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BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
Heavy Metal
Uranium mine would bring jobs, at what cost?
I
Shuey says, “It’s not likely that an open-pit mine, along
with its surface facilities, could be operated profi tably at
today’s uranium spot market prices, or even at prices that
are typically higher for long-term supply contracts.”
According to Shuey and SRIC, the initial questions
about proposed mines like this are “not really about the
potential environmental and public health impacts, as
important as those concerns are.” He says, “The fi rst
questions are about the economic feasibility of a new
mine and mill complex in a depressed uranium market,”
and more questions revolve around the “viability of small
uranium companies that form out of bigger companies or
companies that have failed, which raise enough money to
buy minerals data from previous exploration operations,
put together a board of directors of re-treaded mining
company executives and throw together impressing-
looking websites.” Paul Robinson of SRIC calls this
“mining investors,” not uranium.
Reynolds says Oregon Energy is prepared to spend
$200 million to establish and input $150 million on an
annual basis into the mine.
Robinson says that Oregon Energy’s most recent press
release updating its exploration drilling at the Aurora
deposit indicates a low uranium content. This low value,
Robinson says, might be why the previous owner of the
mining rights to the Aurora deposit, Uranium One, decided
to sell the property without mining it. Uranium One is
controlled by the Russian Atomic Ministry ROSATAM
through its uranium-mining subsidiary ARMZ, which
attained majority ownership by selling Uranium One
shares in uranium mines in Kazakhstan, Robinson says.
On Oct. 10, the Australian government approved the
environmental impact statement for the massive expansion
of the Olympic Dam uranium and copper mine in that
country. Analysts predict that the mine’s expansion could
fl ood the market and drive uranium prices even lower
than their already low post-Fukushima disaster levels.
According to his online resume, Reynolds was a senior
exploration geologist for the Olympic Dam mine.
Before the mine ever comes into being, Shuey says, there
is a long permitting process, which includes opportunities
for public input through the BLM, which oversees the
land the mine would be on, the Department of Geology
and Mineral Industries and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. The process could take fi ve to 10 years.
But Bell and the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone
Tribe need to make decisions now based on the possibility
of Oregon Energy going ahead with its plan to turn 3,000
acres of federal land into the site of a gaping open-pit mine.
“It’s going to be a blight on the land, and impact ground
and surface waters,” says Sarah Fields of Uranium Watch,
t’s a classic conundrum. Billy Bell, the tribal chairman
of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, calls
it “the two-headed beast.” A proposed uranium mine
about 10 miles from the Fort McDermitt Reservation, if it
is actually feasible, could offer jobs and a needed economic
jolt to the tribe and nearby community, but it also has the
potential to contaminate the land, air and water with heavy
metals and radiation and damage Native American cultural
areas.
Bell says that the reservation, just over the border from
Oregon in Nevada, is in a remote area and “we have the
social impacts of a low economic community.” Like the
inner city, he says, dropout rates are high, as is joblessness
and drug and alcohol use.
Bell says that the tribe is interested in the jobs potential
but is leaving the negotiating table open. He says, “We are
about 85 percent dependent on federal resources in funding.
And the uncertainties of how Congress is handling budget
cutbacks and shortfalls means we have to look at other
avenues of economic development to sustain the tribe into
the future.”
He says, “Just generally, I guess, and I don’t want to
speak for any group, some community folks are pretty
excited about something different coming to the area.”
But Bell says the tribe must also consider that risks to the
community’s physical and cultural health could also be
high, as has been the case with past uranium mines on or
near tribal land.
Lachlan Reynolds is the managing director of Australian
Energy Ventures and president of its subsidiary, Oregon
Energy, which owns the rights to the proposed mine
known as the Aurora deposit. He says if the mine goes
through, “the operation would support 150 full-time jobs.”
Reynolds says in mining a rule-of-thumb is to “multiply
by three in terms of indirectly related jobs,” resulting in
a “fairly signifi cant number of both skilled and unskilled
jobs.” He expects the mine’s life to be about eight to 12
years and says the open-pit mine, the process facility on
site and tailings facility will be constructed to the highest
state and federal standards.
“Oftentimes we hear about the economic benefi ts of
mining,” says Liz Nysson of the Oregon Natural Desert
Association, which has begun looking into the proposed mine.
But she says, “That argument goes moot when considering
the enormous burden that could fall on taxpayers.”
There is only one currently operating convention-
al uranium mill in the U.S., the White Mesa Mill near
Blanding, Utah, according to Chris Shuey of the South-
west Research and Information Center, a group that pro-
vides information to the public on energy development
and resource exploitation.
525 HIGH STREET, EUGENE (541) 683-1999
which works on the environmental impacts associated with
current and historical uranium milling in Utah.
Bell says in addition to fi nancial impacts, the tribe is
weighing the cultural and environmental impacts the
uranium mine could have. For example the Cold War-era
Midnite Mine and its mill in Washington state, adjacent to
the Spokane Indian Reservation, left behind 33 million tons
of radioactive rock and ore and led the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry to caution tribal members
there against eating wild game, fi sh or plants gathered from
the drainage where the groundwater is contaminated with
heavy metals and radionuclides.
That mine closed in 1981, and last week the federal
government reached a $193 million settlement with
Newmont Mining and its subsidiary for the clean-up.
Reynolds told both EW and Bell that the Oregon mine
would use newer techniques to curtail the contamination of
the past but was unable to give specifi cs, saying it was too
early in the process.
“This is not their fi rst rodeo,” Bell says. “They are just
not saying it because by law they don’t have to.”
“There’s never enough monitoring of the actual
impacts,” says Fields. “These companies are in it to make
money and one way to do it is by ignoring regulations.”
She says a state like Oregon, with very little history of
uranium mining and its impacts — the exception being
the Lucky Lass and White King Superfund sites near
Lakeview — needs public involvement. She says, “Even
if you think you are for this mine, look over the shoulders
of regulators.”
According to Fields, dust from the site, possibly
contaminated with arsenic or radioactive materials
“blowing offsite and eaten, consumed, breathed in by
grazing animals, the native fauna or human beings,” has
been a concern for those near uranium mining in Utah and
could be an issue in Oregon.
Bell says the health effects on tribal members who
might work in the mine are a concern, as is whether dust,
traffi c and transmission lines from the mine would have an
effect on wildlife traditionally hunted by the tribe.
In addition to economics, health and the environment,
the uranium mine could have cultural impacts to the tribe.
“It’s secluded from the general public enough right now,
but what kind of traffi c is it going to bring into the area, and
is it going to disrupt the sacred sites?” Bell asks.
“Agriculture and mining has always been an integral
employment source for the community,” Bell says, and
Oregon Energy has said it wants to be a “partner” in the
community. “Sometimes our interests in the tribe confl ict,”
Bell says. “How do we balance that?”
ew
Part of an EW series on mining in Oregon.
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