A setback for the Sunday Mines

Mining company told to collect more data at site

By Matthew Beaudin
Published: Friday, September 25, 2009 8:12 AM CDT

Environmental groups won a victory against the revving uranium industry last week when the US Department of the Interior halted an increase in mining near Naturita and sent the mining company to the field for more data.

In a letter remanding a standing approval for expansion — won over the winter — Lynn E. Rust, the deputy state director in the BLM’s Energy, Land and Minerals division, told Denison Mines Corporation that “This mine permit analysis should rely on the best available data, not simply on the data submitted, if better data can readily be obtained.”

Sheep Mountain Alliance and other groups filed a complaint with the state, asking for the approval to be stricken down or, at least, remanded. They got the latter.

Mining under the initial permit is allowed to continue, “but updated monitoring should occur under that dated permit,” Rust wrote.

The initial approval gave the Canada-based Denison Mines Corporation permission to expand its existing mining operations in the Big Gypsum Valley. New activities at the Sunday Mining complex would have included the expansion of waste rock areas and the addition of vent holes along with access roads and additional drilling. It would have increased land disturbance from 80 to 100 acres.

In an earlier review of the project, Jamie Sellar-Baker, the Dolores Public Lands Office associate manager, signed a Finding of No Significant Impact and Decision Record for the project, meaning its existence will have “no significant impact” on the environment surrounding it.

The most recent letter, though, asks for more information.

“Basically, they said the groundwater and environmental baseline data they collected was not the most recent information,” Hilary White, SMA’s executive director, said. “We’re thrilled with what we did get.”

Sheep Mountain didn’t get it all it wanted, however: Ever since the Department of Energy’s decision more than two years ago to re-open the federal uranium leasing program in the Uravan Mineral Belt — which sowed the seeds of the Manhattan Project — environmental groups have been asking for a comprehensive analysis of mining’s cumulative impacts rather than case-by-case reviews. The BLM, in this case, found a wholesale review of mining’s broad effects was unnecessary.

White says the environmental groups are still trying to get such a review through different cases.

In the summer of 2007, the Department of Energy also announced its intent to renew 13 active leases in southwest Colorado for 10 years, effectively rolling out the welcome mat for mining companies.

“If we just sit idly by and leave it up to the government and public land agencies … the public safety and environment is not fully protected,” White said. ‘It’s very important that there is ongoing … large amounts of scrutiny by private parties to question the government approval process.”

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