Caution with uranium mining

home : letters	July 29, 2010

2/29/2008 11:59:00 AM

Email this article • Print this article

Caution with uranium mining
To the Editor,

I hope people who live in South Park are studying the proposal to mine radioactive uranium in your area more seriously than the fellow from California who was quoted in the recent Flume article. We heard about your situation here in Fort Collins because there's a proposal to do in situ leach mining here, too.

This type of mining is particularly dangerous to water. In situ mining can only be done in groundwater. Both the federal agency that regulates nuclear materials and the State of Texas have said that the water is not completely restored to its original condition - some contamination is left behind.

The proposed uranium project here [in Fort Collins] would consume about a million gallons of water a month. The jobs are temporary, and crews are often brought in from outside the area. Local people may not have the right skills, so they won't get the jobs.

The Colorado Medical Society, City of Fort Collins, and 60 businesses and organizations in our area have passed resolutions opposing the plan to mine. A petition has been signed by 7,800 citizens against the plan.

Uranium industry folks are smooth - but not so smooth that most people are fooled for long. In the past, uranium companies kept saying "it's perfectly safe" until they had polluted the water and the land, pulled up stakes (or gone bankrupt) and gone home. They say they're in the "beginning stages" of a project to lull people into not reacting. But when uranium mining has been stopped before, it was because people reacted quickly to protect their land, water and families.

We need to promote renewable energy, which brings permanent local jobs, rather than reviving dirty and expensive non-renewable energy. More information on uranium mining and proposed projects in Colorado can be found at www.nunnglow.com.

Sincerely,

Lilias Jarding

Fort Collins

Article Comment Submission Form

Please feel free to submit your comments.

Article comments are not posted to the Web site. Comments intended for publication should be sent as Letters to the Editor which should include your full address and telephone number. Only the name and town will be published.

Note: All information on this form is required. Your telephone number is for our use only, and will not be attached to your comment.

Name:

Telephone:

E-mail:

Passcode:

This form will not send your comment unless you copy exactly the passcode seen below into the text field. This is an anti-spam device to help reduce the automated email spam coming through this form.

Please copy the passcode exactly
- it is case sensitive.

Message:

The Web Site contains material which is protected by international copyright and trademark laws. No material may be copied, reproduced, republished, broadcast or distributed in any way or decompiled, except that you may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. On-line publication, Copyright 2008,
The Park County Republican & Fairplay Flume.
Office: 5138 County Road 64, Bailey, CO
Mailing address: P.O. Box 460, Bailey, CO, 80421-0460.
Phone: 303-838-4423 or Fax: 303-838-8414
Web page design, Copyright 2008, Arkansas Valley Publishing.
Software © 1998-2010 1up! Software, All Rights Reserved