SCC Seminar In Hurt, VA

Gregg has reported that although attendance was small, the anti-mining message was very well received.

SCC would like to thank the article's author, John Crane, for including in the article the news that the Medical Society of Virginia has adopted a Resolution supporting the continuation of the Commonwealth's current moratorium on uranium mining.

The Danville-Pittsylvania Academy of Medicine submitted a resolution at the Medical Society's 2008 Annual Meeting & Educational Symposium in Williamsburg, VA on October 10-12, which encouraged continuing the moratorium on uranium mining. The state organization amended and strengthened the original resolution and voted to support the continued moratorium.

Published: October 30, 2008

Marie Towler was one of a handful of Hurt residents that showed up Thursday night at Hurt Elementary School to check out Southside Concerned Citizens’ anti-mining seminar.

Towler and her husband, who also attended the seminar, have heard conflicting opinions around town regarding plans by Virginia Uranium Inc. to mine and mill a uranium deposit six miles northeast of Chatham.

“We don’t know anything about the issue,” Marie Towler said before the presentation. “One’s got this opinion, another has another. I don’t know enough to have a view yet.”

Towler, however, said she doesn’t feel safe with the idea of a mining-and-milling operation in Chatham.

“Knowing what I know, I wouldn’t support it,” Towler said, adding she is concerned of the mining’s potential effects on her children and grandchildren.

VUI seeks a study from the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission to determine whether uranium mining can be done safely in the commonwealth. A proposal for a similar study was tabled by a committee in the General Assembly earlier this year.

Gregg Vickrey, head of SCC’s Chatham-Pittsylvania County chapter, showed photos of open-pit mining and a DVD of videotaped amateur footage of a 1996 flood in the Chatham area. The video shows flooding at Coles Hill.

Vickrey said the video gives a clue as to how heavy rains would cause a uranium mine’s holding ponds to overflow and contaminate the Banister River and water supply. In addition, VUI would not be able to stop rainwater from getting into open mining pits, seeping into groundwater and entering water sources from there, he said.

Vickrey also said The Medical Society of Virginia has adopted a resolution to support continuing the state’s moratorium on uranium mining. The moratorium has been in effect since the early 1980s.

Contact John R. Crane at jcrane@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7987.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/few_hurt_residents_attend_seminar/7160/

Ambrosia Lake Uranium Tailings Pile

Inside this geometric mound, with a skin of coarsely crushed rock, is a demolished uranium mill and its radioactive tailings. The mill was buried in 1992 by the Department of Energy, one of 24 uranium mill tailings sites in the US that are being remediated as part of the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project (UMTRA). The site covers approximately 196 acres of this remote valley north of Grants, where several uranium mining sites exist, including one still-functioning uranium plant. The mill at this site was built in 1957, operated by the Phillips Petroleum Company. It was later bought by the United Nuclear Company, which operated at the site until the early 1980s. As at some other UMTRA sites, the DOE has installed carved granite warning monuments (resembling tombstones) around the unfenced mound.

http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/NM3000/

Ambrosia Lake (Phillips Petroleum) Mill Site

This article and the 2 below it all relate to the same place. This one, from the Dept of Energy, was last modified in October, 2005. The other 2 were written in 2008, the first in March, 2008 and the 2nd in October, 2008. A photo of the tailings mound is above.


Location: The Phillips mill site is located in the Ambrosia Lake Valley about 25 miles north of Grants, New Mexico. It is one of two uranium mills that were operated in the valley. A total of five mills were built between December 1956 and December 1959 in the Ambrosia Lake district of the uranium mining area known as the Grants mineral belt, which extends from near Albuquerque, New Mexico, westward for about 100 miles across the southern margin of the San Juan Basin.

Background: Phillips Petroleum Company began construction of the mill in 1957, and it entered operation in mid 1958. The company had signed a contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in September 1957 for a mill at Grants, New Mexico. The original mill site covered about 200 acres. Over time, about 570 additional acres were impacted by the spreading of radioactively contaminated debris from the mill tailings pile by wind and rainwater erosion. A conventional alkaline leach process was used at the mill from June 1958 to April 1963. During its operating years, the mill processed about 1,800 tons of ore per day that averaged 0.23 percent U₃O₈, and generated some 3 million tons of tailings. Ore for the mill came mainly from underground mines in the Ambrosia Lake district. United Nuclear Fuels Corporation (UNC) purchased the Phillips mill and uranium mine properties in February 1963, and the AEC uranium procurement contract with Phillips was transferred to UNC. In March 1963, ore processing at the Phillips mill was ended and the mill was closed by mid year. In June 1995, UNC arranged for toll milling of its ore at the nearby Homestake-Sapin mill in which UNC was a limited partner. About 400,000 tons of tailings materials from the Phillips mill site were eventually used by UNC for backfilling mines, and in early 1981 about 2.6 million tons of tailings-pile materials remained at the mill site. The tailings lie on unconsolidated valley fill material. A thick, impervious shale formation separates the tailings from the confined groundwater aquifers. Contamination of the aquifers by the tailings material is highly unlikely. The Phillips mill did not operate after March 1963, though it was maintained on a stand-by basis. From the mid 1970s until the Phillips mill site was permanently closed in 1982, a resin ion exchange (IX) plant to recover uranium from waste mine water was operated in the main mill building. This operation did not increase the size of the tailings pile stored at the mill site. The IX product was treated at the nearby United Nuclear-Homestake uranium mill at Grants, New Mexico.

UMTRA Surface Remediation: Phase I remedial activities comprised the construction of decontamination facilities, removal of asbestos materials, demolition of mill buildings, and other site preparation activities. This work was completed between July 1987 and April 1989. In Phase II, contaminated materials, including structural debris from the dismantled mill, soil, and other radioactive materials from the site, were placed in the existing tailings pile. Cleaned up areas were backfilled with clean soil, re-contoured for good drainage, and re-vegetated. The north portion of the tailings pile was “folded” onto the top of the south portion of the original pile, burying the contaminated material added to the pile. Cleanup of windblown material began in 1994. During the project, 5 vicinity properties associated with this mill site were cleaned up.

Disposal Area: The final tailings pile, consisting of mill tailings with the added contaminated materials, was stabilized in place and became the site disposal cell. A multilayered soil-and-rock cap varying from 3.5 to 4.0 feet in thickness covers the cell to assure cell longevity, control radon emanation, and protect against erosion: a 2.5 foot thick compacted sandy-clay layer serves as the radon barrier and minimizes rain water infiltration and potential leaching of contaminated material; a 6-inch thick, a granular bedding layer of crushed-stone protects the radon barrier; and an erosion-protection layer of up to 12 inches of riprap material tops the cell. The disposal cell was closed in July 1995. It was licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in September 1998. The Phillips mill site came under a general license for custody and long-term care in 1998, when NRC agreed that the site met the cleanup standards and accepted the proposed long-term surveillance plan.

Responsibility for Remediation: U.S. Government, 90 percent ; State of New Mexico, 10 percent.

Stewardship: The Phillips Ambrosia Lake disposal cell site is being managed under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Long-Term Surveillance and Monitoring Program in accordance with the approved site specific plan.

Groundwater Program: No groundwater remediation was performed under the UMTRA program at the Phillips mill site, and none is planned. Groundwater monitoring is not required, as the supplemental standards (Title 10, CFR, Part 192.22) have been applied for this site. The uppermost aquifer at the site is considered a “limited use” aquifer and is not suitable for drinking water nor a source of irrigation water because of low yield.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/umtra/ambrosia_title1.html

Navajos Wary About Uranium Mining at Ambrosia Lake

Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 28, 2008; A02

AMBROSIA LAKE, N.M. -- Twenty years after uranium mining ceased in New Mexico amid plummeting prices for the ore, global warming and the soaring cost of oil are renewing interest in nuclear power -- and in the state's uranium belt.

At least five companies are seeking state permits to mine the uranium reserves, estimated at 500 million pounds or more, and Uranium Resources Inc. (URI), a Texas-based company, wants to reopen a uranium mill in Ambrosia Lake.

Industry officials say a uranium boom could mean thousands of jobs and billions in mineral royalties and taxes for the state.

But the deposits are largely in and around Navajo land, and the industry’s poor record on health and safety as it extracted tons of the ore in past decades has soured many Navajos on uranium mining. In 2005, the Navajo Nation banned uranium mining and milling on its land, and thousands of tribe members are receiving or seeking federal compensation for the health effects of past uranium exposure.

Like many Navajos who worked in the mines, Larry J. King didn’t know then that there was anything dangerous about it. “We had no respirators; you’d have sweat running down your face with the uranium dust getting in your ears, nose and mouth,” said King, who surveyed mine tunnels from 1975 to 1982. “You couldn’t help but swallow it.”

During mining’s peak, from the early 1950s to the early 1980s, about 400 million pounds of uranium were extracted from the region. At the end of the boom, around 1984, the price of uranium languished below $10 a pound. Mines shut down, and the United States began importing nearly all of its uranium, with the bulk coming now from Canada, Russia and Australia. But by last summer, the price had rebounded to a record high of $136 a pound.

Though the mines created numerous jobs and substantial royalties for the Navajo and Laguna tribes, the decades of extraction took a heavy toll: lung cancer, kidney disease, birth defects and other ailments at notably high levels among miners and families who lived among piles of uranium tailings — the ground-up waste from milling — and even used the material to build their homes.

All but one of the major companies now seeking to mine in New Mexico are newcomers to the state and have promised to do a better job than their predecessors. In addition, pending state legislation would require them to deposit a small percentage of their profits in a “legacy fund” to clean up existing uranium contamination.

But King said, “I don’t believe them one bit.”

He blames his recent health problems on uranium. He remembers July 16, 1979, when more than 90 million gallons of uranium-contaminated water burst through the dam of a tailings holding pond and into the Puerco River running by his land. And he remembers seeing his cattle drop dead from, he thinks, drinking polluted mine runoff.

Another former uranium miner, Milton Head, 69, describes similar effects on people and livestock. “Stubby Simpson was a picture of health, didn’t smoke or drink, then he got lung cancer and lasted six months,” Head said of another former miner. “Steers would turn yellow, their horns and hooves would slough off, like they were just drying up.”

Head, who is not Navajo, is all for uranium as a fuel source but does not trust the federal government to regulate the industry. He lives a few blocks from a former uranium mill that is now a Superfund site.

Teddy Nez, a Navajo, lives near a 40-foot-tall pile of uranium tailings. Little ground vegetation grows in the parched climate.

“You’re breathing uranium right now,” Nez said as dust swirled through the air.

There are more than 1,000 abandoned uranium mines and several mill sites in the region, according to the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit public interest group that focuses on energy development and natural resources. Chris Shuey, director of the group’s Uranium Impact Assessment Program, says three-quarters of the sites have not been cleaned up.

None of URI’s holdings are on the Navajo reservation, though there is some intersection with Navajo private allotted lands. Jurisdiction in the area is a complicated web of mineral and water rights underlying a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal holdings.

URI Chief Operating Officer Richard Van Horn said the Navajo tribe’s uranium mining ban could limit the company’s plans but would not stop mining in the region.

Along with conventional mining, in which uranium-laden ore is taken out of the ground and milled, URI plans to use a process called in situ recovery mining. The ore is left in the ground, and oxygenated water is injected into uranium-laden aquifers to essentially bond to the mineral and pump it to the surface.

While the process causes much less waste and surface disruption, opponents worry that it will contaminate the water supply since it involves mobilizing uranium within the aquifer.

URI’s New Mexico operations director, Randy Foote, counters that the area’s water is already not potable and that the company would be required to return the aquifer to its baseline state before ending operations.

“Uranium is actually relatively benign,” Foote said. “All the wells out here have small amounts of uranium in them.”

http://nmviewpoint.typepad.com/new_mexico_viewpoint/2008/03/at-least-five-c.html

Ambrosia Lake [Uranium] Tailings Reclaimation Nearly Completed

Gallup Independent

Oct 28, 2008

By Kevin Killough
Staff writer

GRANTS, NM — In about a month, the largest uranium tailings pile in the country will be officially reclaimed, making it safe for 1,000 years without any maintenance. The pile rises like a mesa from the floor of the Ambrosia Lake valley. Heavy machinery continues to climb the rock-covered slopes, finishing up the final tasks before the site can be turned over the Department of Energy.

The designers of the $100 million project went to great lengths to ensure the safety and security of the site. Even if it rained 21 inches in 24 hours, which would destroy Grants and leave Ambrosia Lake under 15 feet of water, the public wouldn’t need to worry about contamination from the tailings pile.

“If you see a guy building an ark, you want to come to the tailings pile,” said Terry Fletcher, president of Rio Algom LLC, who has overseen the reclamation project. It’s a highlight of his career in mining, milling and reclamation that spans 36 years.

Fletcher wants the public to know of the accomplishment, because he says that a lot of people are under the mistaken impression that uranium companies abandoned the toxic tailings piles. In fact, every single mill and tailings pile has been reclaimed or is in the process of being reclaimed, he said.

Tailings piles are common to many types of mining.

Chemical solutions are used in the milling process to separate the desired mineral from the mined ores. The remaining moist sand is left in piles. If not properly contained, they can be dangerous for the public and environment. Uranium tailings have the added hazard of radon gas emissions.

Today, mills are much more regulated, and processes prevent the contamination that has left uranium mining with a bad reputation. Even though no companies are making money off uranium milling in the state, Rio Algom, in a partnership with Kerr-McGee, swallowed the cost of the reclamation as part of what Fletcher says is the companies’ policy of sustainable development.

“It’s what responsible mining companies do,” Fletcher said.

A bridge across the highway stands as a testament that uranium companies today operate with an eye toward safety first. After assessing the potential for an accident with earth moving equipment crossing the road, the company decided to build a $1 million bridge to use during the reclamation processes. No government regulations required this.

“It’s just one of the things the company does that it doesn’t have to,” Fletcher explained.

The bridge pales in comparison to the massive tailings reclamation project. First the tailings were moved on top of a three-layer lining. The middle layer is a mesh that detects any leakage moving between the top and bottom layers. After reclamation, the DOE will constantly monitor the detection system for any leaks into the groundwater and stop any problems in the unlikely event they should occur.

On top, the pile was covered with a clay layer that is 20-feet thick on the slopes. The 30-foot high slopes were then covered with thick rock layers. The largest rocks were placed at the bottom of the slope where the water will be running the fastest. This will stop the sides from being eroded away. Finally, the pile will be covered with dirt, and as vegetation grows over time, the pile will look almost like a natural formation.

“It’ll look like a flatter mesa than nature made,” Fletcher said.

The piles give off about two-thirds less radon emissions than what occurs naturally in this part of the state. This month, Fletcher said, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspected Rio Algom’s pile and gave it an A+ rating.

The mines that supplied the mill with ore have also been reclaimed at about $50,000 each. There’s not much to see at a reclaimed mine. At one time large head frames loomed over the shaft, lowering and raising men and materials. Now, reclaimed mines are just an area of grass and maybe a tree where cows graze.

“That area there you’re looking at was one of the major mining sites in New Mexico,” Fletcher said, pointing to what looks like just a part of the landscape.

Other problems created by the obsolete practices of past mining continue to require cleanup efforts, especially the many “dog holes” that independent miners left behind. The groundwater contamination from some tailings piles is a whole other cleanup effort. But the completion of the Rio Algom pile reclamation is a good sign that past mistakes are on their way to being corrected.

Kevin Killough blogs at http://gallupnm.blogspot.com

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2008/10october/102808tailings.html

Air Force: Nuclear Missile Silo Fire Went Undetected for 5 Days

From the "You've Got to Be Kidding Me" department:

By DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

DENVER – A fire caused $1 million worth of damage at an unmanned underground nuclear launch site last spring, but the Air Force didn't find out about it until five days later, an Air Force official said Thursday.

The May 23 fire burned itself out after an hour or two, and multiple safety systems prevented any threat of an accidental launch of the Minuteman III missile, Maj. Laurie Arellano said. She said she was not allowed to say whether the missile was armed with a nuclear warhead at the time of the fire.

Arellano said the Air Force didn't know a fire had occurred until May 28, when a repair crew went to the launch site — about 40 miles east of Cheyenne, Wyo., and 100 miles northeast of Denver — because a trouble signal indicated a wiring problem.

She said the flames never entered the launch tube where the missile stood and there was no danger of a radiation release.

The fire, blamed on a faulty battery charger, burned a box of shotgun shells, a shotgun and a shotgun case that were kept in the room, Arellano said. A shotgun is a standard security weapon at missile silos.

Arellano said the battery chargers at all U.S. missile launch site have been replaced.

She said the incident wasn't reported sooner because of the complexity of the investigation.

The damage from the fire was estimated at $1 million, including the cost of replacing damaged equipment and cleanup.

An Air Force report of the incident released Thursday found flaws in the technical orders for assembling battery charger parts, inspection procedures and modifications of the launch complex ventilation system. It was also critical of the presence of flammable materials.

Cheyenne Mayor Jack Spiker, who said he learned of the incident when contacted by a reporter Thursday, said the fire doesn't undermine his confidence in the safety of the missile operations.

"It's rare that they have an accident, and the accidents have never really, that I know of, amounted to much because of the safety devices that are built into the system," he said.

The revelation was the latest in a string of embarrassing missteps involving the nation's nuclear arsenal. In 2006, four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan, and in 2007, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped missiles when it flew between Air Force bases in North Dakota and Louisiana.

The Air Force announced last week it was setting up a new Global Strike Command to better manage its nuclear-capable bombers and missiles.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081030/ap_on_re_us/missile_silo_fire

Bush Violates Law Protecting Grand Canyon From Uranium Mining

Mining Claims Put a Stranglehold on Iconic Canyon

WASHINGTON - October 27 - The Bush administration allowed Phoenix-based Neutron Energy to stake 20 new mining claims south of the Grand Canyon on August 7, in violation of an emergency Congressional resolution passed seven weeks earlier that declared off limits to mining activity approximately 1 million acres adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park.

A new Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of records generated by the Interior department's Bureau of Land Management unearthed evidence of Neutron Energy's claims, filed in defiance of a Congressional resolution aimed at protecting the Canyon and the Colorado River that flows through it from a surge of uranium mining activity sparked by uranium prices escalating in anticipation of new nuclear power plant construction.

"The Bush administration's Grand Canyon giveaway is a direct violation of the law," said EWG Senior Analyst for Public Lands Dusty Horwitt. "This is the environmental equivalent of a subprime mortgage on the nation's most iconic natural treasure. Mining companies get in cheap today, and the public pays tomorrow for what is certain to be a major environmental disaster."

EWG alerted the public and Congress to the rush for mining rights around the Grand Canyon in an August 2007 report called Mining Law Threatens Grand Canyon, other Natural Treasures. This week's updated analysis by EWG shows that as of October 1, 2008, speculators and mining interests have filed 8,568 mining claims in the area protected by the emergency resolution, compared to 110 claims in January 2003.

A satellite map showing the claims is available here.

Federal documents also show that the administration has illegally processed or approved requests to explore and drill for uranium on at least seven claims in the protected area after the House Natural Resources Committee resolution, passed June 25. The resolution invoked a rarely-used emergency provision to protect a million-acre expanse around the canyon.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, is spearheading legislation that would protect this land permanently. EWG urges Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to include Grijalva's bill in the sweeping public lands package to be considered next month.

The Bush administration has said that it will defy the Congressional resolution. Three conservation organizations -- the Grand Canyon Trust, Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club -- have filed suit to force its compliance.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and a number of conservation organizations have protested the administration's stance.

Napolitano, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have written Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressing concern about the impact the surge in claims would have on the Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for 25 million Americans, including residents of Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

The antiquated 1872 Mining Law leaves the federal government virtually powerless to prevent mining activity on public land, even if mining threatens national parks or precious water resources. Last year, the House passed a comprehensive mining reform bill but the measure stalled in the Senate.

Mining has been the nation's leading source of toxic pollution for nine consecutive years according to the Environmental Protection Agency. (emphasis mine...SB)

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/10/27-15

THE FLAWED ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR POWER

WASHINGTON D.C., October 29, 2008 --/WORLD-WIRE/--“Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets,” says Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, in a recent release, “The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power”. “The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.”


In a recent analysis, “The Nuclear Illusion,” Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out.


The United States, which leads the world with 101,000 megawatts of nuclear-generating capacity, proposes to store radioactive waste from its 104 reactors in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. The cost of this repository, originally estimated at $58 billion in 2001, climbed to $96 billion by 2008. This comes to a staggering $923 million per reactor, assuming no further repository cost increases. (See additional data.)


In the event of a catastrophic accident, every nuclear utility would be required to contribute up to $95.8 million for each licensed reactor to a pool to help cover the accident’s cost. The collective cap on nuclear operator liability is $10.2 billion. Anything above this would be covered by taxpayers.


Another huge cost of nuclear power involves decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Recent estimates show decommissioning costs can reach $1.8 billion per reactor. In addition, the industry must cope with rising construction and fuel expenses. Two years ago, building a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was estimated to cost $2–4 billion. As of late 2008, that figure had climbed past $7 billion, reflecting the scarcity of essential engineering and construction skills in a fading industry.


Nuclear fuel costs have risen even more rapidly. At the beginning of this decade uranium cost roughly $10 per pound. Today it costs more than $60 per pound. The higher uranium price reflects the need to move to deeper mines, which increases the energy needed to extract ore, and shift to lower-grade ore. The high cost of nuclear power also explains why so few plants are being built compared with a generation ago. In a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider projects an imminent decline in world nuclear generating capacity. He notes there are currently 439 operating reactors worldwide. To date, 119 reactors have been closed, at an average age of 22 years. If we assume a longer average lifespan of 40 years, then 93 reactors will close between 2008 and 2015. Another 192 will close between 2016 and 2025. The remaining 154 will close after 2025.


Only 36 nuclear reactors are currently under construction worldwide—31 of them in Eastern Europe and Asia. Although there is much talk of building new nuclear plants in the United States, there are none under construction.


Despite all the industry hype about a nuclear future, investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into wind farms each year. And while the world’s nuclear generating capacity is estimated to expand by only 1,000 megawatts this year, wind generating capacity will likely grow by 30,000 megawatts.


For full report visit http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update78.htm

University of Cincinnati Study: Fernald U Processing Plant Was Significant Source of Radon Exposure

These workers at Fernald, located about 60 miles from where I grew up, were exposed to radon from uranium ore, the same stuff that's hauled away from uranium mines...the same stuff that will be hauled from Coles' Hill if it's mined. VUI keeps saying that freshly mined uranium isn't dangerous. SCC keeps saying that the radon (and its progeny) released by freshly mined uranium is very dangerous. This article seems to add credence to SCC's position.

Thursday, October 23, 2008 -

University of Cincinnati scientists say that a recent scientific study of the now-closed Fernald uranium processing plant near Cincinnati has identified a second, potentially more significant source of radon exposure for former workers.

The source — six silos filled with uranium ore in the production area — resulted in relatively high levels of radon exposure to 12 percent of the workers. More than half of the workers were exposed to low levels of radon while working at the site.

“Our findings have scientific and political ramifications,” Susan Pinney, corresponding author of the study, said in a UC press release. “Now we know workers in the plant’s production area prior to 1959 may be at increased risk for developing lung cancer and other exposure-related health problems.”

Third-shift plant workers were most affected, during some years being exposed to three times more harmful radon gas than workers on other shifts, according to the UC study. Researchers say the elevated exposure was the result of decreased air movement and less dispersion of radon gas during the night.

Pinney and Richard Hornung recently their findings in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. It’s the first time on-site radon exposure at the plant has been quantified in workers.

A previous study identified two silos, known by the code name “K-65,” as the only source of radon exposure. The silos were located on the west side of the U.S. Department of Energy Uranium Processing Plant in Fernald.

The Fernald site, in Crosby Township, has since undergone a $4.4 billion cleanup and is now a nature preserve.

“Our original intention was to develop and validate radon exposure estimates for the K-65 silos,” Hornung said. “But when we studied radon tracks on film placed on window glass in the Fernald plant, we found evidence of a second, previously unidentified radon source.”

UC researchers traced the radon to six silos, known by the code name “Q-11,” centrally located near a major production area. The silos were originally used to store high-grade uranium ore and later held by-products from the ore chemical separation process known as raffinate.

“The initial site review conducted by the federal government overlooked the Q-11 silos as a source of radon emissions,” Hornung said. “This second source of radon dominates the total radon exposure from both sources during the period of 1952 to 1958 for workers near the Q-11 silos. Our study revealed that a small number of Fernald workers’ cumulative radon exposures were in the range of underground uranium miners.”

According to company records, 7,143 people worked at the uranium processing plant between 1952 and the plant’s closing in 1989.

This research was funded by the U.S. Public Health Service, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Several medical screening programs are available to former Fernald workers.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/10/20/daily47.html

In Virginia, Uranium and Energy Security

Sooo...if Southside doesn't support uranium mining in Pittsylvania Co., it's supporting "the terrorists" and "evil-doers"?? According to this blogger, the answer is "yes"!


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The chairman of the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, Delegate Terry Kilgore, has announced a public hearing in Richmond on November 6 to launch a study of mining the state’s uranium resource.

“The need for independent American sources of energy is a matter of national security and economic prosperity. We know that Virginia has a significant, high-quality uranium deposit and as Virginians and Americans, we have a responsibility to study the feasibility of mining it safely,” said Delegate Kilgore… “The Coal and Energy Commission conducted a similar study in the eighties and deals regularly with mining issues; it is the Commonwealth’s repository of mining expertise and the right entity to conduct this study. The Commission will work the affected locality and surrounding areas to develop parameters to the study,” Kilgore said.

Pittsylvania County in the southwest part of the state is the site of what’s believed to be the largest deposit of uranium ore in the United States. A locally based company, Virginia Uranium,the Heritage Foundation wrote in August, has been formed to explore its development. If the United States is serious about nuclear energy — and it sure should be — then the study will prove a useful step forward. As Jack Spencer at the Pittsylvania site could provide as much as 110 million pounds of uranium.

This quantity of uranium could supply all 104 nuclear reactors in the United States, which provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, for two years. And we’re not even talking about new technology. Uranium has been mined safely for decades in many global spots, including in New Mexico, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming.

Right now the United States relies on imports (Canada, Australia, Russia) for the vast majority of its uranium supply: 47 million pounds of U3O8 equivalent in 2007, compared to 4 million pounds of domestically derived uranium, according to Department of Energy figures. Daniel Weiss at the Center for American Progress Action Fund says, see, more nuclear power, more energy dependence (h/t Bradford Plummer at TNR).

Nuclear power will not lead to energy independence because the U.S. must import over 90% of its uranium, with nearly one-third coming from Russia. If we double the number of nuclear plants, as McCain has called for, we would become even more dependent on countries that, in McCain’s words, “don’t like us very much.”

How so, with a resource like the Pittsylvania ore available? Unless, of course, you expect environmentalists to block mining and nuclear power as they have in the past, in the process guaranteeing continued energy insecurity.

http://www.shopfloor.org/2008/10/21/in-virginia-uranium-and-energy-security/

AZ Rep. Raul Grijalva Doing His Job re: U Mining

Oct. 22, 2008 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Arizona's spectacular landscape has a strong champion in U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva. The Tucson Democrat, elected in 2002 to the newly created Congressional District 7, has worked to protect pristine places like the Tumacacori Highlands, expand Saguaro National Park and restore riparian areas in southern Arizona.

When northern Arizona was left without effective representation after the indictment of Rep. Rick Renzi, Grijalva stepped in to oppose plans for uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. He is pushing for long-overdue reforms of the 1872 Mining Act: adding environmental protections and ending the giveaway of valuable minerals.

As a former Pima County supervisor, Grijalva went to Congress with a strong sense of the needs of his southern Arizona district. He has gone after them diligently, including education funding, affordable health care and alternative energy.

Grijalva supports comprehensive immigration reform. But he also is a realist, pointing out that it's important just to get moving.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on National Park, Forests and Public Lands, Grijalva has been a persistent critic of the Bush administration's management of public lands. He is releasing a report today, highlighting such concerns as the waiver of environmental protection for construction of the border fence, which led to costly flooding. The document is meant not only as a critique but also as a blueprint for congressional action.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2008/10/22/20081022wed1-22.html

[Uranium Mill] Toxic Plume Spurs Study of Public Health

Remember, VUI wants to add a mill to its mine at Coles Hill. This is a scary story and it's going on now in Colorado.

Uranium mill

By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 10/18/2008 08:14:30 PM MDT

"I almost died twice," said Kathleen Hance, 50, who described her symptoms as leaving her "numb but not paralyzed." For years she worked near the Cotter Corp. uranium mill. ( RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post )

CAÑON CITY — The federal government has begun a required but long-delayed comprehensive review of public health in Cañon City as newly found toxic pollution spreads from a shuttered uranium mill.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry launched the review in response to new data and community concerns that pollution may contribute to unexplained ailments including cancer, miscarriages and neurological problems.

Researchers now are analyzing data in what environmental scientist Teresa Foster called "the first comprehensive public-health assessment" for the city since the government declared the Cotter Corp. mill an environmental disaster.

"We're going to look at the potential for exposure and try to make some conclusions about the potential health impacts from those exposures," Foster said. "We're not saying these were caused by the contamination. We're not at the point where we can make that determination. We're taking the community's concerns very seriously."

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials also are taking a new look at how many residents near the mill may be relying on groundwater for drinking and cooking water. Since 1986, federal authorities have been required to conduct public-health assessments at every "Superfund" cleanup site.

Among concerned residents in Cañon City , a physician's assistant last summer questioned whether some ailments suffered by his patients might be linked to pollution from the mill.

Cotter officials have been contemplating a reopening of their plant to provide yellowcake uranium for an expected national expansion of nuclear power plants.

They point to state studies conducted in the 1990s that found slightly elevated community cancer rates, which were deemed "not statistically significant." And they suspect that the renewed focus on whether the plant has caused health problems might be motivated by a desire to keep it closed.

Cañon City residents "are concerned, and people deserve to have their concerns addressed," said John Hamrick, vice president of milling for Lakewood-based Cotter. "At some point, it's not a concern anymore but an attitude or desire to see us go away. . . . Twenty-five percent of the people can stop just about everything."

New contamination in water

It has been 24 years since the federal government designated the mill a Superfund cleanup site, based on radioactive contamination of air and groundwater drifting away from the 2,600-acre site just south of the city.

Today the cleanup is less than half complete. A new plume of uranium-contaminated groundwater is spreading unchecked from the mill under a golf course toward Cañon City (population 15,850) and the Arkansas River , state documents and Cotter mill operators confirmed.

The hulking mill is one of four facilities in the country capable of converting uranium ore into the yellowcake needed to make nuclear power. (Only one, in Utah , is now in operation.)

Residents near the plant have complained for years about a variety of ailments they believe could be partly a result of exposure to contaminated air or groundwater coming from plant property.

"You do start to wonder," said Jina Harding, 49, who fell last May as she tried to climb out of bed, pain searing from her hips to her ankles.

She suspects groundwater she used to water her garden at her home near the mill might be causing her pain. State health officials assured her and her husband the water was safe.

"We wanted to believe them," she said recently at a new home, farther from the mill, where she spends most of her days in a chair.

A recent report to the state government from a clinic operator raised concerns again.

Physician's assistant Jason Morgan, who runs the walk-in Havens Family Clinic, on May 8 alerted Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials that he had nine female patients who suffer unexplained symptoms, including nausea, weakness and difficulty walking.

A state health toxicologist called him back asking for details. State officials later determined the evidence didn't rise to the level that merits an investigation.

"In order for someone to get contaminated, the groundwater has to migrate from where it is to where they are," said Steve Tarlton, radiation management unit leader for the state. "We do monitoring around that site to detect whether there will be contamination moving off that site."

State regulators are confident people are safe, he said.

Morgan and others are doubtful.

State officials "say they do monitoring, but do they really? Nobody has physically come and met with me or talked with patients or looked at test results," Morgan said. "Wouldn't they like to clear the air about this if their interest is in protecting the public?"

Trawling a Wal-Mart parking lot recently, Patricia Dunne, 42, searched for a close-in space so she could refill her pain-med prescription.

She winced as she hobbled — "stabbing pains, numbness, weakness . . . like 50 pounds on my legs" — shunning the wheelchair carts Wal-Mart offers customers. When she reached a dozen-deep line at the pharmacy, she turned back. Too painful to stand that long, she said, leaving to go home.

She questioned whether mill pollution could have caused her symptoms because she's lived in the area only since 1995, she said. "If it is them, they need to fix us who are sick and prevent others from getting it."

Longtime resident Mary McFarlin, 39, who grew up within 2 miles of the mill, anguishes over whether the pollution could have caused her cancers.

"I can't prove it," McFarlin said, crying in a doctor's office. First diagnosed at age 15, she now has eight tumors, including one in her brain that a doctor recently diagnosed as untreatable.

"I'm ruined over it," she said. "Clean up the waste, for the future, because there's still children living in that area." Government experts "need to take more samples, because the dust from Cotter blows around the area," she said.

"Notice of violation"

In 2005, Cañon City residents took a poll of 239 residents and former residents of an area near the mill and their children. This informal survey found 150 reported cases of cancer, 26 miscarriages, 28 cases of nerve problems, 19 kidney problems, 42 lung problems and more.

Three years later, Morgan at his clinic began to suspect a link between the ailments suffered by his female patients — nerve damage, exhaustion, unexplained pain — and pollution from the plant. Two months after Morgan called for state help, state regulators reported the new plume of contaminated groundwater spreading from the mill toward Cañon City and the river — with no barrier in place to stop it.

State officials in July issued a "notice of violation" giving Cotter 60 days to come up with a remedy. In a separate federal court case this year, Cotter pleaded guilty and was fined $15,000 for its role in the poisoning deaths of more than 40 migratory geese and ducks that came into contact with toxic materials at the mill.

At the site this month, Hamrick surveyed reddish yellow-streaked ponds atop radioactive tailings.

Hamrick and his crew of 30 cleanup workers are hunting for the source of the spreading pollution, he said.

Workers at the mill processed uranium intermittently until it was closed in 2006 — trucking in ore from mines, crushing and grinding the ore, soaking it in acids to strip out uranium yellowcake, then discarding heaps of ore containing toxic and radioactive heavy metals along with acids and other chemicals.

No contaminants have reached the Arkansas River or homes, Hamrick said. The newly found pollution may come from tailings leaching into groundwater, or leaks from old, wooden storage tanks, he said.

No remedy can be put in place now because containing the pollution "depends on what we find" as the source, he said.

Mill crews that conduct required air and groundwater tests — Cotter officials said they feed their readings to state regulators — previously installed underground barriers of clay and iron
filings to try to block contaminated groundwater.

"We've cut stuff off here as best we can," radiation safety chief Jim Cain said.

Processing uranium "can be done safely," Hamrick said. "The risks we accept in our daily lives are a lot higher than what you accept with a uranium mill."

State authorities hold a cash deposit of $14.7 million from Cotter as bond to ensure the company doesn't abandon the site.

The mill, if reopened, could create 110 new jobs, Hamrick said. Cotter's current payroll for maintenance crews tops $2 million, and the company pays about $250,000 a year in property taxes to Fremont County .

Women enduring unexplained ailments say they're more interested in answers than money.

"I almost died twice," said Kathleen Hance, 50, who worked for years at a child-care center within 2 miles of the mill, now relying on a pain-medication patch to manage symptoms that confined her to a wheelchair for three months.

"In the hospital, I couldn't walk. It was quite embarrassing, them having to do everything for me. It's like numb but not paralyzed," Hance said.

A neurologist suspected poisoning that caused nerve damage, she said. "What's in the ground out there? What's in the dirt?"

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10758319

Va. Coal Commission Proposes Uranium Study; Proposal Draws Praise, ‘Unfair’ Responses

The Gazette Virginian [Halifax]

October 17, 2008


The Coal and Energy Commission will meet Nov. 6 in Richmond to propose and adopt a study on uranium in Virginia, according to Del. Terry Kilgore, chairman of the 20-member commission.


The commission will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6, in the General Assembly Building in Richmond.


“The parameters of the proposed study will include close examination of all important aspects of uranium development as they would be applied in Virginia,” Kilgore said, which would include the large uranium deposit located northeast of Chatham.


Marline Uranium Corp. first discovered the “Coles Hill” deposit in the early 1980s. However, Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining since 1982.


“The need for independent American sources of energy is a matter of national security and economic prosperity,” Kilgore said in his announcement.


“We know that Virginia has a significant high-quality uranium deposit, and as Virginians and Americans, we have a responsibility to study the feasibility of mining it safely,” he added.


“The Coal and Energy Commission conducted a similar study in the eighties and deals regularly with mining issues; it is the Commonwealth’s repository of mining expertise and the right entity to conduct this study. The Commission will work the affected locality and surrounding areas to develop parameters to the study,” he said.


Jack Dunavant, chairman of the Southside Concerned Citizens, said yesterday, SCC is taking a wait and see attitude. “In the 1980s that commission recommended mining,” he recalled.


“Of course, the big issue is safety and radiation,” continued Dunavant. “How are they going to protect people forever against radiation, which is what they would have to do?”


Dunavant said the (mining) decision should be made by Southside Virginians. “We very strongly oppose anyone trying to jam this down our throats. We’re not going to take that.”


Shireen Parsons, Virginia organizer of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, challenged the proposed study.


“They are doing an end-around,” she said. “This was mentioned back in 1985, having the Coal and Energy Commission do a study. It is certainly not an unbiased group of people; they are the coal and energy people. They basically work on behalf of the coal and energy community [I said "corporations"...SP]. And so, this study has absolutely no chance of being a fair study. Of course it will say that mining can be done safely,” she said. “This study is both illegitimate and irrelevant because it doesn’t matter what the study says, the citizens of Southside do not consent to be mined. That is the bottom line.


“The real question is who gets to decide what Southside looks like, feels like, or how safe it is, the citizens or a handful of corporate officers aided and abetted by the state legislature,” emphasized Parsons.


Opposition to the proposed mining project first surfaced in Halifax County in the 1980s, with area residents’ expressing concern about water and air safety issues if mining occurred upstream from Halifax County.


Del. Clarke Hogan, who sought input from the Halifax County Chamber of Commerce regarding questions citizens wanted addressed in any future uranium study, could not be reached in Richmond yesterday.


Del Don Merricks, who represents Pittsylvania County, supports an independent study, but said the commission needs to hold public hearings before beginning work, according to a report published in the Chatham Star-Tribune this week.


“They need to hear firsthand what people are concerned about,” Merricks told Star-Tribune editor Tim Davis.


The delegate also said the study should examine economic and social issues surrounding uranium mining as well as environmental concerns, according to the Chatham report.


“I’m neither for it or against it,” he said, “but I do think an independent study will put it to rest once and for all.”


Walter Coles, the majority landowner, formed Virginia Uranium Inc. several years ago to explore the possibility of mining the large deposit on his and neighboring property in Pittsylvania County. Estimates of the deposit’s worth have been as high as $10 billion.


“With the growing importance of energy independence for America, as well as the presence of Virginia’s world-class uranium deposit, the time is right to conduct an independent and thorough study of the issue,” Coles told Davis this week.


The Coal and Energy Commission was established in the legislative branch of state government and consists of 20 members appointed from both the House of Delegates and the Senate. It also includes seven citizen members representing industry, government and groups of organizations identified with production and conservation of coal, natural gas, and energy.


Members include Del. R. Lee Ware Jr. of Powhatan, Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr. of Galax, Del. William R. Janis of Glen Allen, Del. Timothy D. Hugo of Centreville, Del. Watkins M. Abbitt Jr. of Appomattox, Del. Kristen J. Amundson of Mount Vernon, and Del. Clarence E. Phillips of Castlewood.


Senate members include Sen. John C. Watkins of Midlothian, Sen. Charles J. Colgan of Manassas, Sen. William C. Wampler Jr. of Bristol, Sen. Phillip P. Puckett of Tazewell, and Sen Frank W. Wagner of Virginia Beach.


Citizen members are Barbara Altizer, Harry D. Childress, Frank Henderson, Albert Darrell Holbrook, James K. Martin, John K. Matney and Dale P. Lee.

http://www.gazettevirginian.com/news1.htm