EPA agrees to update radon emissions standards from uranium mills

By Debbie Bell
The Daily Record

Sept. 7, 2009

The Environmental Protection Agency agreed Friday to update its standards on radon emissions from uranium mills, including Cotter Corp. in Cañon City.

Published Friday in the Federal Register, the agreement was reached following a 2008 lawsuit filed by Colorado Citizens Against ToxicWaste and WildEarth Guardians. The suit challenged the “failure” of EPA to strengthen nationwide radon standards at uranium mills, and the EPA agreed to conduct an expanded public process while revising and updating its radon standards.

CCAT representatives called the decisions a victory for public health.

“This agreement puts us on track to keep communities safe from radon gas emitted from the tailings at operating uranium mills,” said Sharyn Cunningham, CCAT co-chair. “For those of us living in Cañon City and other parts of the Rocky Mountain West threatened by uranium mills and in-situ uranium processing, this agreement is a huge step toward ensuring that my neighbors can breathe fresh air, free of cancer-causing radon.”

In a written statement following the agreement, CCAT and WEG said the accord should lead to stronger limits on radon emissions from uranium mills. Radon, a radioactive gas, is responsible for about 21,000 deaths annually in the United States.

The EPA now will update health standards limiting radon from operating uranium mills, which were set in place in 1989. An update to those standards, required by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, has not been done, so the two citizen groups filed suit to spur the update.

According to the EPA Web site, www.epa.gov, uranium is ubiquitous in the earth’s crust, meaning radon is present in almost all rock and all soil and water. However, the EPA says there is no safe level of radon, because radon decay products cause lung cancer. Radon is a radioactive byproduct of uranium milling and is released by mill tailings.

Currently, the EPA standards allow radon emissions at levels more than 6,000 times higher than background level threats, according to court documents.

Locally, CCAT formed after the Cotter Corp. announced plans to import radioactive waste in 2002. The grassroots organization said the EPA lawsuit and settlement were reached with the help of the Energy Minerals Law Center, a Durango-based nonprofit law firm serving communities impacted by energy mining.

http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/Top-Story.asp?ID=11619

UNLV prof to Congress: Mining contaminates Colorado River

By Mary Manning (contact)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 | 4:13 p.m.

AP Photo/Center for Biological Diversity

This April 2008 photo provided by the Center for Biological Diversity shows a mining claim staked north of the Grand Canyon in the area that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has withdrawn for protection from new claims. The Interior Department announced Monday it is temporarily barring the filing of new mining claims, including for uranium, on nearly 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon.

Restarting uranium mining near the Grand Canyon poses a contamination risk to the Colorado River, serving more than 25 million people in western states, a UNLV hydrology professor told a congressional committee today.

David Kreamer, a UNLV professor, said that assuming renewed uranium mining would have little or no effect on the river and surrounding springs is "unreasonable" and cannot be supported by past investigations and research.

Kreamer and his students have been conducting studies on springs in the Grand Canyon for 25 years and he told the House Natural Resources Committee's parks subcommittee that past mining activities have polluted a spring that feeds the Colorado River and that pollution is expected to continue if more mining occurs.

The committee is hearing a bill by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., that would permanently bar new claims filed on 1.1 million acres of federal lands north and south of the canyon. Renewed interest in building nuclear power plants as alternative energy sources has spurred a surge in uranium mining claims in the area, Grijalva said.

As many as 10,000 mining claims exist on neighboring federal lands for all hard-rock exploration and some 1,100 uranium mining claims exist within five miles of the canyon.

Neither the proposed bill nor Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's announcement Monday that he is barring new claims on public lands for two years while a study is conducted would stop mining on existing claims.

Kreamer said his research found uranium levels three times above the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended limit on water supplies in Horn Creek, a canyon creek that runs into the Colorado. He said that the uranium polluted the creek's water from mining that stopped more than 10 years ago.

The potential for uranium reaching the Colorado River poses a risk for water consumers in California, Nevada and Arizona, said Kay Brothers, deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Las Vegas draws 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River, she said.

Two scientists said modern mining has improved environmental protection and new mining development shouldn't stop because of old practices.

Most of the uranium claims have been staked in the Arizona Strip, an area just north of the Grand Canyon National Park notable for its superior uranium ore.

Uranium mining stopped 20 years ago as the price of uranium for nuclear energy, weapons and medicine went into freefall. The nuclear industry believes mining should be restarted as the price of uranium has climbed to about $55 a pound.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/21/unlv-professor-congress-uranium-mining-contaminate/

Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans

Study: Increased likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines

By Marjorie Childress 5/7/09

ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico legislators are in Washington D.C. this week to press the federal government to help clean up hundreds of abandoned uranium mines that dot the state’s landscape.

The trip comes on the heels of an appropriation of $150,000 included in this year’s state budget to help complete the painstaking work of assessing the extent of the problem, said Bill Brancard, director of the state’s Mining and Minerals Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.

So far, his agency has listed 259 mines that have reported uranium production at some point. And there may be many more than that, he said.

The agency has a second list of 400 “uranium occurrences,” where uranium mines saw “significant exploration” but from which no production was ever reported to the state, Brancard said.

According to Jon Goldstein, deputy secretary of the state Environment Department, the mines cover a wide variety in scale, but most operated without regulation.

“These mines range from full-scale mines to what’s commonly known as a dog hole, where a prospector was going out and trying to do it on his own,” he said. “And when most of these ‘legacy’ mines were operating, there weren’t the rules there are today. The Clean Water Act hadn’t been passed and the New Mexico Environment Department didn’t exist.”

The abandoned mines are found literally all over the state. But the overwhelming concentration is in the “Grants uranium belt” in western New Mexico. Uranium mining began in earnest on Navajo land in the 1950s and lasted until the late 1980s. This was the “Grants uranium boom,” Brancard explained.

The uranium, or “yellow cake,” was produced for the federal government’s nuclear program in the early decades then became an important fuel source for electricity producers.

Of the 259 mines that reported uranium production to the state, 137 have no record of any kind of clean up or restoration work. Those mines are the targets of the assessment being undertaken by the mining and minerals agency.

The agency is visiting the sites to assess the condition of the physical landscape–whether there are open mine shafts or waste piles, for instance — and to do radiology surveys. These surveys take readings of mining features and compare them with background readings to determine a mine’s radioactivity.

Data on the health impacts of uranium mining on communities is hard to come by. While studies have been done on miners themselves, studies looking at the effects on entire communities have been limited in scope.

Dr. Johnnye Lewis, director of the Community Environmental Health Department in the College of Pharmacy at UNM’s Health Sciences Center, is currently heading up an effort to assess the health impact of uranium mines in 20 chapters of the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation.

Thirty percent of the people who live in those Navajo chapters don’t have access to regulated drinking water, Lewis said. Since many haul their water, one goal is to find out which sources are clean.

In addition to proximity, Lewis’s research is also looking at how people come into contact with mines.

“Some of the mines don’t even look like mines,” Lewis explained. “You’d never know they’re there or might not recognize them for what they are.”

“No wonder then that people use abandoned ore in their homes, that kids swim in contaminated water or play around mine waste, or that people shelter livestock in abandoned mines,” she added.

Lewis’s team has only finished the first stage of the study, but initial findings show an increase in likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines, she said.

The findings have to take into account a higher prevalence of these health problems among Navajo and Hispanic populations in general, she said. However, a longterm medical monitoring program conducted in Fernald, Ohio has also shown an increase in kidney disease among people living near and drinking water contaminated by uranium. The initial findings in New Mexico support those results, she added.

Return of uranium mining?

There’s currently no uranium mining in the state, but in recent years there’s been renewed interest by industry to dig back in. This is due to a surge in prices in response to increased global demand. Between 2003 and 2007, the price skyrocketed from under $25 a pound to over $175, and then fell back down to around $50 a pound today.

Goldstein said the “amount of chatter has decreased” since the drop from the high in 2007, but that there is currently one active mine permit in the works.

The Mount Taylor Uranium Mine is owned by Rio Grande Resources, and is located northeast of Grants, just outside the Mount Taylor Traditional Cultural Property boundary, which was established last year. The company’s website says the mine site contains the “largest uranium resource” in the U.S., with an estimated 100 million pounds of uranium.

Goldstein said when the mine was closed in the late 1980’s, it flooded with water which the company will now have to pump out and treat in order to resume mining, something the mine owners are trying to figure out how to do now.

“It was operated in the 1970s up to the late 1980s,” Goldstein said. “A lot of mines have to pump ground water to keep dry. They turned the pumps off in this mine in 1989, and let it flood. That water is contaminated, so we’re waiting to hear from them how they intend to treat it.”

The mine also faces a lot of scrutiny from the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna, which consider Mount Taylor a sacred site and pushed for its designation by the state last year as a traditional cultural property, as a direct result of the increased interest in uranium mining.

One of the primary leaders in getting the mine assessment funds appropriated this year, state Sen. Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, said that the prospect of new uranium mining in the state is concerning given the many mines that haven’t been cleaned up.

While the federal government has shouldered the responsibility for cleaning up uranium mills, they’ve paid little attention to the mines themselves, she said.

“Over the last few years during the interim [Senate] Indian Affairs Committee has held joint sessions at which we’ve discussed the renewed interest by industry in uranium mining,” Lovejoy said.

“But in these places where the mining might resume, like the Ambrosia Lake area near Grants, or the Churchrock and Crownpoint areas, a lot of sites haven’t been cleaned up.”

Lovejoy said she’s toured the areas to see some of the abandoned sites.

“It’s appalling, and we want to know why the state and the federal government haven’t made it a priority to clean them up.”

Lovejoy carried a Senate Memorial urging the federal government to clean up the mines, and this week she joins the delegation of five other legislators in Washington to drive the point home.

In addition to speaking with members of Congress about the problem, the legislators are making the rounds at federal agencies, including the Departments of Interior and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

http://newmexicoindependent.com/26823/abandoned-uranium-mines-pose-health-risk-to-new-mexicans

EPA writing rules for hardrock mine cleanups

Oh, my goodness! The EPA is considering making the hard-rock mining companies clean up after themselves so that you and I don't have to!

Associated Press - July 13, 2009 2:14 PM ET

DENVER (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency is developing a rule to guarantee hardrock mining companies will pay for environmental cleanup at their operations.

The agency said Monday it is working on the details and expects to file a proposed rule by spring 2011.

A federal judge in February ordered the EPA to close loopholes that allow companies to get out of paying for costly cleanups by declaring bankruptcy

he EPA said requirements will ensure hardrock miners will finance the cleanup but did not release more specifics.

Hardrock mining companies produce such metals as copper, gold, iron, lead and uranium as well as nonmetallic, non-fuel materials.

http://www.kjct8.com/Global/story.asp?S=10717493

Feds: NM well water not apparent health hazard

How much you want to bet that there is substantial evidence to the contrary and that those citizens affected don't believe the study's findings are accurate?

(06-29) 17:15 PDT Albuquerque, N.M. (AP) --

Well water near a Superfund site in western New Mexico's uranium belt poses no apparent health risk despite an earlier report that called the site of Homestake Mining Co.'s former mill a hazard, federal officials said.

Test results show wells being used for drinking water do not contain enough contamination to cause adverse health effects, according to a federal report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released Friday. An earlier draft of the health consultation report on the Homestake mill had classified the site as a public health hazard because samples from some wells showed uranium and selenium concentrations above drinking water standards.

The agency, however, found concentrations of uranium above natural levels in a few wells that are not used for drinking water. It recommended that those wells not be used and that residents have their well water tested before using it for household purposes.

Agency spokeswoman Pam Watson said Monday that officials revised the draft version from May 2008 based on information gathered during a public comment period. She was unable to provide specifics.

The New Mexico Environment Department has been warning residents in the area that their wells may contain contaminants from naturally occurring ore deposits and from previous uranium mining operations.

"We continue to believe that a more comprehensive and detailed study of potential health impacts from past uranium mining and milling in the area is warranted," state Environment Secretary Ron Curry said Monday.

The San Mateo Creek basin, which spans parts of Cibola and McKinley counties, is dotted with old uranium mines, milling sites and piles of tailings, including two piles that cover about 240 acres at the Homestake site. The state has started a long-term study to better understand the basin's watershed and to determine the extent of groundwater contamination.

The state also has an agreement with Homestake Mining Co. of California to connect more than a dozen homes to Milan's municipal water system to ensure that residents have a safe drinking water source.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated the Homestake mill as a Superfund site in 1983 and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has required remediation of groundwater contamination there since the 1970s. Under the 1980 Superfund law, the federal agency has the authority to compel responsible parties to clean up the nation's most contaminated sites or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanups.

Residents close to the Homestake site first notified the state Environment Department of well water problems at a public meeting in August 2005. The department and Homestake agreed to start sampling well water in response to the concerns.

According to the federal report, remediation efforts have helped to capture some of the contamination from the mill. Concentrations of uranium, selenium and molybdenum recorded from the 1970s through the 1990s were sometimes as much as 100 times greater than samples taken in the past three years.

Cleanup at the Homestake site is expected to last until 2015, but the report said Homestake is required only to reach federally approved background contaminant concentration standards, not drinking water standards.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/29/state/n161200D19.DTL

Underground Movement

In northern Colorado, newcomers to the area lead the charge against planned uranium mining.

Updated Sept. 28, 2007

High Country News

NUNN, COLORADO

Early last year, Robin and Jay Davis bought 80 acres of rolling prairie in north-central Colorado. As is often the case in Western states, the "split estate" property included only the surface rights, not the rights to any minerals that might lie beneath the land. So before they signed the deal, the couple carefully researched potential mineral development. "We looked into oil, gas and coal," Robin Davis says. "Even diamonds." Deciding that the risk was negligible, they bought the land, planning to board horses and open a riding school.

Then, last fall, a Canadian-owned energy company informed the Davises and their neighbors that it wanted to extract not coal or natural gas, but uranium from beneath their property. "When we got a letter about it, we thought it was a joke," Robin Davis says. "Uranium mining? Here? Yeah, right."

But Powertech (USA) Inc. is serious. The company recently bought 5,760 acres of mineral rights near the high-tech mecca of Fort Collins. Powertech hopes to extract about 8 million pounds of uranium, worth nearly $700 million at current market prices, mostly through in-situ recovery, which involves injecting a solution underground to dissolve uranium.

In-situ uranium projects are on tap for other places in the West as well, including New Mexico, and Powertech is exploring for uranium in South Dakota and Wyoming. But in many ways, Powertech's Colorado proposal is different. The West's uranium mining has historically taken place in sparsely settled deserts, not near booming urban centers. Affected residents have been mostly poor and rural, and opposition has often been slow to develop. About 300,000 people live within 30 miles of Powertech's proposed operations; Weld County, in which the project is located, is one of the 50 fastest-growing counties in the nation. Universities and computer companies in Fort Collins and nearby Greeley have attracted well-educated academics and scientists, some of whom own homes and land near the project site, and they've organized a robust grassroots resistance.

Their biggest fear? Contamination of the area's groundwater. Powertech plans to drill deep into an aquifer that supplies local homes and farms. In-situ processing, say critics, could do more than just ravage the surface of the land: It could permanently taint groundwater with heavy metals and radioactivity. "We can live without a lot of things," says Robin Davis, "but water is not one of them."

The countryside around Powertech's planned operation is mostly shortgrass prairie, dotted with sagebrush and golden blooms of rabbitbrush. Swainson's hawks soar overhead; meadowlarks and red-winged blackbirds perch on fenceposts. A few old farmhouses stand amid corn and wheat fields, but most of the homes are new, tidy and moderately sized, on 40- to 80-acre plots. The occasional fencerow, house or pickup sports a bright yellow sign with a black radiation symbol and the words "No Uranium Mining in Colorado. www.nunnglow.com." (The closest town is the farming hamlet of Nunn, whose water tower displays the slogan "Watch Nunn Grow." Opponents have suggested changing the last word to "Glow.")

Powertech's project would be the first use of in-situ extraction techniques in Colorado, beyond a few tests in the 1970s, and the state is scrambling to get up to speed before Powertech submits permit applications in late 2008.

The company is also considering some open-pit mining, but the geology of the Nunn area is mostly suited to in-situ recovery. Many of the uranium ore deposits lie beneath the water table in sandstone and are confined above and below by impermeable mudstone. Workers would drill a grid of wells 50 to 150 feet apart and pipe a sodium bicarbonate solution into the underground ore. The alkaline solution dissolves the uranium, and is then pumped to the surface and piped to a mobile processing facility. The pure uranium adheres to resin beads, which are trucked to a mill. Then the uranium is stripped off and processed into "yellowcake," the raw material for the fuel rods used in nuclear power plants.

In groundwater, the sodium bicarbonate solution dissolves not only uranium, but also heavy metals such as molybdenum and selenium. Uranium can cause kidney problems and increase cancer risk. In minute doses, molybdenum and selenium are essential nutrients. In higher amounts, molybdenum can cause joint pain and liver dysfunction in humans and birth defects in animals. Selenium can damage the nervous system, and in livestock it can cause reproductive failure and "blind staggers," marked by impaired vision, aimless wandering and even paralysis.

Although in-situ recovery is more economical and safer than traditional open-pit mining, it "tend(s) to contaminate the groundwater," according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report. That's why the government will not permit in-situ projects in drinking water aquifers. Powertech plans to drill into the Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer, which supplies local drinking and irrigation water. The company says that the portions of the Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer it wants to use are already unsafe for drinking due to high mineral levels. It plans to seek exemptions from the Environmental Protection Agency; the project can't proceed unless the agency officially declares those parts of the aquifer undrinkable.

Even if Powertech gets exemptions, it still must prove that its operations won't cause lasting harm to any groundwater, drinkable or not. But that may not be easy: No in-situ uranium project has ever succeeded in restoring the surrounding groundwater to its original baseline condition. Last fall, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times examined 32 permits for south Texas in-situ projects, most closed in the '80s and '90s, and reported that none were able to meet all of the groundwater restoration goals in their original permits. Some met the specification for one mineral but found ten- and twenty-fold increases in others.

In Wyoming and Nebraska, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission relaxed some restoration goals for in-situ well fields after the operations could not meet all of the water-quality standards specified in the original permits. "Those (lower) standards are still protective of human health and the environment," says William von Till, chief of the Uranium Recovery Licensing Branch. And, he adds, the relaxed standards applied only to the exempted portions of the aquifers. The drinkable water outside those areas remained safe: "We are not aware of any instance where in-situ uranium milling has impacted a water well user."

The history of in-situ recovery, though, provides many examples of accidents and unexpected results: pump failures, breaks in underground pipes, wastewater pond failures, water movement within aquifers. "There are lots of problems associated with any well operation that could breach the integrity of an aquifer and spread contamination," says Eric Eidsness, a Reagan-era appointee to the EPA who was assistant administrator for water programs. "It just happens."

Continue reading this article here

Uranium mining firm asks for appeals court review

June 6, 2009

Written by HEATHER CLARK

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – A uranium mining company has asked a federal appeals court to review an April decision that a proposed uranium mine site in western New Mexico is on American Indian land. Lewisville, Texas-based Uranium Resource Inc. said Monday it asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver for an “en banc review” of the decision that sided with the Environmental Protection Agency. Monday was the deadline for making the request. A 2-1 decision made on April 17 by a three-judge panel requires URI subsidiary Hydro Resources Inc. to obtain a groundwater injection permit from the Environmental Protection Agency, which delays the company’s plans to mine for uranium near Church Rock. The company already has a state groundwater injection permit. Hydro Resources Inc. had challenged an EPA ruling that the mine site was on Indian land. The site is surrounded by the Navajo Nation. “Our objective remains to resolve issues with the Navajo Nation regarding uranium mining in New Mexico, so we can be well positioned to begin production as quickly and as safely as possible,” URI president and chief executive, Dave Clark, said in a news release. An en banc review would bring the case before 12 circuit court judges, but the court could always reject the request. Rick Van Horn, vice president of URI, said the company hopes the judges will reconsider the April ruling. “The way the opinion was written, it looked like we had a chance of doing something with it,” Van Horn said in a telephone interview from Kingsville, Texas. If the court fails to review the case, Van Horn said his company’s plans are to obtain the EPA permit, but doing so would delay the project by six to 18 months. It is the last permit needed before mining can begin. URI, which has a license to mine 15 million pounds of uranium, could be producing within 18 months to two years using the state groundwater injection permit it already has, he said, if the Navajo Nation would lift a ban on uranium mining. “We would much rather settle this with the Native Americans and go forward so we can just start mining,” he said. Many Navajos oppose renewed uranium mining in northwestern New Mexico because they suffered health and environmental problems during previous uranium mining booms in the 1960s and 1970s. But Van Horn has maintained methods of mining have improved in recent decades and his company is committed to environmental protection and the safety of its employees. “We continue to meet with members of the Nation and I believe we are making some progress” on resolving their concerns, he said. Telephone calls to a spokesman for Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. were not immediately returned Monday. A senior attorney with the Navajo Department of Justice’s Natural Resources Unit who has previously commented on the case has said the tribe wants the EPA rather than the state to have jurisdiction over groundwater at the proposed mine because the federal government has a higher obligation to protect the interests of American Indians. Hydro Resources, which owns the surface and mineral rights, wants to inject chemicals into the ground to release uranium and pump the solution to the surface in a process called in-situ leaching. The company had sought a permit from New Mexico in 2005 to operate the mine, but the state asked the EPA to make a decision on the status of the land. Hydro Resources has argued the site, known as Section 8, isn’t legally part of the Navajo reservation and is private land. But the appellate panel determined that the EPA was correct in designation the land as Indian Country. The Church Rock chapter was set aside by the federal government, which bought land from the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company in the 1920s and gave some parcels to individual Navajos and placed others into a trust for the Navajo Nation.

http://nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1900&Itemid=&Itemid=29

Appeals court upholds uranium mining curb on Navajo lands

By Carol Berry, Today correspondent

Story Published: May 19, 2009

DENVER – The Navajo Nation’s anti-uranium mining ban scored a victory April 17 when the 10th Circuit Court upheld federal, rather than state, control over a permit for a proposed in situ leach uranium mine in a mixed-ownership area of northwestern New Mexico.

Hydro Resources Inc. asked the federal appeals court to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency determination that HRI’s proposed mine near Church Rock was in “Indian country” as legally defined and therefore must be permitted by EPA and not by the state.

The Diné Natural Resources Protection Act bans uranium mining on Navajo Nation reservation lands, but rising prices have drawn uranium mining companies to so-called “checkerboard” areas where private and Indian trust lands are intermingled.

In a hearing before the court last year over the mine’s licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, judges heard testimony that health hazards are posed by the in situ process, which involves the removal of uranium by pumping water and bicarbonate into the groundwater aquifer, withdrawing the solution, and recovering the uranium.

The court questioned whether mining-related contaminants would be removed before they reached the drinking water supply. EPA would enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act, directly addressing concerns that have been expressed about municipal water quality if HRI’s mine operations affected an underlying aquifer.

Although the 10th Circuit currently upheld EPA’s decision, one judge in the three-member panel dissented April 17, expressing concern about measures used to define “Indian country.”

“Never before has non-Indian fee land outside the exterior boundaries of a reservation or Pueblo been held to be a dependent Indian community,” said District Judge G.K. Frizzell, who said it has the effect of eliminating checkerboard jurisdiction outside the boundaries.

The issue may cause jurisdictional uncertainty in states “where Indian country consists of original allotments and/or trust lands interspersed with non-Indian land holdings,” he said.

The question of whether the HRI mine site constitutes “Indian country” rests on federal law defining it as including reservation lands under U.S. jurisdiction, Indian allotments, and all “dependent Indian communities” in the U.S. whether in original or acquired territory.

The parcel in question is within the boundaries of Church Rock Chapter (a tribal unit established by the federal government in 1950), has a predominantly Indian population, and is largely devoted to Indian use by the federal government, the court said.

Members of the chapter, nearly all Navajo, live adjacent to the site, and there are educational facilities, churches, and buildings housing chapter, tribal and BIA entities at Church Rock Chapter east of Gallup.

The New Mexico Environment Department had asked EPA to decide whether the mine site was in Indian country so that jurisdiction could be established as to whether state or federal entities should issue a leach mine permit.

Earlier, the state had approved HRI’s request for an underground injection permit, but the Navajo Nation told EPA the site was in Indian country, a conclusion with which both EPA and the solicitor for the Department of the Interior later agreed.

Among adversaries of the uranium mine are the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining and the Church Rock Chapter, with support from the Southwest Research and Information Center and several environmental groups.

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/45093162.html

[PittCo] Supervisors Ask EPA to Investigate Lead Levels

Contrary to what Henry Hurt says, it is indeed possible that VUI's exploratory drilling has contributed to the well contamination. One only needs a simple understanding of geo-hydrology to see that. And if VUI is so sure it's not hurting anyone's drinking water, then VUI should pay for all well testing as a neighborly gesture, stay out of the way of the investigators, and pay the tab when it's finished. And if it's determined that VUI has in any way caused any water contamination, then VUI, VUL, Santoy, etc. should close up shop and forget the mine as they'll have proof-positive that what they're doing can't be done safely.

By TIM DAVIS/Star-Tribune Editor
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:02 AM EDT

The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted 7-0 Tuesday night to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Virginia Department of Health to investigate high lead levels in wells around the Coles Hill uranium deposit.

Concerns about well testing around the uranium deposit, about six miles northeast of Chatham, were raised at a meeting in March sponsored by the Pittsylvania County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Virginia Uranium Inc. was required to collect and test water samples at four ponds and four residential wells as part of an exploratory drilling permit from the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy in 2007.

It also was required to monitor 15 locations in surrounding creeks and tributaries for heavy metals.

Although not required by the permit, Virginia Uranium sought permission to test wells at homes within about a mile of the site to determine the general water quality in the vicinity of Coles Hill.

More than 80 wells were voluntarily tested.

Allen Gross, who lives on Motley Road, about a mile from Coles Hill, said when the first test was done in 2007 the lead in his well water was 2.8.

When the last test was done late last year, it had risen to 17.9. The maximum allowed for drinking water is 15.

Gross has been drinking bottled water since January.

In a statement last month, Virginia Uranium said it is not responsible for high lead levels in wells near Coles Hill.

"In response to media reports of concerns over lead levels in some residential wells in the general vicinity of the Coles Hill uranium deposit, we have reviewed the data and can state categorically that our permitted drilling activities have nothing to do with these lead levels," the company said.

"Wells with reported lead levels in the water are all in geologically and hydrologically isolated areas that are unaffected by activities conducted by our company.

"While none of the residential wells are located in a watershed that could be affected by our activities, the simple laws of gravity and hydrology preclude water running uphill - whether in the ground or on the surface - as it would have to do to reach these sites."

Virginia Uranium pointed out that high lead levels may be caused by any number of possibilities, including household plumbing.

Gross has attended the past several supervisors' meetings, and again Tuesday urged the county to investigate well contamination.

"We want to find where it's coming from," he said. "It might not be coming from the test drilling. But it's kind of strange the test samples kept going up while they were drilling."

Phillip Lovelace of Gretna also asked supervisors to look into the issue.

"We've got contaminated wells and a family that hasn't been able to drink the water for two months," he said. "Suppose you were in his shoes living without water. It needs to be looked into and fixed."

Deborah Dix of Blairs said the county should ban uranium mining outright.

"We want our water protected. We want our air protected. We want our land protected," said Dix. "We need an ordinance to protect us."

The resolution to the EPA and health department was proposed by Chatham-Blairs District Supervisor Henry "Hank" Davis Jr.

Tunstall District Supervisor Tim Barber made a substitute motion, however, to ask federal and state officials to test wells throughout the county for lead.

The board's chairman, Westover District Supervisor Coy Harville, Banister District Supervisor William Pritchett and Dan River District Supervisor James Snead supported Barber's motion.

"If you're going to do this, let's be fair to all the citizens and test everyone's wells," said Snead.

Davis, Staunton River District Supervisor Marshall Ecker and Callands-Gretna District Supervisor Fred Ingram also supported the substitute motion.

Virginia Uranium investor and spokesman Henry Hurt repeated the company's position after the meeting.

"It's technically impossible that anything we've done had anything to do with it," Hurt said.

In other action Tuesday night, supervisors:

_ Voted 5-2 to hold a public hearing on May 4 on giving the former Chatham Elementary School building and property to the town of Chatham. Davis and Ingram voted no.

_ Voted 4-3 to give $500 for Miss Danville-Pittsylvania County Lindsay Bowman to compete in the Miss Virginia Pageant in June.

Davis, Ecker, Ingram and Pritchett supported the donation. Harville, Barber and Snead voted against it, but said they would give private donations to the pageant contestant.

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2009/04/22/chatham/news/news51.txt

The Bay Garners Another Low Mark

BY REX SPRINGSTON
Media General News Service
Published: April 16, 2009

The Chesapeake Bay is gravely ill, and it’s not getting better.

That’s the message of the annual state-of-the-bay report from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group.

The foundation gave the bay a score of 28 yesterday — a “D” — out of a possible 100. Although the numeric score has fluctuated slightly, that’s the 10th “D” in 10 years of reports.

Under the report’s scoring system, a restored bay would get a 70. The 100 represents what the bay looked like when Captain John Smith arrived in 1607 — a pristine state no longer considered within reach.

“The bay is operating at about a quarter of its historic potential,“ said Chuck Epes, a spokesman for the bay group’s Virginia office. “It’s still a system that’s incredibly out of balance and in crisis.“

In response, a key official in President Barack Obama’s administration pledged a renewed effort to save the polluted estuary.

“Its continued poor health is nothing short of a tragedy to the people of the region,“ said Chuck Fox, senior adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency for the bay.

The bay continues to suffer from excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus contained in sewage-plant discharges, lawn-and-farm fertilizers and animal waste, among other things.

The pollution fuels the growth of algae that foul the bay and waters, such as the James River, that lead to it.

The dirty waters have contributed to declines in oysters, crabs, underwater grasses and other indicators of bay health. Bay foundation scientists consider the health of those species and others in preparing the annual report.

Will Baker, president of the Annapolis, Md.-based foundation, called on the EPA to tighten pollution rules for new developments and to reduce pollution that runs off urban and suburban lands during rain.

Baker also said the EPA should deny permits for new coal-burning power plants, which the group said can contaminate waterways with air- borne nitrogen.

Fox, the Obama official, said at an Annapolis news conference that it will take years to clean the bay. But he added, “We can and do pledge to provide the leadership necessary to ... reduce pollution substantially.“

In similar reports this spring, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science gave the bay a C-minus, and the Chesapeake Bay Program — the cleanup effort by federal and state agencies — scored the bay’s health a 38 out of 100.

Efforts to restore the bay over more than 25 years have been overcome largely by population increases in the bay’s watershed — more people making more pollution.

In January, the bay foundation filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force the EPA to do more to clean the bay. The suit is pending in federal court in Washington.

Rex Springston is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/article/the_bay_garners_another_low_mark/10446/

U.S. Court Upholds EPA Finding on NM Uranium Mine

Fri Apr 17, 2009

*Court upholds EPA ruling that mine site is on Navajo land

*Mine would be subject to Clean Safe Drinking Water rules

LOS ANGELES, April 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a 2007 finding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the site of a uranium mine that Hydro Resources Inc plans to operate is on Navajo Nation land and subject to Safe Drinking Water Act regulations.

Hydro Resources (HRI) plans to operate the underground injection mine on a 160-acre (65-hectare) site it owns in McKinley County, New Mexico, a few miles from Church Rock.

Church Rock was the site of a 1979 spill of uranium waste that constitutes the largest release of radioactive waste, by volume, in U.S. history.

HRI obtained a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to conduct uranium mining on the land, and had applied for a permit from the state of New Mexico when EPA determined the land was under federal jurisdiction, the opinion said.

In denying HRI's petition for review of the EPA ruling, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in Denver found that "EPA permissibly determined that the ... land falls within a dependent Indian community," the opinion said.

The act authorizes the EPA to prescribe an underground injection control program for all lands in the United States, including Native American lands, in order to prevent underground injection that endangers drinking water sources, the court said.

Representatives at HRI's offices in Crownpoint, New Mexico, and at HRI's parent company, Uranium Resources Inc (URRE.O), could not be reached for comment on Friday.

The U.S. government has pledged to investigate and clean up uranium contamination across the three-state Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation was left with hundreds of abandoned mines, as well as inactive dump and milling operations and contaminated water, after demand for uranium dropped in the late 1980s, according to EPA. (Reporting by Gina Keating; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Gary Hill)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1735807120090417

EPA bills Chesapeake $1 million for Wingfield clean-up

By Mike Saewitz
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 2, 2009

CHESAPEAKE

In 2005, a contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency dug up and removed more than 100 buried drums and 40 yards of contaminated soil at a property in the Wingfield Pointe subdivision. The drums contained elevated levels of two hazardous substances, and the soil had high levels of another, arsenic.

Now, the federal agency has slapped Chesapeake with a nearly $1 million bill for the clean-up. It says the city operated a dump there for years, failed to safely close it in the late 1960s, and allowed a residential development to be built directly over it .

The city is refusing to pay. Attorneys for the city say some of the EPA’s clean-up was unnecessary. One lawyer wrote to the EPA in January that the city should have been given an opportunity to do the removal work itself.

The attorney called it “shameful” that the EPA spent thousands of dollars tracking down evidence of Chesapeake’s role in running the landfill, when the “city’s historic involvement in the operation of the site has not been denied, and was well known.” She said that the claim has “discouraged, to say the least,” the relationship between the city and EPA.

Nevertheless, the city has put $965,323 in a reserve account in case it has to pay. Both Chesapeake and EPA officials say negotiations are ongoing.

“We will do what is right,” said Chesapeake City Attorney Ron Hallman. “If we owe anything, we will pay it. We think the claim is excessive.”

The EPA is declining to comment on details of the case. But the agency has pushed to recover the money from Chesapeake for more than six months, city and federal documents show.

In September, the agency laid out its entire liability case against Chesapeake, which was compiled after several years worth of interviews with witnesses whose names were being protected.

“The city and its predecessor, Norfolk County, operated a municipal dump for decades, freely allowing anything and everything to be dumped there,” wrote Cynthia T. Weiss, assistant regional counsel for the EPA. “Years later, the city allowed a residential development to be built directly atop the dump.”

According to EPA documents, Norfolk County operated the Wingfield Pointe site as a dump from the early 1940s to the 1960s. Chesapeake took over the operations of the dump after it became a city in 1963, federal documents claim.

The EPA said Chesapeake operated the dump even though it did not own any of the property. The city entered into no written agreements for the property except one six-month lease in 1967, according to the federal documents.

Read the rest of this article here: http://hamptonroads.com/2009/04/epa-bills-chesapeake-1-million-wingfield-cleanup It's an interesting read.

Searching for Connections

Water certainly can flow uphill if there's enough force behind it and it's in a channel of some sort. How else can you take a shower in an upstairs bathroom? Water can also flow south to north...ask the folks in ND currently fighting flood waters from the Red River. I don't believe I've read anything yet that speaks to the rock formations and subsequent water-flow patterns as far underground as VUI drilled its exploratory holes that would preclude either possibility. .

We agree that VUI should seek outside investigation of its neighbors' well contamination ASAP. We agree that the source of the contamination needs to be identified. But we're not so sure that VUI will be exonerated and it's that possibility which will prevent VUI from being the "good neighbor" it claims it wants to be. ...SB

Published By The Edtorial Board
Danville Register & Bee:
March 29, 2009

Uranium mining opponents scored a victory of sorts this week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would study and review up to 200 applications for surface coal mines, including controversial mountaintop removal mines.

The EPA wants to know if the proposed mines will harm streams and wetlands.

To those opposed to uranium mining in Pittsylvania County, mountaintop removal mines are an example of what can happen when something that is legal and done within the framework of government rules and regulations still causes problems for people, their communities and the environment.

By extension, those opposed to uranium mining believe a similar thing could happen if Virginia eventually lifts its moratorium. Virginia Uranium Inc. could follow state and federal rules and regulations and still wind up creating problems for local people and the environment of the Dan River Region.

Virginia Uranium Inc. is years away from being able to mine the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County and it’s already being accused of causing environmental problems.

Sheva resident Allen Gross believes that the company’s exploratory test drilling has caused lead levels in his well water to rise. The test drilling has been used to “map” the underground deposits of uranium at Coles Hill, helping VUI determine the quantity and quality of the underground ore deposit.

“Wells with reported lead levels in the water are all in geologically and hydrologically isolated areas that are unaffected by activities conducted by our company,” said VUI geologist and spokesman Patrick Wales. He pointed out that VUI’s test drilling and the Gross family well were separated by creeks and ridges of land.

“Water doesn’t flow uphill,” Wales said.

It certainly doesn’t, and it’s unfair to blame VUI for something that it hasn’t done wrong.

At the same time, though, the company shouldn’t miss an opportunity created by this accusation. Since VUI believes that it’s not responsible for increased lead levels in the Gross family well, it should call on the state to find the source of the pollution — if that can be determined.

That would allow Virginia Uranium to publicly exonerate its test drilling program using a third-party investigation, and to teach the community that a lot of different things can affect the quantity and quality of well water.

Virginia Uranium should ask the state to study rising lead levels in a nearby water well. The company certainly shouldn’t have to bear the burden of bad publicity and negative perceptions for something it did not do.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/editorials/danville_editorials/article/searching_for_connections/10026/

Is Uranium DOA? Official: HRI’s Churchrock Uranium Project on Hold

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

CHURCHROCK — A proposed in-situ leach uranium mining project near Churchrock is on hold, according to Rick Van Horn, chief operating officer of Uranium Resources Inc.

With spot uranium prices down, Uranium Resources Inc., parent company of HRI-Churchrock Inc., is still awaiting a decision from the 10th Circuit Court in Denver regarding an underground injection control permit.

On Dec. 5, 2006, Hydro Resources Inc, or HRI, entered into a joint venture with a wholly owned subsidiary of Itochu, one of Japan’s largest trading companies, to develop its Churchrock property in New Mexico. Under terms of the joint venture, both parties had until April 2, 2007, to make a preliminary investment decision and over the past two years, mutually agreed to extend the date for the decision.

However, earlier this month URI received notification that Itochu had terminated the joint venture.

“We decided mutually that it was in both of our best interests for them to, at this time, pull out. Uranium prices are depressed, we’re still awaiting the court decision, and right now the project is on hold until we get that decision,” Van Horn said Wednesday.

“It basically gives us the whole project back. Instead of having a partner in there, we’ve got the whole thing back and we look at it as a positive,” he said. The company could seek other investors.

Asked whether uranium prices and the lawsuit were factors in Itochu’s decision, Van Horn said, “It might have, but I can’t speak for them. I think the big thing is that it was not going anywhere, mostly because of the uranium prices and the general malaise in the market, and the inability of anybody to get financing for anything.

“The only two industries that are going well are Walmart and McDonalds,” he said jokingly.

Approximately 70 million pounds of uranium reserves are known to exist on the Navajo Reservation, Van Horn said.

“Right now, it’s a very valuable asset for the Nation. The thing that we have to get around is the ban that the Nation has on uranium mining.”

Through legislation sponsored by Resources Committee Chairman George Arthur, the Navajo Nation imposed a ban on uranium mining and milling within Navajo Indian Country in April 2005. The same year, New Mexico Environment Department received a request from HRI for an underground injection control permit to operate a uranium in-situ leach mine in Section 8.

As a result, NMED formally requested U.S. Environmental Protection Agency make a decision on the Indian Country status of Section 8 land, with the underlying issue being which was the appropriate agency to consider the permit application.

On Feb. 6, 2007, EPA found that Churchrock Chapter, which includes Section 8, is a “dependent Indian community” and that EPA was the proper authority to issue the permit. The case was appealed to the 10th Circuit in Denver, which has yet to rule on oral arguments heard last May from attorneys for HRI and attorneys for Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining.

According to URI’s year-end report for 2008 released March 10, revenue for the fourth quarter was $2.2 million, a $6 million decrease compared with $8.2 million during the fourth quarter of 2007, as significantly fewer pounds of uranium were sold at a lower price per pound. The net loss for the fourth quarter was $7.5 million.

During the quarter, URI sold 38,700 pounds of uranium, a 65.8 percent decrease from the 113,000 pounds sold in last year’s fourth quarter. URI received an average selling price per pound of $56.76 in the fourth quarter, down from an average per pound price of $72.72 in the 2007 quarter.

Uranium spot prices, or short-term, were at $42.50 Wednesday. “There’s also a long-term price and that’s at $70 right now. It depends on what your contracts are like.

We have no contracts for New Mexico. We are currently producing in Texas and we produce into an average of the long-term and short-term price,” Van Horn said.

“We are only producing at the Kingsville site. Rosita has been shut in and is under restoration, and Vasquez has been shut in and is under restoration. All three are in Texas.

Kingsville, we are currently producing out of some well fields and restoring in others.”

URI has closed an exploration office in Corpus Christi, Texas, and has consolidated it into the Kingsville operation.

The company’s Albuquerque office also has been closed.

“The good news is we’re still here. We have cash enough to last for two years without any additional infusions of cash and to continue the restoration activities we are conducting here in Texas. We are also working with Navajo EPA to do some work on Section 17 in Churchrock as far as some characterization of possible legacy contamination,” Van Horn said.

Though HRI/URI did not put the contamination there, “We are funding a study to see what is there. I think that’s an important thing with all of these legacy issues. There are a lot of numbers that are flying around and a lot of supposed facts. We need to get out and get the facts: What is the contamination? What is critical? What needs to be done to protect the health and safety of the people in community, and the people in New Mexico in general.”

Van Horn said HRI applied for and was issued the permit by the state, but the project can’t proceed until they get a court decision on who has the authority to issue the permit, the state or EPA, based on whether the proposed site is in Indian Country or not Indian Country.

“We have our NRC license. The only permit we’re lacking right now is the underground injection control permit. We have been issued one but we couldn’t act on it,” he said.

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2009/03March/032709isuraniumdoa.html

Impact EPA Mining Permit Review : Coal Mining Companies Worried About Mine Permit Reviews

March 27th, 2009

The Obama administration’s decision to hold coal mining permits to a high environmental standard has struck a note of economic fear in Appalachia, where mining — including the kind of mining that blows up mountaintops — has been a shield against hard times afflicting the rest of the nation.

On Tuesday, the EPA announced it will take a closer look at 150 to 200 coal mine permit applications under review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. EPA singled out two proposed surface mines in West Virginia and one in Kentucky as a start.

In a break from Bush administration policies, EPA is asserting its authority under the federal Clean Water Act to scrutinize plans to dump mine waste into streams and wetlands.

The National Mining Association estimates EPA’s reviews could threaten 77,500 coal mining jobs and 385 million tons of annual production in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, Ohio and the Illinois Basin.

But environmentalists see EPA’s decision as an opportunity to end mountaintop removal mining and the region’s dependency on coal, and to spark new jobs by developing renewable energy sources.

Mountaintop removal mining is an efficient but destructive practice where ridgetops are blown up to expose multiple coal seams. Tons of rock, dirt and debris are typically dumped in fills that bury valleys and streams.

Destroying the mountains “also destroys the economic potential of Appalachia,” said Matthew Wasson of North Carolina-based Appalachian Voices. “This decision rekindles hope for a new economy in Appalachia built around green jobs and renewable energy.”

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin met with White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to clarify EPA’s intentions.

“I told them we are looking for a balance between the environment and the economy, and they assured me that they will work with us to find that balance,” the Democratic governor said in a prepared statement. Manchin said state officials would meet with EPA and coal companies to seek agreements on the applications.

West Virginia is the nation’s second largest coal producer and mine operators like to say coal keeps the lights on. More than 90 percent of the state’s electricity and about half of the nation’s comes from burning coal.

Coal helps keep West Virginia state government in business.

Despite its long history of poverty, West Virginia has largely avoided the budget deficits facing other states because of soaring coal prices that exceeded $120 a ton last year. Coal prices are now declining, but state budget planners still predict total severance tax collections will surpass $400 million this year. The state is expected to receive $320 million of that, or about 8 percent of West Virginia’s total general revenue collections.

Elsewhere in Appalachia, Kentucky and Virginia — which are less dependent on energy production — haven’t fared as well. Both have been dealing with large budget deficits.

Of the estimated 550 mines in West Virginia, 44 percent are surface mines. The importance of surface mining has increased in recent decades as thick underground seams have been mined out. Rock and dirt not used to reclaim the mines are dumped in valley fills.

“There isn’t very much coal production that can be done in a state without a valley fill,” said Randy Huffman, secretary of West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Rory McIlmoil, an activist with West Virginia’s Coal River Mountain Watch, said environmentalists now have at least a six-month window to strengthen arguments for the creation of green jobs in alternative energy industries.

Restoring former mine lands, building wind farms and developing sustainable forestry jobs are all part of the solution — and all jobs that strip miners can be trained to take, McIlmoil said.

Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor predicts economic devastation for the eastern half of his state, the nation’s third-largest coal producer behind Wyoming and West Virginia.

“We would lose half our production in east Kentucky,” Caylor said. That adds up to more than 46 million tons from mines that employ more than 6,000 miners earning $354 million in direct wages.

Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear said he too is seeking to clarify EPA’s intentions so permits could be reviewed and issued more quickly.

Retired underground coal miner Chuck Nelson said coal mining and environmental protection are not an either-or proposition.

“We worked underground before mountaintop removal. We had 68,000 coal miners in West Virginia, and that was in 1977,” said Nelson, 53, a member of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. “They don’t have to blow the mountaintops off and destroy the communities to get the coal.”

The coal industry has been bracing for tougher permitting standards since March 2007 when a federal judge in West Virginia ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hadn’t done enough to determine if valley fills would damage water resources downstream. The ruling was later overturned.

Mountaintop mining became a topic of debate during last year’s presidential elections when both candidates said they opposed the practice. John McCain said he would ban it. Then-candidate Barack Obama said he had concerns but stopped short of calling for a ban.

Industry executives have consistently told Wall Street that opening new underground mines and other actions would largely stave off production problems until 2010. And they’ve insisted mountaintop mining will continue in the region, even if it takes more time and money to get permits — and raises the price of coal and electricity.

U.S. Senators Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) moved Wednesday to end the practice. Their Appalachia Restoration Act on Wednesday that would amend the Clean Water Act to prohibit mining wastes from filling streams.

http://paguntaka.org/2009/03/27/impact-epa-mining-permit-review-coal-mining-companies-worried-about-mine-permit-reviews/