Rules for uranium mining may take effect next month

After a rulemaking process that lasted about 15 months, and more than two years after the laws requiring new regulations were passed, the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board earlier this month finally and unanimously adopted new rules to govern uranium mining in the state.

That’s of particular interest to Northern Colorado residents because Powertech Uranium Corp. is proposing to mine about 7,000 acres of land a few miles west of the tiny hamlet of Nunn in west-central Weld County.

Powertech is planning to use an in-situ process for extracting the uranium, which involves drilling holes into uranium-holding rock formations and injecting a…