Uranium mill would process more than rocks

Comment: The Canadian uranium company plans to build a uranium-milling complex in Pittsylvania County, VA. The State of Virginia is an Agreement State now (2009)! The Agreement status is based on medical waste. Will the uranium mill process more than uranium ore or is the plan for the State of Virginia includes processing medical waste at the mill? Sneaky-Sneaky!!

By Dick Kamp
Wick Communications Environmental Liaison

MONTROSE COUNTY — Energy Fuels Inc. has told the Montrose County Planning Commission it wants to process waste and process streams beyond uranium ore at their proposed Paradox Valley Pinon Ridge uranium mill.

The announcement came after public testimony was concluded at a second hearing June 10 in Montrose for a special use permit. The proposed location of the new facility would be about 12 miles east of Paradox in the West End off of state Highway 90.

In public testimony at the first hearing May 19, Energy Fuels representatives said that they had “no plans to process any material other than uranium ore.” This appears to have been the sole public comment on the subject.

Montrose County Planning Director Steve White issued a memo to the planning commission prior to the June 10 hearing that proposed the specific condition that “only raw uranium ore processed on-site may be stored in the tailings cells.”

Late in the June 10 hearing, EF’s CEO George Glasier approached the planning commission to discuss alternatives to White’s proposed feed restriction condition. Durango attorney Travis Stills, who represents mill opponent Paradox Valley Sustainability Association, said he spoke after Glasier’s presentation, even though public comment was closed.

“I told the commission that changing the wording to the condition would open up a can of worms and that I was very uncomfortable with this request,” Stills told the Daily Press. “I had heard EF bandy about several wordings including allowing the mill to process ‘source materials.’ It means any materials having over .05 percent of radioactive substances such as uranium and thorium, or in other words, no limit at all.”

Stills went on to say that Phil Egidi, representing the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, concurred with his opinion.

Egidi suggested perhaps the mill could process specific materials as filters from municipal treatment facilities with high radioactivity in the water. Egidi stressed that even though the state has no permit application, that EF and CDPHE have had discussions on what process feed the mill might handle that preceded the county hearings.

Potential process feed discussions had included, according to Egidi, potentially ion resin columns from filters containing uranium from water treatment facilities in southeast and southwest Colorado, uranium from in-situ mining facilities in Wyoming, Nebraska and Texas, that would also be deposited on ion-resin columns after a solution was injected into the ground, and “possibly uranium from EFs own mining water treatment facilities.”

“We have no permit, and unlike Montrose County, we have no deadlines for a permit and we can take the time to get our language right and avoid industrial waste streams such as those that the White Mesa and Cotter (closed Canon City) mills have sought. EF has stressed to us that they are not seeking contracts for industrial radioactive waste,” Egidi said. Egidi anticipates receiving a permit application for in-situ mining, but there are none currently operating, nor under consideration, in the state. Presumably concentrations of uranium from in-situ facilities would be far more concentrated than from most municipal treatment facilities.

“We approached the commission at the end of the June 10 hearing because the state (Egidi), had suggested, between the two hearings, that we process the municipal ion resin filters in order to reduce the costs to municipalities with high uranium and those are to be found throughout the West,” Glasier said Wednesday.

“At the first hearing, we thought that a permit that allowed us to process ore — and we did want to be able to process our own mines’ water treatment filters but hadn’t mentioned that yet — would be acceptable. Those two items are all that we would want to add to the processing restriction on a permit.”

With Egidi referring to municipal water treatment wastes from southern Colorado, and Glasier referring to water wastes throughout the West, it is unclear what the geographic limit for importation of the process material is intended to be.

Critics of the EF proposal have feared the processing of any substances resembling radioactive waste as an open-ended invitation to what they term “false recycling” wherein radioactive waste is dubbed “recycling” because the sender pays a uranium mill a relatively low fee to have waste turned into yellowcake instead of sending it to an expensive, low-level radioactive waste facility. Uranium mills, in turn, profit from a waste stream they are paid to convert to yellowcake instead of paying a toll for uranium ore coming from mines the mill does not own.

Older uranium mills, even the last constructed facilities such as Canon City and White Mesa, Utah, also have a history of water, soil and tailings contamination, and both mills profited largely from processing waste as opposed to ore.

Stills said importation of a few wastes or concentrates such as those from in-situ mines, or from water system filters could open a wide door to processing of other toxic substances and industrial waste as opposed to mining beneficiation.

“I think that we are looking at a special use permit for a mill that cannot make a decent profit on uranium ore and instead wants to get permitted as an industrial uranium-hazardous materials recycler,” Still said.

“That would not be a mining development-related permit in an agricultural area, and if that were the case, this would not be a valid application. Energy Fuels has totally misled the public in these hearings and in past public meetings, and this new information should be a focus of public comment and a new application.

“If EF is not going to build a mill that only processes uranium ore, then let the debate begin.”

White stressed that neither he nor the planning commission had direct knowledge of any discussion of other waste streams prior to the public hearings. As soon as the issue had been raised in a question from the Daily Press, he had included his “ore-only” provision as a staff recommendation and had raised it at both hearings.

“Energy Fuels has asked to submit potential language to us on their process stream and as soon as our attorney (Bob Hill) is available, next week, we will hopefully have something to evaluate. I think that the commission did not feel comfortable with the question of what the mill would process, nor with some water issues such as potentially setting conditions for monitoring over-pumping or actions that could be taken if it occurs. That’s why they continued the hearing to July 1,” White said.

The third hearing will be held that evening at 6 at Friendship Hall. If the planning commission approves a permit there, it could be sent over to the county commissioners for a vote.

White said they will be consulting with Egidi, including discussion on what contaminants can be brought into the county and what the county may not want brought in.

White said it was up to the planning commission to decide whether further public comment would be accepted.

“I would think that if there are issues affecting residents of the county that have not been addressed, that commission members might want to open them up to more comment in the interests of doing a comprehensive analysis,” he said.

White said another unresolved question is the life of the permit. “EF has five years to get moving on the mill and if they do not do so, then the permit would expire. But if there is litigation against them, perhaps we should be amending that condition,” White said.

“Maybe we could add a year in the event that they were in court five years from now. I don’t think it will take the state five years to make a decision.”

http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2009/06/19/news/doc4a398aa082f93298165816.txt