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Weld County residents opposed to the proposed uranium mine near Nunn are still not convinced their groundwater will be protected from contamination. Two weeks ago, Gov. Ritter signed legislation to protect groundwater from contamination as a result of leach uranium mining. House Bill 1161 requires that companies using leach uranium mines restore all affected groundwater to the condition it was in before mining. A new study, however, shows that these types of regulations may not prevent all groundwater contamination. Weld residents now are using this information as their primary argument against the uranium mine. Powertech Uranium Corp., a Canadian firm, is continuing to collect samples and apply for permits. President and CEO Richard Clement said all the work applications should be completed by mid-summer. The applications take about a year and a half to process.

Weld County residents opposed to the proposed uranium mine near Nunn are still not convinced their groundwater will be protected from contamination. Two weeks ago, Gov. Ritter signed legislation to protect groundwater from contamination as a result of leach uranium mining. House Bill 1161 requires that companies using leach uranium mines restore all affected groundwater to the condition it was in before mining. A new study, however, shows that these types of regulations may not prevent all groundwater contamination. Weld residents now are using this information as their primary argument against the uranium mine. Powertech Uranium Corp., a Canadian firm, is continuing to collect samples and apply for permits. President and CEO Richard Clement said all the work applications should be completed by mid-summer. The applications take about a year and a half to process.

"A uranium mine north of the Grand Canyon is operating in violation of the law, and its owner could face thousands of dollars in fines as a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said. The agency issued a notice of violation this week to Denison Mines Corp. for its Arizona 1 Mine, which is about 20 miles from the Grand Canyon's northern border. The EPA said Denison failed to notify the agency as to when it would resume mining and that it did not secure the necessary federal approval before ventilating the mine or testing emissions."

A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park. The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine. "The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."

A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park. The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine. "The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."

The Energy Department's Carlsbad Field Office has reached an agreement to sell salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., to a Hereford company that will use it as a livestock feed supplement. In 2008, Washington TRU Solutions issued a request for interest in salt tailings that have accumulated on the surface at the WIPP site since mining began in the 1970s. Through the years, uncontaminated salt has been mined from the WIPP Plant, which stores radioactive waste in rooms mined from ancient salt formations 2,150 feet below the surface, according to information from the Department of Energy. WIPP, which began waste-disposal operations in 1999, is 26 miles outside Carlsbad. Hereford-based Magnum Minerals, which is owned and operated by Tim and Keith Ann Gearn and sons Jason and Dustin Gearn, specializes in providing minerals for the livestock industry. DOE officials said the project will save taxpayers money and benefit private industry. The salt tailings normally would be disposed of in a landfill. Magnum Minerals will pay the government about $600,00 for the contract, which could have cost the government $4.5 million in disposal costs, said Tim Gearn, president of Magnum Minerals.

The Energy Department's Carlsbad Field Office has reached an agreement to sell salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., to a Hereford company that will use it as a livestock feed supplement. In 2008, Washington TRU Solutions issued a request for interest in salt tailings that have accumulated on the surface at the WIPP site since mining began in the 1970s. Through the years, uncontaminated salt has been mined from the WIPP Plant, which stores radioactive waste in rooms mined from ancient salt formations 2,150 feet below the surface, according to information from the Department of Energy. WIPP, which began waste-disposal operations in 1999, is 26 miles outside Carlsbad. Hereford-based Magnum Minerals, which is owned and operated by Tim and Keith Ann Gearn and sons Jason and Dustin Gearn, specializes in providing minerals for the livestock industry. DOE officials said the project will save taxpayers money and benefit private industry. The salt tailings normally would be disposed of in a landfill. Magnum Minerals will pay the government about $600,00 for the contract, which could have cost the government $4.5 million in disposal costs, said Tim Gearn, president of Magnum Minerals.

The National Research Council governing board's executive committee will meet next month to discuss the study that would determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia. The meeting will take place Nov. 10 in Washington and will be closed to the public, said Jennifer Walsh, spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences. Walsh said she does not know if the committee will decide during next month's meeting whether to approve the study. Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. VUI, through Virginia Tech's Center for Coal and Energy Research, would pay for the study's first phase focusing on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining.

The National Research Council governing board's executive committee will meet next month to discuss the study that would determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia. The meeting will take place Nov. 10 in Washington and will be closed to the public, said Jennifer Walsh, spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences. Walsh said she does not know if the committee will decide during next month's meeting whether to approve the study. Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. VUI, through Virginia Tech's Center for Coal and Energy Research, would pay for the study's first phase focusing on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining.

The Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy Uranium Mining Subcommittee is responsible for overseeing all aspects, including the scope and design, of the study that will inform the General Assembly's decision whether to reaffirm or lift Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining. The subcommittee met for the first time on Friday, Dec. 12, in Richmond. The meeting included brief remarks by Dr. Michael Karmis, a professor in the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech and director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. The meeting also included a public hearing to receive suggestions regarding points of concern that should be included in the scope of any study on the impact of mining uranium in the Commonwealth. Twenty people spoke representing citizen and/or industry interests.

Federal officials have approved the reopening and combining of two reclaimed underground uranium mines on the Utah-Colorado line. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Moab and Grand Junction, Colo., announced late Friday afternoon that Lakewood, Colo.-based Energy Fuels Resources would combine the Urantah Decline and Packrat Mine into an operation called the Whirlwind Mine. Earlier the agency released an environmental assessment that showed the mine would have no significant impact.

One Coastal Bend county is contesting plans for a new uranium mine. Today, a court hearing was held in Goliad county for residents to voice their opinions. The Coastal Bend is the second biggest area in the nation for uranium mining. This is the first time a Coastal Bend county is challenging a permit application. This 1100 acres of land in Goliad County is the latest battleground over uranium mining. County leaders are challenging the Texas Commission on Environment Quality over its initial decision to approve a permit for Uranium Energy Corporation to mine here. The county is concerned about the future of ground water in the area.

"A study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia is moving forward. Officials say Virginia Tech's Center for Coal and Energy Research has signed a contract with the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council for the study. The first phase of the study will focuses on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining. The study's fieldwork will begin this summer and last through the fall of 2011. Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit in Pittsylvania County. The company will pay for the first phase of the study through Virginia Tech. Before uranium could be mined in Virginia, the General Assembly would have to lift a ban that has been in place since 1982. The study is a first step to lifting that ban. "

"The legal battle over uranium mining in Goliad reached a pivotal point Monday. Monday began a state contested case hearing that will play a factor in deciding whether Uranium Energy Corp. may mine uranium in Goliad County. Three expert witnesses testified and cross-examined based on pre-trial written testimonies. Bill Galloway, a geologist and professor at the University of Texas, was called by UEC's legal team. Arsenic, lead and uranium are elements commonly present in an ore body, such as the uranium-rich deposits that UEC intends to mine. In his pre-trial testimony, Galloway said he expected the groundwater quality in Goliad to be compromised by uranium mining operations. "

"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 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."