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

Ore From Last Uranium Boom Still Scattered on Colorado Land

By Joe Hanel
Herald Denver Bureau

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

PARADOX - From the road, it looks like a pile of gray rocks. But a closer inspection reveals flakes of yellow and lime green - telltale signs of uranium ore.

The pile and others like it make up some of the 5,000 tons of uranium ore that remains on the surface from Colorado's last boom, according to a Department of Energy environmental study.

Five thousand tons of rock is only a few months of production from a mid-sized mine, but it's enough to concern Travis Stills, a Durango lawyer leading the legal challenge to the Energy department's plan to lease Colorado land for uranium mining.

The Office of Legacy Management, which issues leases on federal uranium lands, cleaned up all its old mine sites by 2001, according to court filings by Andrew Smith, a Justice department lawyer who is representing the OLM.

Piles of waste rock at uranium mines could cause trouble if water runs off them into creeks, said Angelique Diaz, an environmental engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency's Denver office. The piles are radioactive and give off radon gas, but not in significant quantities, Diaz said.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety cleans mines that were abandoned before 1977, using mostly federal dollars but also money from state taxes on gas, oil and coal production.

With 17,000 abandoned mines in Colorado, the priority goes to open mine shafts that might be dangerous for hikers, said Loretta Pineda, director of the abandoned mines program.

"I do have some environmental funding, but it's pretty limited," Pineda said.

The BLM has asked the state to put several old mines in the Paradox Valley on its list, Pineda said. She had a project on tap near Uravan a few years ago, but it was put on hold when people started staking claims in the area. Anyone who opened a new mine would have to clean up the old pollution first.

For Stills, the cleanup of the old mines should happen now.

"Five thousand tons of uranium ore sitting on the surface should be somebody's priority," he said.

http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2009/08/11/Ore_from_last_uranium_boom_still_scattered_on_Colorado_land/

Water and Energy BHA Report - 1979

A comprehensive look at how aquifers are formed, the toxic state of water and the implications to humans and animals of Uranium mining.

http://www.republicoflakotah.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/water_and_energy_bha_1979.pdf

–Excerpts–
-Uranium tailings move easily in wind or water because they are fine particles like sand. But they are very different from most sand, because they retain 85% of the radioactivity of the original uranium ore.

-The radiation is measured in “picocuries” per liter of water; a “picocurie” isn’t much, but the U.S. Public Health Service limit for safe water is only 3 picocuries per liter of water.
About 60 water samples taken in the Southwest had from 0.5 to 65 picocuries of radium per liter. Several streams have been declared unfit for irrigation and for drinking by stock and humans. Unfortunately, animals can’t read, and they continue to drink (and die) from dangerous streams.
Another pollutant, selenium, was present in wells near the United Nuclear/Homestake mill at levels 340 times the recommended maximum for drinking water. Studies show that water from mill activities move from streams to aquifers, and that effects on groundwater are “marked.”

-To make things worse, tailings are often stored mixed with water, so they move unexpectedly in a flood or if the dam used to hold them breaks. there have been over a dozen tailings-dam breaks in the U.S., none of which has been cleaned up. The biggest was a spill at the United Nuclear mill in Church Rock, N.M. in July 1979.

The dam break spread 100 million gallons of tailings and water for 50 miles down a river, despite the fact that the dam was “of the newest and safest type approved by federal and state agencies.” Radioactive readings were more than 6,000 times the drinking water standard.

-In 1962, the problem was aggravated by spilling 200 tons of tailings, much of which washed 25 miles then sank into the Angostura Reservoir. Current plans for moving the tailigs will reduce the release of radiation into the air and the Cheyenne, but will not stop seepage through the ground — only slow it down.

http://www.republicoflakotah.com/?p=1678

What Happens When Oxygen and Carbonate Ions Meet Uranium?

Well, see for yourself!

Our friend Mark Krueger lives near Goliad, TX. Recently we've published on this blog some of Mark's remarks and questions submitted in response to various Victoria Advocate articles that have addressed serious well-water contamination in and around the Goliad site. Sound familiar? Like Coles Hill, the Goliad site currently is not being mined actively but there has been extensive exploratory drilling. However, unlike Coles Hill, for which open-pit mining is being considered, the Goliad site would utilize "in-situ" mining. Still, at this stage of the process in both places, exploratory core samples have been taken...holes have been drilled deep into the ground.

When posing question after question regarding the source(s) of their well contamination, and hearing explanations which must be "industry standard talking points" like "water can't flow uphill", "it can't be our fault" and others just as hollow, Mark decided to try to duplicate, as closely as possible (albeit on a much smaller scale), the process utilized in "in situ" mining (and other mining processes) in which a "benign lixiviant" ("a harmless, eco-friendly liquid medium", according to the mining industry) is injected into the bore holes (and the aquifers) to force the ore to separate from the desired metal so that the metal can be recovered. Mark sought advice for performing his experiment from Dr. Richard Abitz, a nationally known geo-chemist and environmental scientist whose resume` can be found here , in order to make it as realistic as possible. The result is nothing less than stunning.

Using swimming pool chemicals - industrial grade hydrogen peroxide and soda ash (similar to baking soda) - and "Goliad sand"...normal sand taken from a well several hundred yards from where many "bore holes" are located...Mark demonstrates what happens when oxygen meets uranium and its underground friends such as radon gas, lead, arsenic, molybdenum, selenium and many other elements. Although uranium and other things do exist underground naturally, they have been without oxygen for a long time so they are at rest. In the presence of oxygen, however, these things become mobile, so they can travel with water. Mark asks, "Will this stuff travel outside the mining zone? They say it won't. It has happened before. It's called an 'excursion'. " Excursion? Talk about an industry misnomer..."excursion" sounds like an afternoon spent rolling down the river on an old-fashioned paddle-wheeler riverboat.

You'll need to watch both videos to get the full impact...Part 1 sets up the experiment while Part 2 is the "show"...or should I say "show-stopper"?

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW4ZTgIApGY

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G3j-mvSW00

Thanks, Mark, for sharing your information with us and for all of your hard work in Texas!