Uranium mining hinges on markets, courts

NUCLA - The promises of uranium on the Western Slope will be fulfilled or dashed in the courts and the commodities markets.

People here follow uranium news so closely that Nucla's local newspaper, the San Miguel Basin Forum, prints the market price of uranium every week on its front page. It's hovering around $52 - well below its high of $138 during a speculative bubble in 2007, but more than double the price during the 1980s and '90s.

The price was right for George Glasier, a local rancher with a long career in the uranium business, to form Energy Fuels Corp. three years ago. Glasier wants to build a mill in the Paradox Valley to process uranium and vanadium, an element that's used to harden steel.

At $50 a pound, uranium mining makes sense in Colorado as long as there's a mill, Glasier said. His company is here to stay, he said, unlike some firms that make money by "mining on Wall Street."

"This is a company that has experienced guys," Glasier said. "We're producers, not promoters."

Glasier is confident he can raise the $125 million in financing needed for the mill, even though the company's stock is now about 30 cents a share. It once traded as high as the $4 range during the 2007 uranium bubble.

Apart from the markets, judges and government agencies also will have a say over whether and how the mines reopen.

The Montrose County commissioners and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will consider permits for Energy Fuels to build the Piñon Ridge mill. The state government has the power to enforce federal laws on air pollution and radiation, so federal agencies will not have a role in approval of the mill.

Lawsuits seek halt to mine leasingBut two federal agencies - the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Land Management - do have a say over mining, and both are defending lawsuits from Durango's Energy Minerals Law Center.

The Department of Energy's Office of Legacy Management decided in 2007 to offer leases on some of the 25,000 acres it manages in Colorado. Durango's Energy Minerals Law Center is leading a legal challenge to the leasing program.

Travis Stills, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in both lawsuits, says the pattern of secrecy that the government started on uranium during World War II continues today.

"The common thread is important information is concealed from the public and people making decisions. Fortunately, current law doesn't allow that. That's why we're in there trying to enforce it," Stills said.

The first lawsuit targets the BLM for not releasing documents about uranium mining under the Freedom of Information Act.

"It's meant to keep the public informed. It's not a trivial law," Stills said. "Here it is three years later, and we're still having to drag public documents out of the Bureau of Land Management."

In June, U.S. Senior Judge John Kane ordered the BLM to do a more thorough search for uranium documents in its possession.

But those documents, which Stills said show BLM workers had concerns about the uranium-leasing program, were kept from the public during the comment period for the OLM's environmental study.

Stills also filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Energy, but he lost that case.

Another lawsuit asks the court to overturn the OLM's decision to lease parts of its 25,000 acres in Southwest Colorado to uranium miners.

The lawsuit, which is the centerpiece of environmentalists' legal strategy, seeks to overturn the decision to lease lands. The plaintiffs - several environmental groups - say the OLM should have done a full environmental impact statement, not just a less-detailed environmental assessment.

The OLM is fighting the lawsuit and maintains that it followed all environmental laws. The office approved expanded leases in Colorado to comply with Congress' 2005 Energy Policy Act, which called for more nuclear power, OLM lawyers said in their response to the lawsuit.

Work with us, mill backer saysLawsuits might dog the Piñon Ridge mill, too. Glasier said he wouldn't be surprised to be sued over the mill. His county permit, if it's approved this month, gives him five years to get the mill built.

Stills also is working with mill opponents. He and his allies say the mill will have troubles with water supply and might pollute groundwater - a charge Glasier disputes.

"It's nonissue. We aren't going to affect anybody's water rights," Glasier said.

The mill will use 130 gallons a minute - less than he uses to irrigate the hayfield at his ranch, he said. The Paradox Valley's farms are mostly on the lush west side, where the water table won't be affected by the mill's wells, Glasier said.

Opponents also say dust from the mill will be blown out of the windy Paradox Valley east to Telluride. But Glasier says dust will not be a problem. The mill keeps the uranium wet, so the dust will never be dry enough to fly away, he said.

Glasier said he will make whatever health and safety improvements anyone suggests to the mill, but he won't back away from it altogether.

"The environmental community ought to be involved in a dialogue to make this mill better, not to stop it," Glasier said.

jhanel@durangoherald.com
http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2009/08/12/Uranium_mining_hinges_on_markets_courts/