Uranium milling bill aims to protect groundwater

Colorado legislators are poised to require uranium milling operations are cleaned up before operators are allowed to expand their activities.

And while the new law likely would not affect a proposed uranium mine in Weld County, its goal is to protect the state’s groundwater from a reviving domestic nuclear industry -and prevent Colorado taxpayers from paying for inadequate cleanup.

House Bill 1348 was introduced by Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo, and sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins. Bacon said the bill anticipates a possible 2014 reopening of Englewood-based Cotter Corp.’s Canon City uranium mill, one of only four in the nation.

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“It probably only affects Cotter at this point,” Bacon said of the bill’s Colorado impact.

But a company based in Ontario, Canada, Energy Fuels, is also working to get a permit from the state to open a proposed uranium mill in western Montrose County. The company said it hopes to begin milling at the Pinon Ridge site in late 2011 or 2012. If approved, it would be the first new mill in the United States in 35 years.

Mills process ore dug from mines, breaking up and removing the target mineral from the material containing it. The in-situ process, proposed for use in a uranium mining operation west of Nunn, injects a solution into a hole in the ground that loosens the uranium and brings it to the surface.

“We don’t mill,´ said Richard Clement, president and CEO of Vancouver-based Powertech Corp., which is planning the Weld County operation. “We run it through a water treatment plant.”

Clement said Powertech has closely studied HB-1348 and doesn’t see any impact from the bill, which is expected to pass a Senate vote soon. The bill sailed through the House, finding bipartisan support in a 62-2 vote.

“We don’t believe there’s any (impact),” Clement said. “We’ve gone through the language of the bill pretty thoroughly to make sure there’s no conflict with other bills connected to in-situ uranium mining.”

Bill a ‘poison pill’

Energy Fuels President George Glasier said he doesn’t expect HB-1348 to affect the operation of Pinon Ridge, which is expected to eventually process up to 1,000 pounds of uranium ore daily.

But Cotter spokesman John Hamrick said in hearings on the bill that it was a “poison pill” that would force Cotter out of business and hamstring an industry that’s just starting to make a comeback. Nuclear power fell out of public favor after a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania in 1979, which was followed in 1986 by a catastrophic radiation release at Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union.

While no new U.S. nuclear power facilities have been built since Three Mile Island, many plants have been constructed around the world and the Obama administration has signaled its support for nuclear energy as a way to cut greenhouse gases and reduce reliance on foreign oil imports.

Matthew Garrington, spokesman for Environment Colorado, said HB-1348 is an insurance policy as the nuclear power industry begins to rev up again.

“House Bill 1348 is about enforcement,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have a system that rewards failure and allows uranium mills to expand despite having multiple toxic emission issues.”

Garrington noted that Cotter’s Canon City mine, closed since 2005, has had 99 violations for polluting the environment in the last decade. “If Cotter is the example of what this business means for the uranium industry, we’re in trouble,” he said.

It’s estimated that taxpayers have spent nearly $1 billion in cleanups of Colorado uranium mines with several still under way.

Carrot-and-stick

Garrington said current state law on uranium cleanup has been weak and “letting polluters off the hook” for their responsibilities.

“Under (HB-1348), mills could not accept ore from new sources or expand unless they clean up,” he said. “I look at it as a carrot-and-a-stick. If you want to do business in Colorado, great. But clean up what you already have first.”

The bill has new requirements for licensing only applicants who are not in violation of any laws. It also requires detailed plans for transportation, storage, handling, processing and disposing of radioactive material. The bill further requires annual reports from processors that have caused a release that exceeds groundwater standards, and annual reports on their financial condition to make sure they have enough money to clean up their sites.

Bacon said that’s critical as the state prepares for more uranium mining and processing. “Should the groundwater become contaminated, it would force them to pay for the cleanup so it doesn’t become an (EPA) Superfund site,” he said.

As recently as earlier this month, a defunct uranium mine in Jefferson County owned by Cotter Corp. was found to be contaminating a stream that empties into Ralston Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to Denver and Arvada.

Bacon acknowledged the bill isn’t a magic bullet for protecting the state’s groundwater. “There are very few guarantees in this life, but it’s an attempt to make things safer and not continue the pollution of the groundwater,” he said.