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Protests continue over uranium mine proposal - 24/11/2009
Protestors in Alice Springs say opposition is growing to a proposed uranium mine close to the town.
Jess Abrahams, from the Arid Lands Environment Centre, says they believe industries like cattle grazing and ecotourism will be at risk should the mine go ahead.
He says they're calling on the government to reject any application for a mining lease at Angela Pamela, 25 kilometres south of Alice Springs.
We will quit if uranium mine opens, say doctors
DOCTORS at the only Aboriginal medical service in Alice Springs have threatened to leave if the Federal Government allows a Canadian company to mine uranium near the town.
Protesters will press Northern Territory MPs to stop their support when Parliament sits in Central Australia tomorrow. They say it threatens the town's future and could set a precedent for other urban centres.
The Associated Press: EPA: Uranium from polluted mine in Nev. wells
Peggy Pauly lives in a robin-egg blue, two-story house not far from acres of onion fields that make the northern Nevada air smell sweet at harvest time.
But she can look through the window from her kitchen table, just past her backyard with its swingset and pet llama, and see an ominous sign on a neighboring fence: "Danger: Uranium Mine."
For almost a decade, people who make their homes in this rural community in the Mason Valley 65 miles southeast of Reno have blamed that enormous abandoned mine for the high levels of uranium in their water wells.
Deseret News | Suit challenges Utah company mining near Grand Canyon
A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park.
The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine.
"The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."
Telluride environmental group sues Montrose County over uranium mill « Colorado Independent
Montrose County commissioners met in secret and had already made up their minds before approving a special use permit for a uranium mill in the Paradox Valley, a lawsuit filed in Montrose County District Court alleges.
The suit, filed by the Telluride-based environment organization Sheep Mountain Alliance, also accuses the commissioners of inadequately weighing the air and water quality impacts of an industrial milling operation in a valley zoned for agriculture.
Paradox Valley
Paradox Valley
The county attorney had not yet seen the suit and therefore couldn’t comment on its merits, according to the Telluride Daily Planet, but a representative of the company proposing the Piñon Ridge Mill, Energy Fuels of Ontario, Canada, said he expected such a delaying tactic.
Britain's nuclear strategy threatens destruction of Kalahari | Environment | The Observer
Namibian environmentalists warn expansion of uranium mining could devastate spectacular natural landscape
The hidden cost of Britain's new generation of nuclear power could be the destruction of the Kalahari desert in Namibia and millions of tonnes of extra greenhouse gas emissions a year, the Observer has discovered.
The desert, with its towering sand dunes and spectacular lunar-like landscapes, is at the centre of an international uranium rush led by Rössing Uranium, a subsidiary of the British mining giant Rio Tinto, and the French state-owned company, Areva, which part-manages the nuclear complex at Sellafield and wants to build others in Britain.
Salazar flooded with support for ban on Grand Canyon uranium mining « Colorado Independent
In 2003, there were a mere 100 mining claims in the million or so acres of public land surrounding Grand Canyon National Park. Now there are more than 8,500 – mostly for uranium – with more than 1,100 claims less than five miles from arguably America’s most iconic national park.
Late last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar received nearly 100,000 public comments supporting a permanent ban on new mining claims on the 1 million acres of national forest and Bureau of Land Management land surrounding the park.
ken salazar
And H.R. 644, floated by House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee chairman Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) and cosponsored by 40 House members — including Colorado Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder) — would make permanent a temporary moratorium Salazar imposed in July.
WWW.WPCVA.COM: Uranium dust a problem
Over the last 2 1/2 years I have been talking about the dust problem that would accompany the opening of an open-pit uranium mine in Pittsylvania County.
I have spoken about the low-level radioactive dust that would come with the blasting and the tailing piles.
(Low-level radiation accumulates in the body).
I have spoken to the supervisors probably a dozen times, with absolutely no results.
Phil Lovelace has spoken more often than I have about leakage of radioactive water from the holding ponds.
He also has received dumb looks from the supervisors.
*
In fact, one of them sometimes looks as if he is asleep.
In my opinion five of the supervisors have paid so little attention that it appears they work with Virginia Uranium.
Cibola Beacon - Uranium miners honored at remembrance event
The first annual National Day of Remembrance in honor of former uranium and nuclear workers was observed Friday at the Cibola Convention Center.
Locally the ceremony was organized by the Cold War Patriots, a non-profit advocacy group for those who worked in the uranium and weapons industries. You may have noticed a couple of PT Cruisers painted with a Cold War Patriots motif around town and wondered, as we did, what this group's mission was.
The Associated Press: Ariz. governor opposes halt on new mining claims
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer objects to a ban on filing new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres of federal land in northern Arizona for two years while a permanent prohibition is under study.
Most of the Bureau of Land Management and National Forest land covered by a July order is in the Arizona Strip located north of Grand Canyon National Park. The rest is located south of the canyon.
There's been a flurry of new mining claims, including for uranium.
Brewer sent Salazar a letter Friday saying adequate environmental protections are in place and that modern-day mining exploration creates "minimal impact to the land."
She also says economic impacts, energy independence and national security considerations support continued exploration.
NRC committee to meet to discuss uranium study | GoDanRiver
The National Research Council governing board’s executive committee will meet next month to discuss the study that would determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia.
The meeting will take place Nov. 10 in Washington and will be closed to the public, said Jennifer Walsh, spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences.
Walsh said she does not know if the committee will decide during next month’s meeting whether to approve the study.
Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. VUI, through Virginia Tech’s Center for Coal and Energy Research, would pay for the study’s first phase focusing on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining.
Native American Uranium Miners Still Suffer, As Industry Eyes Rebirth - Working In These Times
On the Navajo Nation, almost everyone you talk to either worked in uranium mines themselves or had fathers or husbands who did. Almost everyone also has multiple stories of loved ones dying young from cancer, kidney disease and other ailments attributed to uranium poisoning.
The effects aren’t limited to uranium miners and millers; whole families are usually affected as women washed their husbands’ contaminated clothes, kids played amidst mine waste and families even built homes out of radioactive uranium tailings.
A new demand for uranium power brings concerns for Navajo groups - washingtonpost.com
Uranium from the Grants Mineral Belt running under rugged peaks and Indian pueblos of New Mexico was a source of electric power and military might in decades past, providing fuel for reactors and atomic bombs.
Now, interest in carbon-free nuclear power is fueling a potential resurgence of uranium mining. But Indian people gathered in Acoma, N.M., for the Indigenous Uranium Forum over the weekend decried future uranium extraction, especially from nearby Mount Taylor, considered sacred by many tribes. Native people from Alaska, Canada, the Western United States and South America discussed the severe health problems uranium mining has caused their communities, including high rates of cancer and kidney disease.
Uranium to Exceed $50 on Olympic Dam Slowdown, Macquarie Says - Bloomberg
Uranium will rise above $50 a pound in coming weeks because of reduced production at BHP Billiton Ltd.’s Olympic Dam mine in Australia, Macquarie Bank Ltd. said.
Prices have added 9.8 percent over the past two weeks on concern about reduced supply following an accident at Olympic Dam, the world’s fourth-largest producing uranium mine. Uranium oxide concentrate for immediate delivery traded at $47.75 a pound on Oct. 19, Roswell, Georgia-based UxC said in a weekly report.
“Uranium will go up into the low $50s over the next month,” Max Layton, an analyst at Macquarie in London, said by phone today.
Probe into uranium mine leak continues - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The Commonwealth supervising scientist of the Ranger uranium mine at Kakadu National Park says investigations are continuing into water contamination at the site.
Alan Hughes has told a Senate estimates committee that Energy Resources of Australia has conducted geophysical surveys to determine the impact and extent of leaking from a tailings dam at the mine.
Mr Hughes says the company has only preliminary results from the surveys and is not sure if ERA will make the findings public.
"I understand that they are having significant discussions with the traditional owners and the Northern Land Council about tailings and seepage issues on an ongoing basis," he said.
Navajo Yellowcake Woes Continue | Mother Jones
When the EPA evacuates your town for Superfund cleanup, what happens to the people left behind?
After decades of uranium mining turned the tiny town of Church Rock, New Mexico, into a Superfund site, in August the EPA moved seven resident Navajo families to Gallup apartments, where they'll wait for five months while the EPA scrubs their town of radioactive waste. But as the EPA hauls away the uranium tailings and radium-infused topsoils that have been permanent fixtures since mining ceased in the 1980s, Church Rock's remaining residents are asking why they have been left behind. In 1979, the largest spill of radioactive waste in US history occurred in Church Rock when 94 million gallons of mine waste were accidentally released into a stream. Children swam in open pit mines and the community drank water from local wells as recently as the '90s. (Now they haul in drinking water.) Cancer rates and livestock deaths remain higher than they should be. As for the families who remain, Church Rock evacuee and local activist Teddy Nez says the agency "drew an imaginary line in the sand" that excludes a residential area half a mile west of the Superfund site.
Opinion : Opposing views of proposed mill: Uranium market has little or no room for the Pinon Ridge Mill (Montrose, CO)
As Energy Fuels Resources (EFR) awaits Montrose County BOCC approval for a special use permit for the Pinon Ridge Mill and prepares to submit a permit application to Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment (CDPHE), it lacks capitalization to build the mill, faces a very tight uranium market with surplus uranium production capacity, a dropping uranium market price and production costs higher than market value.
Today’s market bears little resemblance to the first uranium boom and bust in the Colorado-Utah borderlands when the federal government paid a guaranteed base price for uranium ore to miners to feed nuclear weapons production programs. ”Yellowcake,” uranium oxide produced by uranium mills is a global commodity widely available at a volatile market-based price for commercial purchase for use in nuclear reactor fuel.
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1. The Uravan belt uranium is not a significant fraction of U.S. nor global uranium resources. Uranium resources at permitted uranium production sites in Wyoming, Nebraska and Texas dwarf the potential of this district.
Colorado delegation pens letter to dissuade mercury storage plan
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu could remove Grand Junction from the list of potential mercury-storage sites and he should do just that, Colorado’s senators and a congressman said.
“We believe there is abundant evidence to characterize this proposal as unreasonable and respectfully urge that you eliminate from further review the alternative for storing mercury in Mesa County,” the Colorado officials said.
Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. John Salazar, all Democrats, sent the letter on Thursday.
DOWNLOAD THE LETTER.
azdailysun: Tuba dump finally getting feds' attention
The EPA will drill test holes looking for uranium-contaminated waste that villagers fear is a threat to their downstream springs.
A dump near Tuba City that has been leaching low levels of radioactive waste into the shallow aquifer finally is getting some federal attention, if not an actual cleanup yet.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to fence off a remaining section of an old dump, near two Hopi villages, and test for hot spots of radioactivity close by. This includes one area where the agency says uranium levels in the water exceed what's federally considered safe for drinking water by eight times.
Local villagers who believe their downstream springs are threatened have long sought a total excavation of the dump.
Uranium-related waste found in the testing will be removed with heavy equipment beginning in October, and 263 new testing holes will be dug to search for more.
AdelaideNow... Call to refine our own uranium
HEATHGATE Resources wants to build a uranium conversion plant at its Beverley mine to add greater value to the raw material it mines at the site.
Heathgate president David Williams said it was time to consider conversion, which is the stage before uranium is enriched in preparation for use as a nuclear fuel.
"You are still not into the contentious stage. Why couldn't we do a conversion in Australia?" Mr Williams says in an interview in today's SA Weekend magazine. "Why couldn't we do that value add in Australia?
"I think that will be an interesting debate to go forward. Are we simply going to stay as an exporter of the raw material or are we going to do a bit more?"
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