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The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

URGENT ACTION ALERT! Condemned by health and environmental groups across the country, GNEP means foreign nuclear waste imported and "reprocessed" in the USA. This is a national issue! We need a big national outcry!!! Washington, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, South Carolina, and all our sister states! Cold War nuclear sites are thirty years behind on clean-up! NO foreign waste! Global Nuclear Energy Partnership In the dying throes of the Bush administration, one last environmental disaster is being foisted on the public. With GNEP, the Pacific Northwest, Hanford Nuclear Reservation and Idaho Falls, the Southwest and sites in the Eastern USA could all get a lot more nuclear waste (both from within and outside the country) and dirty nuclear waste 'reprocessing' plants, "recycling" reactors, and "advanced fuel cycle research facilities"-all verbal green-washings of very dirty processes. The Department of Energy (DOE) is holding public hearings on GNEP in November through early December, 2008, final hearing on December 9 in Washington DC in a rush to push this awful idea in under the wire. Thursday, November 20, 7:00 p.m. Hilton Garden Inn 700 Lindsay Boulevard Idaho Falls, IDAHO 83402 Tuesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m. Best Western Hood River Inn - Gorge Room 1108 East Marina Way Hood River, OREGON 97031 Monday, November 17, 7:00 p.m. Red Lion Hotel 2525 North 20th Avenue Pasco, WASHINGTON 99301 Monday, November 17, 7:00 p.m. Lea County Event Center 5101 North Lovington-Hobbs Hwy Hobbs, NEW MEXICO 88240 Tuesday, November 18, 9:00 a.m. Pecos River Village Conference Center Carousel House 711 Muscatel Avenue Carlsbad, NEW MEXICO 88220 Tuesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m. Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell Occupational Technology Center Seminar Room 124 20 West Mathis Roswell, NEW MEXICO 88130 Thursday, November 20, 7:00 p.m. Hilltop House Best Western 400 Trinity Drive (at Central) Los Alamos, NEW MEXICO 87544 Mon

"Opponents of the New Mexico oil industry would have you believe that life in New Mexico hangs by a thread due to the potential disasters tied to oil exploration, development and production. Further, they insist that state government must intensify the rules on drilling or the water, air and land of New Mexico will be ruined for generations. Not true. There was a time when New Mexico was very contaminated, and it has taken decades for that terrible pollution to abate. Many New Mexicans were sickened by this pollution and the human damage remains to this day. This pollution was not by oil; rather, it was plutonium. No one seems to remember this."

In a response to the industry's exaggerated claims that renewed uranium mining would be a multi-billion dollar economic bonanza for New Mexico and the Grants area, the Law Center commissioned Dr. Thomas M. Power to evaluate the true economic impacts of uranium mining in New Mexico. The result is the only independently reviewed analysis of the subject in New Mexico entitled An Economic Evaluation of a Renewed Uranium Mining Boom in New Mexico.

New Mexico officials and International Isotopes Inc. have reached an agreement that will limit the amount of waste that can be stored at the company's planned uranium deconversion plant in southeastern New Mexico. The company plans to build a plant near Hobbs that would convert depleted uranium into certain types of acid and gas that could be used for industrial manufacturing applications. Uranium waste would be disposed of at a licensed facility outside New Mexico. Environment Secretary Ron Curry said the agreement will protect the environment and area residents while allowing the company to operate in the state.

New Mexico officials and International Isotopes Inc. have reached an agreement that will limit the amount of waste that can be stored at the company's planned uranium deconversion plant in southeastern New Mexico. The company plans to build a plant near Hobbs that would convert depleted uranium into certain types of acid and gas that could be used for industrial manufacturing applications. Uranium waste would be disposed of at a licensed facility outside New Mexico. Environment Secretary Ron Curry said the agreement will protect the environment and area residents while allowing the company to operate in the state.

For the first time in United States history, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be challenged in Federal appeals court for its approval of a source materials license for an in situ leach uranium mine. The Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, New Mexico, with the assistance of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC), Eastern Navajo Dine against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) and Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) will fight the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Hydro Resources, Inc., demanding that they stay off of Navajo lands in New Mexico. NMELC will present oral arguments on May 12 to a panel of Federal judges in Denver asking that the NRC decision to allow mining be set aside. "The importance of our hearing on May 12 cannot be overstated," states Eric Jantz, New Mexico Environmental Law Center attorney. "We are talking about the land, water, air and health of two whole communities. There are people on this land grazing their cattle and hauling their daily drinking water."

On April 27, the Grants Mining District five-year uranium legacy health and environmental mining plan continued its unusual evolution with a public meeting in Grants. A project of many federal, state and Native American agencies, communications are coordinated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, New Mexico Environmental Division and New Mexico Department of Health. This is a unique project that grew out of long-term pressure by the New Mexico Uranium Mining and Millings Task Force. The task force had a four-person staff which consisted of a legislative counsel attorney, the director of Mining and Minerals of NM Energy Minerals and Natural Resources, uranium industry attorney Jon Indal, uranium health expert anti-mine activist Chris Shuey and a variety of legislators. This unusual and eclectic group came up with a variety of proposals on the grounds that the federal government has a "moral obligation" to address abandoned mining and milling legacies, (and financial because New Mexico lacks money). Some proposals are embodied in the five-year plan that was spawned from their efforts."

An environmental group is challenging claims that a rebirth of the uranium mining industry in western New Mexico would return thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to a region still hurting from the collapse of the last uranium boom. A study commissioned by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center contends estimates that the industry would bring $30 billion and more than a quarter of a million jobs to the state are "a gross exaggeration." Eric Jantz, the center's staff attorney, said the impetus for doing the report was to get a realistic perspective on whether the economic benefits of renewed uranium mining in New Mexico would outweigh environmental and health concerns.

International Isotopes Inc. has selected a site in Lea County, New Mexico, for the construction of International Isotopes' depleted uranium de-conversion and fluorine extraction processing facility. According to a release, International Isotopes had narrowed its site selection to Eastern Idaho, Andrews County, Texas, and Lea County, New Mexico. The New Mexico location is about 15 miles west of Hobbs, NM. INIS announced its plans to construct the de-conversion facility in 2008 and has since been working on site selection, plant design, and licensing.

"Currently 12 states are designated as high-level risk for radiation exposure. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Utah have established Radiation Exposure Services and Educational clinics. In New Mexico, residents are served by RESEP health centers in Shiprock, Laguna and Albuquerque. A majority of patients are uranium mining industry workers. Between 1953 and 1993, New Mexico was the leader in the United States uranium production. In the 1950s Grants called itself the Uranium Capital of the World. Over the decades the industry reached peak production. During the 1970s and 1980s market demand for the ore decreased substantially."

The study conducted by the anti-mining New Mexico Environmental Law Center, cited in the article "Economics of New Mexico's uranium mining debated," isn't a question of comparing apples to oranges, but the academic equivalent of comparing apples to automobiles. The latest salvo by the Environmental Law Center, in an ongoing effort to thwart mining and use of nuclear fuel, refutes the careful and exhaustive study done by New Mexico State University's Arrowhead Center, a non-biased study on economic impacts of the uranium industry in New Mexico centered on numbers, not emotion.

An environmental group is challenging claims that a rebirth of the uranium mining industry in western New Mexico would return thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to a region still hurting from the collapse of the last uranium boom. A study commissioned by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center contends estimates that the industry would bring $30 billion and more than a quarter of a million jobs to the state are "a gross exaggeration." Eric Jantz, the center's staff attorney, said the impetus for doing the report was to get a realistic perspective on whether the economic benefits of renewed uranium mining in New Mexico would outweigh environmental and health concerns.

An environmental group challenges the idea a rebirth of the uranium mining industry in western New Mexico would return thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. A study commissioned by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center calls estimates that the industry would bring $30 billion and more than a quarter of a million jobs to New Mexico "a gross exaggeration."

Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, on Wednesday called for more nuclear free zones, modeled on the Latin America wide area created in Mexico in the late 1960s, at the opening session of a disarmament conference here. "We are hoping to see progress on this topic, especially in the Middle East," Ban told the opening session of the 62nd United Nations conference on disarmament which began on Wednesday in Mexico City. He praise Central Asian nations for putting such a zone in place in 2006, and Latin America for pioneering the trend with the Tlalteloco agreement, signed in Mexico City in 1967.

Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, New Mexico AGENCY: Bureau of Reclamation, Interior. ACTION: Notice of Availability of the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Planning Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement FES 09-10. SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (as amended), Public Law (Pub. L.) 92-199, and the general authority to conduct water resources planning under the Reclamation Act of 1902 and all acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), in cooperation with the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation, City of Gallup, State of New Mexico, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Heath Service, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, and Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, has prepared and made available to the public a Planning Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement (PR/FEIS). This document was undertaken to provide a discussion for the (1) Various ways to provide a municipal and industrial (M&I) water supply to the Navajo Nation, City of Gallup, and Jicarilla Apache Nation; (2) identification of a preferred alternative; and (3) associated environmental impacts and costs of the No Action and two action alternatives.

Is a salt formation in New Mexico the new Yucca Mountain? A trade industry publication reports today that discussions are underway to promote an existing facility in New Mexico as an alternative to storing the nation's spent nuclear fuel in the desert north of Las Vegas. The Obama administration has promised to "scale back" funds for the Yucca Mountain project, and the president has vowed it will not open as a waste dump. A report last week indicated the fiscal 2010 funding cut would be severe.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has upheld an Environmental Protection Agency decision that a proposed uranium mine in western New Mexico would be on American Indian land. A three-judge panel on Friday denied a petition from the New Mexico-based uranium producer, Hydro Resources Inc., challenging a 2007 EPA decision that an area where the company hoped to develop uranium mines is in "dependent Indian Country." The ruling means Hydro Resources must get a groundwater injection permit from the EPA, rather than use a permit already issued by the state of New Mexico.

The Department of Energy has dropped a proposal for a less expensive alternative to treating and disposing of some of Hanford's radioactive tank waste. The alternative could have saved as much as $459 million, according to figures in an earlier Government Accountability Office report, but Hanford officials were unable to win the regulatory support of the states of Washington and New Mexico. About $40 million has been spent on the project. Less than two months ago, DOE released a draft environmental impact study that included the less expensive option of sending some of Hanford's tank waste to a federal repository in New Mexico rather than glassifying it at the $12.2 billion vitrification plant being built at Hanford.

The Department of Energy has dropped a proposal for a less expensive alternative to treating and disposing of some of Hanford's radioactive tank waste. The alternative could have saved as much as $459 million, according to figures in an earlier Government Accountability Office report, but Hanford officials were unable to win the regulatory support of the states of Washington and New Mexico. About $40 million has been spent on the project. Less than two months ago, DOE released a draft environmental impact study that included the less expensive option of sending some of Hanford's tank waste to a federal repository in New Mexico rather than glassifying it at the $12.2 billion vitrification plant being built at Hanford.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized startup of a $3 billion uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico, the first major nuclear facility to be licensed in the US in the past three decades. NRC officials said in a news release Thursday they are satisfied the facility can begin operations. The Louisiana Energy Services facility near Eunice will use an enrichment process that employs centrifuges to separate uranium isotopes. The enriched uranium will supply fuel for nuclear power plants in the US and overseas. LES president and chief executive Gregory Smith calls the NRC approval "a turning point" for the nation's nuclear industry. The technology used at the New Mexico plant has been in place in Europe for more than 30 years."

"Thousands of feet under a hot patch of sand and brush is buried a deposit of uranium so rich it could revive a hardscrabble New Mexico town pocked with vacant lots and shuttered buildings. The mining industry and those residents of the area who are eager for an influx of jobs see the plateau around Mount Taylor near the town of Grants in the northwest corner of New Mexico as an irresistible opportunity for economic gain. "It's what we need, it's what's going to fuel the future," said Star Gonzales, director of the Grants chamber of commerce. "They will be good paying jobs.""