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| 2/29/2008 11:17:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Questions arise over proposed uranium operation
‘Gold rush’ is on for uranium
Mike Potter
Staff Writer
Horizon Nevada Uranium Inc. President Bill Wilson has taken a number of calls regarding his company's proposed uranium mines in Park County, most of them planned for about seven miles northeast of Hartsel, and he suspects he will probably take many more.
A round of letters sent out by Horizon Nevada on Feb. 9 spurred a wave of calls inquiring about the proposed project. The second wave of letters, sent out on Feb. 22 will probably trigger even more, he said.
Shirley Riveram a Brighton resident and owner of land in the South Park Ranches subdivision, received a letter in the mail on Feb. 26 from Horizon and didn't know what to make of it at first.
"It's difficult to read," she said.
She thought it was a letter from the Bureau of Land Management, but only after looking at the envelope did she realize it was sent from Horizon.
Many of the affected property owners are in the South Park Ranches subdivision.
Wilson said that as of Feb. 22, all the notification letters were in the mail on the way to property owners.
Rivera said she would have liked it if a letter had been sent with the notice, explaining how it was going to affect her land and the area around it.
Her five acres of land is vacant and does not have a well on the property. Indeed, most of the parcels in South Park Ranches are vacant land, according to the Park County Assessor's Web site.
She said she intends to contact Wilson to figure out what would be happening with her property.
Most of the questions Wilson has received have been about the effect the in-situ mining would have on the aquifer.
In-situ mining is a process in which uranium is liquified and removed from the underground aquifers by adding chemicals and pumping the uranium solution to the surface.
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock from which water can be pumped.
The in-situ process creates minimal surface damage, but can destroy the aquifer.
"You can't clean it up to the point where it will ever be satisfactory," Wilson said.
That might not be a problem, though.
Because of the uranium and other minerals already present in the aquifer, Wilson said, that water probably wouldn't meet the Environmental Protection Agency's standard for drinkable water, making it something called an exempt aquifer.
The exempt aquifer is below an aquifer that is used to supply water.
Wilson said it was possible to drill through an existing aquifer, with clean, drinkable water, to the one below it without contaminating the upper level.
For an aquifer to receive the exempt status, pre-operation drilling must be done to establish where that aquifer is, and testing of the water must be conducted.
"Then the EPA decides if they want to exempt the well," said Wilson.
Howard Williams, member of the Coloradans Against Resource Destruction, said through the process of in-situ mining, contaminants could leak into other aquifers, contaminating well water that supplies homes.
CARD is currently fighting Powertech Uranium Corp. to keep an in-situ uranium mine from being drilled near Fort Collins.
Williams said the problem with in-situ mining an aquifer is that contaminants will spread through its entirety.
"Aquifer water is shared, not owned," he said, and problems arise when companies think about profit more than the environment.
"This is a gold rush, and like the last gold rush, it brings out the best and worst of people," Williams said.
CARD's argument is that there is too great of a possibility for the aquifer, which supplies over 40,000 wells near Fort Collins, to become contaminated. He was unsure what the situation was in Park County.
Powertech is proposing 300 to 400 wells and a processing plant to make yellow cake uranium in the area, he said.
The Park County mines would be similar, but smaller, according to Wilson. No processing facility would be built near the mines.
Safeguards would be in place to avoid any spilling over of the aquifer being mined.
Wilson said the mining process is monitored through a number of monitor wells.
Those wells would be set up around the exempt aquifer and would be able to detect if any contaminants are spreading.
The wells would be computerized and monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission around the clock, he said.
"Once [contamination] reaches a monitoring well, a change in pressurization is used to stop the migration," Wilson said.
It would be very unlikely that contamination would reach beyond the monitoring well, he said.
The possibility of radon gas being emitted from the mine is highly unlikely because the entire system is a closed circuit, he said.
A $3,000 bond would be deposited for each well his company drills and that money would cover the price of reclaiming the site.
Wilson said he will meet with the Park County commissioners in April to discuss his plans for the site and to answer any questions the public might have.
"It's important that people know what we're doing," he said. "We are trying to be as transparent as possible."
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