mining industry. The Nuclear Regulator Commission received notice of more than 20 in-situ uranium mine proposals across the West, mostly in Wyoming.
In response, the NRC launched a "generic" environmental impact statement to provide analysis of the in-situ leach mining process. A final version of the document was issued in May.
Today, uranium is selling for about $52 per pound, but companies are still planning many new mining operations.
-- Dustin Bleizeffer
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2009/06/21/news/wyoming/50d1a9a79c1f0a19872575db005f0300.txt
Showing posts with label DEQ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DEQ. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2009
Permit delay worries uranium hopefuls
Remember that old saying when we were all kids in high school..."Gee, I'm so sorry my heart bleeds purple kool-aid for you"? Well, here's a crowd that's eliciting that sentiment. U prices are way down, the NRC just might be responding to the ground-swell of citizen protest, investors losing patience...all of these things make my heart bleed purple Kool-Aid.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Commonwealth Water Supply Planning Program
The Code of Virginia, as amended by Senate Bill 1221 in 2003 (Section 62.1-44.38:1) requires the development of a comprehensive statewide water supply planning process to (1) ensure that adequate and safe drinking water is available to all citizens of the Commonwealth, (2) encourage, promote, and protect all other beneficial uses of the Commonwealth's water resources, and (3) encourage, promote, and develop incentives for alternative water sources, including but not limited to desalinization. In addition the amended Code Section provides that local or regional water supply plans shall be prepared and submitted to the Department of Environmental Quality in accordance with criteria and guidelines developed by the Board. Such criteria and guidelines shall take into account existing local and regional water supply planning efforts and requirements imposed under other state or federal laws. The Local and Regional Water Supply Planning Regulation (9 VAC 25-780) was developed to implement the mandates of this section of the Code.
The Code of Virginia was futher amended by House Bill 552 in 2006 (Section 62.1-44-38:1) which clarified the requirements of the Code by providing that the criteria and guidelines established by the Board shall not prohibit a town from entering into a regional water supply plan with an adjacent county.
This regulation establishes the planning process and criteria that all local governments are to use in the development of local or regional water supply plans. The regulation also established a schedule for submittal of those plans.
Local Water Supply Plans are due by:
- November 2008 for Local Governments with Populations in Excess of 35,000
- November 2009 for Local Governments with Populations in Excess of 15,000 but No More Than 35,000
- November 2010 for Local Governments with Populations Less Than or Equal to 15,000
- Deadlines for Towns Based on 2000 Census Population Estimates
- November 2011 for Regional Water Supply Plans
Local Governments electing to participate in the submittal of Regional Water Supply Plans must notify DEQ of the intent to participate in a Regional Plan by November 2008. Regional Water Supply Plans are water plans developed and submitted by two or more cities or counties or both. A town and an adjacent county may develop a regional water plan. Two or more towns may develop and submit a regional water plan where the plan results in the proposed development of future water supply projects that supply the water supply demands of the affected towns. Such plans developed by two or more towns mat be included in regional water plans developed and submitted by counties or cities. Regional water plans shall be developed and submitted in conjunction with all public service authorities operating community water systems within the regional planning unit, if applicable.
This web site is being provided as part of the State's role in program development and preparation to facilitate acquisition of resource information (9 VAC 25-780-60).
http://www.deq.virginia.gov/watersupplyplanning/homepage.html
Dominion [VA Power] Kept 7-Year Secret on Fly Ash's Environmental Risks
This is a lengthy article but it's important. It exposes the deceptive and underhanded treatment of citizens by their governmental representatives on more than one level.
The Synopsis:
The Virginian-Pilot
© May 3, 2009
The Synopsis:
The confidential reports
Dominion Virginia Power chose not to release studies from 2001 that raised concerns about the environmental risk of using fly ash, a coal byproduct, to construct a Chesapeake golf course. The consultants listed construction options, including extending city water to nearby homes or drilling deeper wells, to avoid possible groundwater contamination.
How they became public
Chesapeake, given the reports by Dominion in September, posted them on its Web site in early April after giving them to The Virginian-Pilot following a public-records request.
The golf course fallout
Roughly 400 residents have sued the utility. They say fly ash used to build the Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville contaminated their drinking water and devalued their property.
The Article:
The Virginian-Pilot
© May 3, 2009
CHESAPEAKE
Dominion Virginia Power was warned as far back as 2001 that building a golf course with fly ash from its local coal-fired power plant might pose environmental risks.
Consultants hired by the utility said so based on two studies containing more than 350 pages of data and research.
For seven years, Dominion kept those records confidential. When questions surfaced about the project last year, utility officials continued to keep the studies private for six months.
Dominion's consultants, based on their initial findings, presented the utility with several options. They included extending city water to nearby homes or drilling replacement wells deep enough to avoid possible contamination from fly ash.
Neither of those options was chosen.
Instead, Dominion chose another option, spending more money on an enhanced model that yielded safer projections. In 2008, it cited the reports' findings to defend the environmental integrity of the project.
The full reports became public soon after the utility was sued in late March by roughly 400 residents who say fly ash from Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville has contaminated their drinking water, devalued their property and threatened their health.
The city of Chesapeake, which had been given the reports by Dominion in September, posted them on its Web site in early April, after giving them to The Virginian-Pilot following a public-records request.
Dominion officials say the records were given to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on the same day as the city.
Dominion insists that it was under no legal obligation to disclose - or even do - the studies and that their results were proprietary.
The utility says that while the initial findings of its consultants raised some environmental concerns, it opted to fund an enhanced, more sophisticated model that yielded more accurate projections, showing the project was safe.
The golf course opened in 2007, with 1.5 million tons of ash from Dominion's Deep Creek power plant used to sculpt its fairways and greens. A Dominion subcontractor paid the original developers to use the ash from its regulated landfill, where it had been piling up at levels high enough to prompt a warning from the Department of Environmental Quality.
The Virginian-Pilot reported last spring that groundwater beneath the golf course was not being monitored and that arsenic, lead and other metals found in fly ash posed leaching risks.
The golf course does not have a liner and contains about half a dozen "lakes" from which the course is irrigated.
Tests by city consultants last year found high levels of arsenic, lead and other contaminants in groundwater under the course. Additional tests by the Environmental Protection Agency, which intervened at the request of the city, also reported elevated levels of arsenic and lead in some groundwater samples from the course property.
Groundwater tests of the golf course site in 2001, before any fly ash was placed there, did not detect arsenic, lead, vanadium and other fly-ash related contaminants, according to data in the first of two studies for Dominion in 2001 by URS Corp.
In a prepared statement last week, Dominion said its consultant used a "state-of-the-art model to analyze the potential environmental effects of using fly ash in the golf course project."
"The consultant recommended methods for using the fly ash in combination with a binder," Dominion stated. "The modeling showed that the steps taken to treat the fly ash are expected to protect the groundwater."
Last September, Dominion committed to paying up to $6 million to cover the cost of extending city water to residents near the golf course.
While the consultant's enhanced modeling provided Dominion with assurances of safety, the initial modeling did not, raising red flags and presenting the utility with some stark options:
- Trying to lower the initial concentrations of arsenic and other constituents expected to leach from the fly ash by adding twice as much binding agent or more.
- Moving the ash mounds farther from nearby homes, creating a "more expansive residential buffer."
- Planning to offer residents an alternative water supply, such as city water or deeper replacement wells.
"Any of these options may have resulted in a potentially unacceptable project cost, requirements for project re-permitting with the city of Chesapeake, negative public perception, etc.," according to the December 2001 report by URS Corp.
"These developments could have led to a decision to end the golf course project or development of a significantly restructured project plan."
Dominion wound up choosing yet another option the consultants posed: spending more money to do more intensive studies, using "more sophisticated modeling tools," which projected much lower risks, centuries away.
That's what Dominion got, and a utility executive - who said in a recent interview that he was not involved at the time these decisions were made - maintains that it's all business as usual in the engineering community.
"A less than fully sophisticated initial study was performed at our request by URS that came up with the recommendations that you quoted and we decided that we needed to look at that in more detail, to add more sophistication to the model to help quantify the details around that further," said J. David Rives, Dominion senior vice president, Fossil & Hydro.
"I think that's the heart of the reason for the second study (the enhanced model) - was to add more detail behind it, more site specificity, some more details, and, you know, spend some more money to really understand in more detail what potentially was going to happen there."
The more sophisticated model was "an enhancement of the approach originally envisioned for this project," URS stated.
The enhanced modeling, using the most conservative, worst-case-scenario leaching data for arsenic, found it would take about 400 years for it to get to the property boundary, where the concentrations would be under the drinking-water standard, said Dan Genest, a Dominion spokesman.
While in various passages the December 2001 URS study refers to the use of "conservative assumptions" in the final modeling, its summary section states:
"... Less than realistic and/or overly conservative assumptions associated with the more simplistic model initially considered in this study were eliminated," it added.
"The goal of the upgraded model was to predict the groundwater concentrations at the site property boundaries more accurately while providing Dominion with a technically defensible approach," it concluded.
Extensive leaching data on the fly ash from Dominion's Chesapeake Energy Center - both from its lined, regulated ash landfill and from its silos containing "fresh" ash - was included in URS' December 2001 report.
URS analyzed a broad array of samples of fly ash, including raw fly ash and some mixed with binding agents such as cement kiln dust and lime kiln dust in varying percentages.
Their analyses identified seven "chemicals of potential concern" - chemicals that were leachable from Dominion's fly ash and which could be transported to groundwater. Those substances were arsenic, lead, vanadium, beryllium, chromium, selenium and thallium - each profiled on the federal Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry's Web site.
The consultants estimated that 82 percent of the residential wells around the site drew water from the shallow Columbia aquifer that lies under the golf course property.
The study said that wells drawing water from this aquifer were "potential receptors" of elements that could leach from the amended ash used to fill the golf course site.
Toward the end of its report, after assuring Dominion that the chosen study model showed "acceptable levels of chemicals once they reach the property boundary," URS recommended that the utility come up with a strategy for long-term groundwater monitoring, in order to avoid any surprises.
"Groundwater conditions during and after completion of the ash fill can be predicted by models, but can only be authenticated by groundwater quality monitoring once the project is under way," URS stated.
The transfer of ash from Dominion's plant to the golf course site began in the spring of 2002 and ended in the spring of 2007, Dominion officials have said.
The golf course opened in the fall of 2007.
While Dominion had obtained an easement from the property owner in 2002 to install monitoring wells around the perimeter, it didn't follow through until late last year, months after questions surfaced.
"I don't know that we were in the long-term maintenance mode at that point in 2008 for a project that was just completed in 2007 that had recommendations associated with it that are centuries down the road," Rives said.
In addition to the two URS stud ies, Dominion commissioned another study by GAI Consultants, dated May 2003, a year after ash placement had begun on the golf course.
The GAI study looked at the potential groundwater impacts from ammonia expected in Dominion's fly ash after the installation of new equipment at its plant.
GAI warned that workers involved in the transfer and distribution of the fly ash, as well as nearby residents, would be subject to some risk from ammonia gas.
"Also, local residents may be exposed to ammonia gas that is transported by wind," GAI stated. "Health concerns may become apparent when there is overexposure to ammonia largely through inhalation or direct skin contact."
The report said that ammonia is "a severe irritant to the eyes, respiratory tract, and skin," and advised workers involved in the mixing, handling and distribution of the ash to wear goggles, gloves, long-sleeve pants and shirts, and to consider using respirators.
Robert McCabe, (757) 446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com
http://hamptonroads.com/node/508030
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