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"Here in the West, uranium mining continues its wobbly resurgence. In recent years, it has sputtered through the peaks and valleys of pricing to once again climb in importance and output. The graph-line of this revival seems to correspond with the vicissitudes of our love-hate relationship with fossil fuels. In 2003, a time of cheap oil, there were only 321 uranium miners working in the West, producing 779 tons of uranium that year. In 2008, there were over 1,500, who produced about 1,500 tons. In 2006, the Pandora mine south of Moab, where I live, reopened with just 10 employees. This year, it has 57. Recently, however, it lost one. Hunter Diehl, a 28-year-old Moab man, died in the mine this May, crushed by rock falling from the mine's ceiling. It was the first uranium mining death in the country since 1998, and the first since uranium's fickle resurgence."

"Powertech USA Inc. is embarking on a path of destruction from which there is no return. The company plans to start in situ leach mining in South Dakota's Custer and Fall River counties that will puncture through four aquifers on the Great Plains and endanger a fragile geologic system. As a result of ISL mining planned at the Dewey-Burdock site - 12 miles northwest of Edgemont - we on the Plains must face the threat of groundwater contamination for generations, while the corporate leaders reside far away in their homelands of Canada and France. This new corporation has no history of accountability in adhering to environmental laws or in the clean-up of a mined-out area. There are thousands of reports by mining corporations that document problems trying to contain uranium-laden water at mine sites, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site."

The expansion of uranium mining in Western Australia could add billions of dollars to Australia's gross domestic product, a spokesman for Federal Resources Minister Ferguson told MINING DAILY. "Up to $17 billion dollars in GDP could be gained over the next 20 years by the expansion of uranium mining," he said. Ferguson recently held talks with WA Premier Colin Barnett and his Mining Minister Norman Moore, lending Federal support to uranium mining in the State.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing in Chadron last week, intended primarily to take public comment on a proposal for use of a generic Environmental Impact Statement in issuing permits for In-Situ Leach (ISL) mines such as the Crow Butte Resources mine near Crawford, provided a primer on the ISL process for an audience of about 35 people, and a discussion forum for several of those involved in challenges to Crow Butte's proposed expansion project. All types of bellows and expansion joints to fit your piping systems including metal, fabric, rubber, thin wall, thick wall, slip type, rectangular, and stock bellows. www.usbellows.com Public Storage Official Site - $1 for First Month. 2000 Locations. Instant Quotes. www.PublicStorage.com Criminal Lawyer - Pleasanton Free Consulation. Felony/Misdemeanor. Stanford & Berkeley Law Grads. www.bonjourandthorman.com Ads by Yahoo! Among the details to emerge from the meeting was acknowledgment by the NRC that, although ISL mine permits call for returning groundwater to its original condition when mining is done, some of the "baseline parameters" have proved unachievable by mining companies.

Uranium mining could resume within the year at a site north of the Grand Canyon after state officials signed off on the last permit needed to restart operations. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality issued an air-quality permit Tuesday to Denison Mines for the Arizona 1 mine, about 35 miles south of Fredonia. The permit clears the way for Denison to extract uranium from the region for the first time in almost two decades. Denison officials have said they could restart Arizona 1 within a year after the final permit is issued. The prospect of new uranium mines on public lands near the national park has stirred opposition among conservation groups and Indian tribes, who say extracting the ore could contaminate groundwater and the Colorado River, which serves millions of people downstream.

Two environmental groups have asked federal land managers to reconsider their approval of Utah's first new uranium mine in three decades. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Uranium Watch oppose the Daneros Mine, located about 120 miles from Natural Bridges National Monument in southeastern Utah. The groups also want the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to stop Australia-based White Canyon Uranium from mining there until the agency's Utah director, Selma Sierra, determines whether the mine's environmental impact was sufficiently studied. "There are a lot of issues associated with uranium mining that were not adequately assessed before the permits were issued," said Liz Thomas, a lawyer for SUWA.

Germany's vaunted salt mine solution for low-level nuclear waste has proven to be full of holes. Rock salt, at least while it's underground, has two main properties: It can be soft and easy to mine, and it can form a watertight seal. This helps explain why the West German government started forklifting thousands of metal drums of "low-to-medium" radioactive waste into an abandoned salt mine called Asse II during the 1960s. Asse II is named after its mountain range in the state of Lower Saxony. The mine plunges deep into the hills near Braunschweig (aka Brunswick), in the center of Germany, and politicians in Bonn regarded it during the Cold War as a test site for storage of nuclear waste. An overhead layer of rock salt would shield the mine from groundwater, and the shifting salt itself, over centuries, would seal up any fractures and finally pack the nuclear waste in a safe geological bed.

Panel to consider prohibiting mining Uranium exploration and mining again are on tap for the Fremont County Planning Commission. The panel will meet Tuesday evening in regular session with an agenda that includes a public hearing on a proposed amendment to the Fremont County Master Plan that would prohibit mining in certain areas of the county. The amendment, submitted by the Tallahassee Area Community group, would prohibit mining in the "Mountain District" of Fremont County. That area covers about 500 square miles in the northern part of the county and another 250 square miles in the south-central part of the county. TAC formed last year to protest uranium exploration and possible future mining in the Tallahassee area northwest of Cañon City. Lee Alter, chairman of TAC's government affairs committee, will represent the group in presenting the Master Plan amendment.

The Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, a coalition of community groups affected by uranium mining and committed to renewable energy development, announces the 30th anniversary commemoration of the Church Rock uranium tailings spill on July 16. The purposes of the event are to remember and honor the Dine communities that were affected by the largest release of radioactive waste in U.S. history, and to reaffirm the Navajo Nation's ban on uranium mining and processing, as set forth in the Dine Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005. A prayer walk will be held on State Route 566 from Red Water Pond Road next to the Northeast Church Rock Mine to the site of the spill across from the United Nuclear Corp. mill site and ending at the King Family Ranch on Old Churchrock Mine Road at SR 566 - a distance of about five miles. Prayers for healing will offered at the start of the walk and at the spill site. The walk will end at the King Ranch with a press conference where Navajo Nation elected officials will reaffirm the Navajo Nation ban on uranium mining.

The Uranium Mining Subcommittee's approval Thursday of the final draft of a study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia drew a variety of reactions from local opponents and a supporter. "We're very gratified," Patrick Wales, geologist and spokesman for Virginia Uranium Inc., said Friday. "An independent study of uranium mining and milling has been the one thing we've been proposing since the inception of our company." VUI seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. Virginia currently has a moratorium on uranium mining.

"Denison Mines President Ron Hochstein said uranium mining has returned to northern Arizona for the first time in nearly 20 years. Hochstein said while environmental groups attempted to stop the uranium mining in Mohave County, Ariz., with a lawsuit last September, his company obtained permission from state and Bureau of Land Management officials to mine for high-grade ore, The (Flagstaff) Arizona Daily Sun said Wednesday. "They're challenging the permits, but the BLM and state have given us all the permits we need to operate," Hochstein insists."

A federal appeals court this week moved to allow uranium mining operations in Churchrock, a Navajo community just east of Gallup, New Mexico. The decision by the Federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals comes at a time of increased financial incentives for uranium mining-but also intense opposition from many communities, including the Navajo Nation, which outlawed uranium mining in 2005. "This ruling is a major breakthrough for URI and upholds the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] license that took us 10 years to obtain and as many to address in supplemental reviews and litigation," Don Ewigleben, President and CEO of Uranium Resources, said in a statement this week. "… The ruling also demonstrates that ISR technology, including the restoration process that follows mining activity, is safe and effective."

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer objects to a ban on filing new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres of federal land in northern Arizona for two years while a permanent prohibition is under study. Most of the Bureau of Land Management and National Forest land covered by a July order is in the Arizona Strip located north of Grand Canyon National Park. The rest is located south of the canyon. There's been a flurry of new mining claims, including for uranium. Brewer sent Salazar a letter Friday saying adequate environmental protections are in place and that modern-day mining exploration creates "minimal impact to the land." She also says economic impacts, energy independence and national security considerations support continued exploration.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer objects to a ban on filing new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres of federal land in northern Arizona for two years while a permanent prohibition is under study. Most of the Bureau of Land Management and National Forest land covered by a July order is in the Arizona Strip located north of Grand Canyon National Park. The rest is located south of the canyon. There's been a flurry of new mining claims, including for uranium. Brewer sent Salazar a letter Friday saying adequate environmental protections are in place and that modern-day mining exploration creates "minimal impact to the land." She also says economic impacts, energy independence and national security considerations support continued exploration.

Protestors in Alice Springs say opposition is growing to a proposed uranium mine close to the town. Jess Abrahams, from the Arid Lands Environment Centre, says they believe industries like cattle grazing and ecotourism will be at risk should the mine go ahead. He says they're calling on the government to reject any application for a mining lease at Angela Pamela, 25 kilometres south of Alice Springs.

Protestors in Alice Springs say opposition is growing to a proposed uranium mine close to the town. Jess Abrahams, from the Arid Lands Environment Centre, says they believe industries like cattle grazing and ecotourism will be at risk should the mine go ahead. He says they're calling on the government to reject any application for a mining lease at Angela Pamela, 25 kilometres south of Alice Springs.

"The owner of a defunct uranium mine leaking pollution along a creek that flows into a Denver Water reservoir has launched a cleanup as ordered, state officials confirmed Thursday.\n\nCotter Corp. installed a system that can pump and treat up to 50 gallons per minute of contaminated water from inside its Schwartzenwalder Mine, west of Denver in Jefferson County.\n\nWater tests in 2007 recorded uranium levels in mine water exceeding the human health standard by 1,000 times. Elevated levels in Ralston Creek also were recorded.\n\nThe Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ordered the action. State natural-resources officials also are monitoring the mine, which produced uranium for weapons and nuclear power plants."

"Groups on either side of proposed uranium-mining operations in Colorado this week will present their ideas about how companies should conduct themselves if they use water and chemicals to extract the ore. The Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board hearings begin this morning and are likely to last through Wednesday. The board will issue formal rules on in-situ mining in August. The in-situ process injects water and chemicals to free the uranium, pumps out the fluid and collects the ore. The state has been gathering information on the proposed rules since last year. The rule-making process is required under a law signed by Gov. Bill Ritter in 2008 that regulates pollution and reclamation activity for in-situ uranium mines in Colorado."

IN A DINE CREATION STORY, the people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder-uranium-in the soil and never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a great evil would come. The evil came. Over one thousand uranium mines gouged the earth in the Dine Bikeyah, the land of the Navajo, during a thirty-year period beginning in the 1950s. It was the lethal nature of uranium mining that led the industry to the isolated lands of Native America. By the mid-1970s, there were 380 uranium leases on native land and only 4 on public or acquired lands. At that time, the industry and government were fully aware of the health impacts of uranium mining on workers, their families, and the land upon which their descendants would come to live. Unfortunately, few Navajo uranium miners were told of the risks. In the 1960s, the Department of Labor even provided the Kerr-McGee Corporation with support for hiring Navajo uranium miners, who were paid $1.62 an hour to work underground in the mine shafts with little or no ventilation.

In a move which could bring cheer to the country's nuclear establishment grappling with shortage of uranium, the Meghalaya government has said it has no problem in mining for the mineral in the state provided the Centre takes care of health and environmental hazards resulting from radioactive emission from mines. "Our main concern is health hazards to the people which may arise due to the uranium mining. If the Centre takes care of that, we have no problem in allowing uranium mining in our state," Meghalaya Chief Minister Donkupar Roy told PTI. According to an estimate of Uranium Corporation of India Limited, there could be 3,75,000 tonnes of uranium deposits in West Khasi Hill district of Meghalaya.

Western Australian Opposition Leader Eric Ripper says Labor will continue to oppose uranium mining in WA, even though the State Government formally lifting the ban on mining the resource today. Premier Colin Barnett says the removal of the ban will take immediate effect and any new mining leases will not have the standard clause that bans uranium mining.

A few years ago, Ward wrote for Tomdispatch about various plans to dump radioactive waste, including 40 years worth of "spent fuel rods" from nuclear reactors, in his Utah backyard. People who lived downwind were alarmed. They had been exposed to radioactive fallout during the era of atomic testing in the 1950s and feared more of the same -- cancer for "downwinders" and obfuscation and denial from federal regulators. Since Ward wrote his account, local activists have successfully blocked the projects. Score one for the little guys.