It All Depends On Who You Ask

Las Vegas Water Offical Warns Radioactive Levels Rising

Sunday’s news was a bit disconcerting, when I read a small story at Tri-State Online.  Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority was quoted as saying measurable quantities of uranium are showing up in Colorado River water, something difficult and expensive to remove before passing it on to consumers in Las Vegas.

She blames upstream uranium mining, especially in the Moab, Utah area, so I decided to take a look and see what’s happening up there.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no operating uranium mines in or near Moab, UT, or anywhere in the state of Utah.  So, I felt Ms. Mulroy was referring to the uranium mill tailings just outside Moab, where they’ve been for decades after the failure of the Atlas Minerals Corporation mill.

Well, the 16 million tons of radioactive dirt is still there, but according to Moab Mayor David Sakrison, they are no danger to the community or the river.

In a phone interview, the mayor said the federal government has done an exemplary job of mitigating dust and water runoff that would contaminate the Colorado.  Sakrison did say, however, this has been the case for the past eight years, and before that, Colorado River water was indeed being polluted.

Had the tailings pile presented a health risk to his community, especially through it’s drinking water?  “No”, said the mayor, “our aquifer is on the other side of the Colorado and our water supply is not contaminated.”

It was in 2000 that then Energy Secretary Bill Richardson promised to relocate the tailings pile, and Congress had given the Department of Energy authority to begin cleanup.  President Bush, however, included NO money in his 2000 budget for the removal project.

Cleanup About To Begin at Moab

Donald Metzler, Federal Project Director for the Moab cleanup, told me everything is in place to begin transporting the contaminated soil to a storage area at Crescent Junction, Utah.  The site is about 30 miles north of Moab, and is in a formation called Mancos Shale bedrock, a hard, almost impenetrable formation that will isolate the site from any aquifer.  After all the tailings have been removed from the Moab site and placed in storage, it will be capped and should be safe for at least 1000 years.

I asked Mr. Metzler about the possibility that the tailings were still polluting the river, and he assured me there is absolutely no contamination.  He said tests from a few hundred feet south of the Ajax site showed no increase in radiation other than background, caused by nature.

Taking my query a bit further, some 500 miles, I spoke with Mitch Basefsky, PIO for the Tucson Water District, and he assured me they are monitoring the level of radiation in water coming into the area from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project.  Basefsky said they have not seen a change in water radioactivity over the years, but remain concerned that eventually, if nothing is done to stem the release of radioactive materials into the river, it will become a problem here.

So, Where’s The Radiation Coming From?

Southern Nevada’s Mulroy has supposedly written federal Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne, asking him to “carefully evaluate” further uranium mining along the Colorado to determine the risk of further contamination of the river.

I’ve tried for days to get someone in her office to talk with me about her statement and what they’re finding in the water near Las Vegas, but no one has been forthcoming, and I can find nothing on the SNWA website concerning the issue.

There are no operating uranium mines in Utah, and according to Mayor Sakrison, most of the abandoned sites have been cleaned up, and clean water is leaving the Moab area.  What’s the problem?

Grand Canyon Exploration and Possible Uranium Mining

While writing this story, word came to me from the Sierra Club, stating the House Natural Resources Committee has ordered the Bush administration to immediately stop mining claims on public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon.  Good news, because of fears that pollution from uranium mines could threaten the drinking water for more than 25 million people living in the southwest, and just the idea that mining operations are going on within three miles of the canyon is unthinkable.

Until I hear something concrete from the folks in Nevada, there appears little or no danger at this time from uranium-polluted Colorado River water.

Stay tuned.

Links to Related Articles:

Uranium Mining Claims in Grand Canyon Area Ordered Withdrawn

Does Sen. John McCain Approve of Proposed Uranium Mines Near the Grand Canyon?

Federal Judge Blocks Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon

Our Discussion Forum:
Nuclear Energy, Good or Bad?

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/53074617@N00/2242825510

]]> http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/06/25/is-colorado-river-becoming-radioactive-from-upstream-uranium-mines/feed/ http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/06/25/uranium-mining-claims-in-grand-canyon-area-ordered-withdrawn/ http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/06/25/uranium-mining-claims-in-grand-canyon-area-ordered-withdrawn/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:52:47 +0000 Max Lindberg http://planetsave.com/?p=2624 For the 5th time in history, the House Natural Resources committee invoked its authority and ordered the Bush administration to stop mining claims in the Grand Canyon.  The measure was urged by Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva of Tucson, chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands.

The withdrawal halts thousands of mining claims in national forest areas surrounding the Grand Canyon amid fears that resumption of uranium mining presents a danger to drinking water for some 25 million people in the southwest.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano had requested that Interior Secretary Kempthorne withdraw the Grand Canyon area from mining.  The request was denied on the grounds that Congress must make the request.

The four previous emergency withdrawal authority requests were authored by Rep. Morris Udall, who was Chairman of the House Interior Committee.

Will the Bush administration abide by this authority, or is Bush still “the decider”?

Source:  Press Release from The Sierra Club

Image Credit:  www.inetours.com/…/ Tours/Grand_Canyon_7739.jpg

An Open Letter to Senator John McCain, Presumptive Republican Presidential Candidate

This hit me the other day; how does the Republican Presidential Candidate-in-Waiting view the possible mining of uranium just 3 miles from the Grand Canyon?

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) knows the canyon well, he’s reportedly hiked it a number of times, knows where the only uranium mine that operated there is located, yet has said nothing about the 1000 or more permits being sought to explore for uranium near the park.  I’ve searched his Senate website, news reports on the issue and his name is nowhere to be seen.  Why is that?

It’s even more puzzling, since he called for 45 new nuclear reactors in America within the next two decades.  Where will they get the fuel needed to operate those plants, from mines bordering the Grand Canyon and other sites in national forest areas?

And does he feel it’s safe to mine so close to the Colorado River?

What about the radioactive waste they will leave behind?

This is your state Senator McCain, the one you have represented well during your terms in office, are you going to abandon America’s crown jewel for some special interests?

Open letter to Senator John McCain.

• Do you approve of uranium mining in the Grand Canyon area, and in five western states where an estimated 43,000 new claims have been filed ?  Some of those areas are near Arches National Park, Capitol Reef National Park and Canyonlands National Park in Utah.  And what about the Dolores River Canyon in Colorado?
• Do you support revising the 1872 General Mining Law that allows companies to exploit minerals from public lands without paying a cent for the privilege, and then leaving their messes for the taxpayer to clean up?
• Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), has introduced a “Resolution of the Committee on Natural Resources, United States House of Representatives“, calling for the Secretary of the Interior “to immediately withdraw 1 million acres of federal land surrounding Grand Canyon National Park from further claims under the 1872 General Mining Law.”
• The authority is derived from Section 204(e), (PDF page 9) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act which allows such action in what is termed “an extreme emergency“.  The procedure, according to Congressman Grijalva’s news release, was last invoked by the late Arizona Congressman Morris K Udall.
• Will you support this action, and immediately contact the Secretary of the Interior in support of this resolution?
• Do you believe that the in-situ leaching process is without danger to the environment?
• Do you believe that if mining is allowed, that the Colorado River and smaller tributaries will be safe from radiation contamination?  As you well know, the Colorado River supplies water to two major cities in Arizona, Phoenix and Tucson, not to mention Las Vegas, NV, and Southern California.
• Are you willing to take that risk?
• Are you in favor of licensing and completion of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada?

In all due respect, Senator, some of these questions require a “yes” or “no” answer.  I do hope you will give me, a registered voter and one of your constituents, and everyone concerned with this issue, the appropriate response.

You should also know, I’m sending a copy of this article to Sen. Barack Obama, asking him to respond to the same questions, and to Congressman Raul Grijalva, the Representative in my district, to show my support for sanity as it applies to nuclear concerns not only in Arizona, but America as well.

Thank you, Mr. McCain for your attention.  I know you’re busy, but I would like to hear from you personally instead of a “spokesperson”, after all, this is a very important issue.

I shall post your response, and that of Sen. Obama and Congressman Grijalva.

Respectfully,

Max Lindberg

Tucson, AZ

Image Credit: www.inetours.com/…/ Tours/Grand_Canyon_7739.jpg

BLM FAQ on filing claims.http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/BLM_Programs/minerals/mining_faqs.html

Reference Files:

Uranium Claims Spring Up Along Grand Canyon Rim

House Waves Bye-Bye to 1872 Mining Law

McCain Wants 45 New Nuclear Reactors and Clean Coal

For a lot of years, I’ve respected and admired Arizona Senator John McCain, and even though he is a Republican, he seemed to be more moderate than his right-wing compatriots.

That changed today when I read that he has proposed construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030.  Adding insult to injury, he told a Missouri State University audience that he’d pledge $2 billion a year in federal funds to make clean coal a reality.  All in the name of reducing dependence on foreign oil and fostering a cleaner environment.

Here we go again with the nuclear crap

He tells the worn out tale of reactors being clean and non-polluting.

Interestingly, and certainly not surprisingly, he didn’t mention anything about cleaning up the messes left by earlier uranium mining.  Nor did he propose on how to get rid of, store, neutralize or make safe, the huge stockpile of nuclear waste piling up every day.  And let’s not forget the environmental damage to be done by mining more uranium to feed those reactors.  He gave that subject the same brush-off every nuclear energy proponent does, with the statement that more needs to be done to safely transport and store spent materials.

Don’t let anyone try to tell you the in-situ leaching process is environmentally clean.  Being an underground process, it has, under certain conditions, the ability to contaminate ground water.

45 more reactors and “clean coal”, what a wonderful promise for our future.

Image:  www.scoop.co.nz

Source:

My contention is that such a discovery has already been made, and that there is a growing recognition of the potential for that basis to expand the boundaries of our growth, creativity and development. The uranium oxide fuel pellet - that tiny black cylinder shown in the photo next to one of my favorite coffee mugs - is made of material with incredible potential compared to the fossil fuels that supply the heat that we use for the vast majority of our controllable power. I like to think of these tiny pellets as equivalent to early stage transistors at the time when most of the system controllers, radios, televisions, and computers in the world depended on magnetic amplifiers or vacuum tubes.

For many of today’s youths, it is difficult to imagine a world without fantastic electrical gadgets that can store photos, play music, display moving pictures, make incredibly rapid computations, and even ensure that the morning cup of coffee is ready on time. None of those devices, however, would be possible if a few researchers in the 1940s and 1950s had not worked tirelessly to develop the transistor. That is the basic invention that allowed people like Gordon Moore to imagine a world of devices with rapidly expanding capabilities that seem limited only by human ingenuity and creativity.

After engineers and scientists had figured out the basic properties of the materials needed to produce transistors, there was still a lot of work left to do - in fact, that work continues today as legions of technicians, software coders, engineers, and scientists work to improve and refine transistors and the devices that use them while an even greater body of people thinks up new things to do with the devices and new ways to introduce them to larger markets.

As I compose this post, I am sitting in a home office full of creative products enabled by semiconductor based transistors. Without exaggeration, I would estimate that there are tens of millions of transistors within my immediate view that includes several digital cameras, a desktop computer, a laptop, printer, remote controlled fan, an analog to digital film converter, a cordless telephone, several iPods, a mobile telephone, a few obsolete computers, a wireless base station, and a cable modem. (Yes, I am a gadget geek and a pack rat. All of us have weaknesses.)

Getting back to that uranium oxide fuel pellet - actually the one that I have is actually a facsimile of a fuel pellet - the reason that I compare it to a transistor is that it packs thousands of times more power than the materials that it can replace. Even though our current early generation nuclear plants only use about 4-5% of the ultimate potential energy stored in the pellet, these tiny bits of high temperature material produce the energy equivalent of 149 gallons of fuel oil.

My current automobile is a VW Jetta TDI - turbo diesel injected - sedan that has a 12.7 gallon fuel tank and can travel about 580 miles on a single fill-up. I get terribly excited about the idea that one day, using physical principles that I already know and understand, I may be able to travel across the US two times (nearly 7,000 miles) and consume only the energy that will fit inside a pellet that is smaller than the tip of my finger.

I know this is possible - I have already spent a number of years on a 9,000 ton vessel powered by the same material and it managed to travel the world’s oceans for more than 14 years on a quantity of fuel that would fit beneath my office desk.

Oh yeah - you have all been conditioned to ask, “what about the waste?” That is the really good news. I chose to put the fuel pellet next to my coffee cup for a reason. That coffee cup is large enough to hold the remains that would be left over if I received all the energy I needed to live a full American lifestyle for my entire life. What I think is even more amazing is that a large portion of those remains would consist of rare materials with unique physical and chemical properties. In other words, they just might have value for creative people in future generations that need them to solve a problem that we have not yet even recognized as needing a solution.

One more thing - the phrase on the coffee cup is also important. It is one of my mantras since I have been trying my best to raise awareness of the revolutionary nature of atomic fission since about 1993.

Photo credits: Coffee cup and fuel pellet - by Rod Adams taken June 12, 2008. USS Von Steuben, SSBN 632 US Government file photo.

Related posts:
China Gears Up Civilian Nuclear Power
Another European Country With Plans for New Nuclear Power
Vietnam Continues to Advance Towards Nuclear Power
Teutonic tectonic shift on nuclear energy
TVA, Chattanooga Economic Choo Choo

Them: I am deeply concerned about global climate change and the effects of mankind’s continued use of dirty fossil fuels on our planet’s health.
Me: I used to operate power plants that produced zero emissions. What do you think about taking a new look at using nuclear power to replace fossil fuel consumption? Them: I do not like nuclear power. We can get all the power that we need by conservation, wind, solar and biomass.
Me: How do you expect for windmills and solar panels to produce power when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? Can you really shut down fossil plants if you build wind turbines and put solar panels on buildings?
Them: No, but the grid can provide all the back-up we need. We already have paid for building the existing plants and should not spend any money on building new ones while we transition to a new economy where we can live within our natural energy income.
Me: But that means that we have to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels when we could be building plants that make them unnecessary.
Them: I do not like nuclear power and do not want to replace one poison with another.

These conversations often go on far longer until either I or my opponent gives up from frustration or exhaustion.

As a technically trained power plant operator, I have apparently not learned the right words to use to convince people that comparing wind and solar power to a reliable electricity supply is a bit like comparing a bicycle to a city bus or a metro rail.

Sure, the sun and wind are forces that man can harness to do work or make electricity, just like a bicycle is a pretty good form of transportation in certain circumstances. However, I would look pretty silly trying to carry dozens of people on my bicycle. In fact, it gets pretty challenging just to carry enough stuff with me to provide a change of clothing and a raincoat in case of inclement weather. My legs are in pretty good shape, but I need a rest after about 25 miles.

When it comes to reliable power that is available on demand, it is hard to beat a fossil fuel powered generator, unless, of course you have a generator that runs off of the heat produced by an atomic fission reactor. As a guy who used to operate an electric power grid that ran almost exclusively on fission power - granted, it was a small, self-contained grid on a ship - I can personally testify that the system works fine and lasts a long (long, long) time. I have been an ocean sailor and spent enough days becalmed to also be able to testify that the sun sets every single day, making solar cells worthless as a power source until well after sunrise the next day, and the wind changes direction or disappears without any warning more often than many people care to admit.

Reducing fossil fuels for power production so that humans cause less damage to the planet is a big, difficult endeavor. It seems silly to undertake that challenge without using the best available tools. The photo accompanying this post is from just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of the world’s operating coal mines that currently supply about 6 Billion tons of coal each year. That is my target competition when I think about the benefits of investing the time, effort and treasure required to build new nuclear power plants.

Help me, folks. Why is it so difficult to agree that uranium fission competes with fossil fuel combustion and that conservation, wind, sun and biomass “alternatives” are simply not in the same power generation league?

Related links:
First High Resolution Wind Map
Cost of Wind vs Cost of Nuclear to Replace Coal
Nuclear vs. Wind Farms Debate - rather misses the point.

Update (posted May 20, 2008 at 1800 EDT) There is a great article on the front page of Wired dated May 19, 2008 titled Inconvenient Truths: Cutting Carbon Is the Only Thing That Matters. One of the 10 inconvenient truths listed is that environmentalists should EMBRACE NUCLEAR POWER: Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy

That fungus among us may be the answer to uranium-polluted soils eventually being brought back into use.

Researchers at Dundee Unversity in the UK have determined that fungi can block uranium from finding its way into plants, animals or the water supply.

Scientists have found that what they call free-living and plant fungi can, “colonise depleted uranium surfaces and transform the metal into uranyl phosphate minerals”.

That action helps prevent uranium uptake by plants, animals and microbes, although there would still be some threat involved. Researchers said the minerals produced by the fungi are capable of long-term uranim retention.

The research is currently focused in war zones such as Iraq, where weapons using hazardous radioactive uranium-235 leave a dangerous radioactive residue. The depleted uranium is added to weapons to help them penetrate targets, but leaves a wide field of radiation after exploding.

The findings are preliminary, with many questions yet to be answered. But researchers believe this may be an economical and quite simple way to deal with highly radioactive soils, just add moisture and nutrients to the soil to help fungi flourish.

Image

As I stated in an earlier article, the Navajo Nation is challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a Federal appeals court, over proposed in situ leach uranium mining on tribal lands. It’s the first time in history that the NRC will be challenged in court for its approval of a source materials license for an in situ leach uranium mine.

The Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock are represented by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC), Eastern Navajo Dine against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) and Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC). They are demanding that a New Mexico mining company, Hydro Resources, Inc., stay off tribal lands.

Eric Jantz, a lawyer with the NMELC, spent some time with me, explaining the lawsuit and that organization’s role in other uranium related issues. I asked him for a briefing on the litigation.

Image: World Nuclear Association

I spoke with Kenneth Bossong, co-director of UAEA, about the anniversary, and asked him to tell us more about his organization.

National Geographic Photo

For all the minorities in this country who have raised pluperfect hell about their past or current situations, the American Indian has been the quietist, and I wonder why.

Before you write me nasty emails, I’m not minimizing the concerns of minorities in this country: they have their issues and the right to use their voices, and that’s good.

But think for a moment about the original settlers of this land, the American Indian.

They did just fine for centuries, sustaining their cultures with the fruits of the land, picking fights and having wars, just like we all do.

Then, came the white man (no emails please, because that’s what happened), who invaded the natives’ birthright, confiscated their tribal lands, transferred them to reservations and literally forgot about them. Many of those Native Americans to this very day are without electricity and running water, in some cases, living in dirt poor conditions, and they languish without raising their voices.

How incredibly sad.

To add insult to this incomprehensible indignity, mining companies in search of uranium invaded their tribal homes, gouged out huge amounts of topsoil, taking what uranium they could profitably retrieve and leaving open sores bleeding toxic radiation into the soil, air and water.

Their legacy? Still-born babies, children with birth defects, cancer for hundreds, maybe even thousands, livestock mutations and God only knows what else. Maybe to the nuclear industry and our federal government, these people are considered “collateral damage.”

The government that put these noble people onto these lands, quickly approved the mining claims and encouraged uranium miners to take what they can, and in many cases paid only lip service to the clean-up process.

Now, with the price of uranium soaring, those uranium people are at it again, boring test holes on federal lands, in our “protected” forests, and on Indian nation lands.

For the first time in the history of this country, the Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, New Mexico are saying NO to the feds and uranium miners.

In an unprecedented move, 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 on Navajo tribal lands.

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center (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.

Eric Jantz, an attorney for the NMELC, said in a news release:

“The importance of our hearing on May 12 cannot be overstated. “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.”

The company in question, Hydro Resources, is proposing mining operations in four areas in the Church Rock-Crownpoint region. The NRC approved the license in 2006, but the New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit in 2007, asking that the license application be overturned.

In it’s release, the NMELC states the NRC has violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the Atomic Energy Act, and it’s own regulations.

The NMELC’s clients are appealing the following points:

Hydro Resources failed to prove that it will protect groundwater from contamination by uranium and other toxic heavy metals. The company failed to ensure that the health of residents near the mines would be protected from damaging radioactive air emissions.

Hydro Resources’ proposed financial bond for the site is inadequate to ensure that the site(s) would be cleaned up in the event that the company is unable to undertake reclamation of the land and/or water impacted by the mining.

Three cheers for the Navajo Nation, for standing up to our big-brother government.

My stand on nuclear energy is well-stated, en toto: it’s a dirty, dangerous, toxic, life-threatening industry and until miners are held responsible for the mess they make, there should be no new mining of nuclear materials in America.

Photo: LA Times

“The Grand Canyon is too important for the Forest Service to give short shrift to the possible and significant negative impacts of uranium mining exploration,” said Sandy Bahr, conservation outreach director for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “The Forest Service should take a hard look at the impacts and the public should have an opportunity to review and comment on this mining exploration,” added Bahr.

The Forest Service approved the drilling in December, using a so-called categorical exclusion, a decision which required only minimal environmental review. In issuing the recent injunction, Judge Murguia essentially rejected the use of the categorical exclusion by the Forest Service.

The Sierra Club, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Grand Canyon Trust banded together last month to sue the Forest Service for not conducting a thorough review of the environmental impacts of the uranium mining. The groups were able to sue under the Administrative Procedure Act that governs proper bureaucratic protocol, as in cases that involve the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) [read more about the essentials of NEPA].
All signs indicate that there will most likely be an appeal.

Associated Press

Photo: James Gordon

In a news release, the Congressman was quoted as saying:

“I was pleased to introduce this legislation which will forever protect the magnificence of the Grand Canyon and the people who live near and in the Canyon from damaging uranium mining,” said Rep. Grijalva. “The federal government and mining companies still have not adequately dealt with the clean up of old uranium mine sites on the Navajo Nation and other areas that are causing ongoing health problems. Until these issues are resolved, we should not move forward with new mines, especially next to the crown jewel of our National Park System.”

The legislation came on the heels of a news story regarding exploratory drilling for uranium within a few miles of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, a popular tourist destination.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has requested the Bush administration to use it’s executive powers to withdraw areas in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon from mining.

The bill calls for protection of 628,000 acres in the Kanab Creek area, 112,655 in House Rock Valley and 327,886 acres in the Tusayan Ranger District of the Kaibab National forest south of the canyon.

A Congressional field hearing will be held on March 28th in the Flagstaff, AZ City Hall. Local elected officials, Tribal representatives, Grand Canyon area business and environmental representatives and uranium experts are expected to attend the hearing.

The legislation, The Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2008 (H.R. 5583) has been referred to the Committee on Natural Resources. Congressman Grijalva serves on that committee.

Of those 177, sixty-seven are confirmed leakers, meaning their contents are leaching into the soil and headed toward the Columbia River. Most have exceeded their anticipated 50 year life span, creating fear of a catastrophic tank failure.

Thousands of tons of radioactive and hazardous waste has been buried in unlined landfills and 450 billion gallons of liquid waste has been poured into ponds, ditches and drainfields at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the state of Washington.

These figures come from an article in today’s Washington Post, which I don’t intend to re-write. My purpose is only to call your attention to this article and hope you will read it and sense the gravity of the situation in that state.

More than a million people living downstream from Hanford are being threatened by a huge plume of groundwater contaminated with radiation and heavy metals moving their way.

The Bush administration’s proposed cleanup budget has trimmed $800 million from cleanup funding, and increased funding for nearly all other categories in the government’s nuclear program.

And they want to mine more uranium, build more nuclear power plants and pile up more spent radioactive material with no where to go, but possibly our drinking water and riding along with that breeze we inhale.

If you’d like to review some Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports on nuclear issues, I suggest you start with these eye openers.

• GAO report on the Hanford facility as recent as Jan 22, 2008.
• GAO reports on nuclear cleanup issues as recent as Nov 15,2007.
• GAO reports on hazardous waste issues as recent as Nov 13, 2007.
• GAO reports on uranium mining cleanup as recent as Oct 26, 2007.

You may find some duplicity in the reports, but there’s plenty of information to keep the interested person quite busy.

What an outrage! But, before going on, I must say it isn’t the first time they’ve mined uranium in the Kaibab National Forest, near the Grand Canyon. That stopped when the price of uranium plummeted more than two decades ago.

Now, with the resurgence of interest in building new reactors across the country, the miners and prospectors are out again. Which I find rather interesting since the United States and Russia just signed an agreement allowing Russia to sell uranium to the United States. I gotta think about that one.

But, as we speak, according to the New York Times, more than 1,000 mining claims have been staked in the Kaibab forest, many as close as three miles from a popular lookout at the canyon.

The Forest Service has dominion over the forest, and it’s reported they approved the claims after limited public notice to local officials, environmental groups and tribal governments. Then, to add insult to injury, there was no public hearing on the matter. How arrogant can one get? Then I remember, this is still the Bush administration.

In allowing companies to drill exploratory wells, the Forest Service did not require an environmental assessment, saying the drilling will take less than a year and, may not lead to mining.

The Coconino County, AZ Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to block new uranium mines, asking the federal government to, “withdraw large sections of land immediately north and south of the national park from mineral leasing.” Residents are well aware of the dangers involved, citing cancers suffered by former uranium workers and their families. Trucks and trains laden with uranium pose a risk to the environment, they say, and mining could contaminate the aquifers and streams in northern Arizona.

The Kaibab National Forest spokeswoman on this issue, Barbary McCurry, said her agency “had little choice but to allow the drilling under the 1872 mining law that governs hard-rock mining claims. The exploratory drilling is pretty minimal,” she said, adding, “Our obligation is issuing a report on the claims and their possible effects.”

McMurray also pointed out that if prospectors found uranium and sought a permit to mine, then the government would begin a full environmental analysis and environmental impact statement.

What do you think? I’m mad as hell about this. First of all, there’s a 136-year-old mining law that’s in serious need of rewriting, and just the thought of uranium mines operating within three miles of one of our national treasures is incomprehensible.

Consider this scenario: You’ve had a great vacation at the canyon, the family is in the SUV and you’re headed south on that two-lane highway that seems to go forever. Suddenly, you come upon a slow-moving truck loaded with newly-mined soil containing uranium. You have the windows down, it’s a beautiful day, but some dust is blowing off the truck, radioactive dust, and you can’t pass because of oncoming traffic. Roll up the windows, don’t take a deep breath, turn on the AC and try to get around that truck as soon as possible. And you may find more of the same as you travel south to Williams, AZ where you can get on I-40, where you may find more uranium-laden trucks. Some vacation…

I’m not saying this is going to happen tomorrow or anytime soon (hopefully never), but mining of uranium should never be allowed in the Grand Canyon area. Never.

Here we are, in an election year with a lame-duck president apparently doing all he can to add more insult to the world in which we live, and I doubt any rewriting of the 1872 mining law will take place for some time to come, if ever.

What can we do? I’ve got this lump in the pit of my stomach as I write, and I feel very sad.

Marilyn was chief editor when she wrote the stories, Power Hungry, Gathering Clouds and Frontier Justice-in a Good Way. Wanting to know more, I picked up the phone and was honored with a few moments of her time.

She is a native Arizonan, her father ran the company that operates the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix, AZ. It wasn’t until she left home that she decided to have a look at the facility her father managed.

I asked Marilyn how she felt after the visit…

Marilyn has since left the Sierra Club staff and ventured out on her own as a free-lance journalist. She has written for several important publications including the New York Times, Mother Jones, Harper’s, and the Los Angeles Times to name a few.

The Los Angeles Times article she referred to in the interview was actually a four-part series written by Judy Pasternak. This link will take you to that page. If you’d rather read them singley at your leisure, here are the links:

They Took Shelter Amid the Poison.

Oases in Navajo Desert Contained ‘A Witches Brew’.

Navajo’s Desert Cleanup no More Than a Mirage.

Mining Firms Again Eyeing Navajo Land.

Also for your information, I found an excellent website devoted to uranium Decommissioning Projects in the United States. There is a wealth of information for those who are interested in the subject.

Finally, Marilyn referred us to projects underway at the Southwest Research and Information Center.

Audio Here:

Years later, your father dies of lymphoma, and you realize it may have been the result of breathing that green air from the atomic testing range. And you finally understand why the state troopers warned motorists about the dirty air.

Mindful of the legacy left by the atomic tests in Nevada, the obvious dangers of radiation, you decide to become chairman and CEO of a company that brings nuclear waste into your home state from Tennessee, South Carolina, the United Kingdom and now, quite possibly Italy.

Your reason, as quoted in the Deseret News, “My dad died at the same age I am right now: 56, my mother and my family will always believe that we were affected by the ‘downwinders’, and what we’re trying to do is keep that from happening again. What we do is clean up things like that, we handle them safely, we transport them safely.”

A lot of Utah residents are really quite unhappy with this native son, Steve Creamer. He works at a nuclear waste facility in Clive, Utah, about 70 miles due west of Salt Lake City, as a matter of fact, he’s chairman and CEO of the firm, EnergySolutions. The company, formerly Envirocare, and handles more than 95 percent of all commercial low-level radioactive waste in the country, and is looking to expand.

If the latest deal goes through, waste from Italy, about 20,000 tons, will arrive by ship and then will be transported across country by train.

But it isn’t all about burying waste somewhere in a pit. Creamer says the company takes depleted uranium waste from various countries to it’s MSC Oak Ridge, TN site. The uranium is melted down, formed into small casks and re-sold to Tyco Energy for use in transporting radioactive isotopes for chemotherapy and for radiation treatment to hospitals.

The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, or HEAL, questions Creamer’s commitment to the welfare of Utah. It’s director, Vanessa Pierce, is quoted as saying; “what started out as an illegally licensed nuclear-waste dump, Creamer is building into the world’s largest nuclear trash company and is opening Utah’s doors to the world’s waste.”

Here’s the paradox, in Creamers own words, “What we’re doing today is something that will affect the lives of future generations,” he says. “I was born here, raised here, never lived a day outside the state of Utah. I want people to know I am concerned about the community, I’m concerned about the environment, and they have my commitment that what we do, we’ll do safely, and we’ll do it to protect our environment, not to hurt our environment.” And yet, his own family was a victim of radiation, as were many of his neighbors, maybe even himself, yet he wants to bring thousands of tons of radioactive waste into his beloved, and beautiful state.

Well, it’s the same old story, every thing’s gotta be somewhere, and it looks like Utah is going to be a world-class low-level nuclear waste dump.

Interesting that a private company can seem to do what the feds can’t, develop a repository for nuclear waste. I suppose that’s just another example of your tax dollars at work.

Oped News

Photo of Steve Creamer: August Miller, Deseret News

I’ve created a podcast from this material. If you’d rather listen, the link is here:

Looking at the current mess we have with nuclear waste, landscapes scarred with huge open-pit mines and tons of unprotected waste from those operations, greenhouse gasses and pollution of our waters, to name a few, I think the old saying is correct.

We seem hell-bent on creating a radioactive society, betting that human frailty and the failure of “modern technology” will never become an issue with respect to radioactive contamination of our environment. All for a flawed concept that touts nuclear energy as “clean”. It isn’t.
Now, our friends across the “pond” in the UK, are up in arms about a proposal made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He wants to replace England’s aging nuclear power facilities with 10 new ones, and that’s brought out the critics.

Chief among them is Greenpeace UK, with “The Case Against Nuclear Power” a pdf file available on the site. This is a thorough look at how the British Government has, “understated the real risks to the taxpayer and the lack of clarity on economics”. I suggest a look at the Greenpeace front page too, for their solutions to tackling climate change and energy security in the UK.

Meanwhile, let me refer you to Pem Charnley’s article, “Unbelievable UK Nuclear Decision“, an incisive look at the furor growing in the UK with some excellent links to UK media sources.

I commented on one researcher’s view that “Nuclear Energy is Clean; Renewables Damage the Ecology“, claiming that implementation of renewable fuel options is a “rape of the land”. Go to Google and put in a request for images of open pit mines, or more specifically, open pit urani