Crow Butte uranium mine’s license renewal protested

By GEORGE LEDBETTER, Record Editor

http://www.thechadronnews.com/articles/2008/11/03/chadron/headlines/news880.txt

Opponents of the Crow Butte Resources uranium mine near Crawford used a two-day hearing in Chadron last week to try and convince a panel of Nuclear Regulatory Commission judges that the mine’s operation poses a danger to area water supplies, and may be causing significant health effects on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The 13 individuals and groups seeking to have operations of the In Situ Leach (ISL) mine suspended face a significant hurdle, however, as they first must convince the panel that they have the right to take part in the license renewal proceedings.

The Crow Butte mine has been in operation since the early 1990’s, and produces about 800,000 pounds of yellowcake uranium each year. The mine is owned by Cameco Corp., a Canadian-owned company that is the world’s largest uranium producer, and ships its yellowcake to Canada for use in nuclear electric generation plants.

The mine has applied to the NRC for a permit to expand operations to a site just north of Crawford, and is preparing plans for two additional expansions in the area south of town as well.

Opponents of the license renewal include several of the same people and groups who are seeking to block the mine’s expansion. Among those are the Western Nebraska Resources Council, the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, Owe Aku/Bring Back the Way, a Lakota Indian cultural group, Tom Cook of Chadron, Debra White Plume of Pine Ridge, S.D., and other individuals from South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Oglala Sioux Treaty Council, a group separate from the tribal government, is also seeking to intervene in the license renewal.

Opposition to the mine is based in large part on the allegation that the water used in mining, which is drawn from the shallow Chadron formation, could contaminate deeper underground aquifers that provide water for the reservation, 30 some miles northwest of the mine. Further threats are posed by surface water drainage into the White River, which flows from the Crawford area to the reservation, they contend.

Reservation residents may already be experiencing effects of the mine in the form of high incidence of diabetes and some types of cancer that are related to the presence of radioactive elements, according to mine opponents.

In their most recent filing, the opponents said that in addition to contaminating water with radioactive material, ISL mining releases arsenic into water supplies, which a recent study shows as a contributing factor to diabetes. In a press release, the opponents also seek to link what they call a ‘cluster’ of pancreatic cancer in Chadron to the mine’s operation.

Attorneys for Crow Butte oppose the inclusion of the petitioners in the license renewal process, and contend that the mine has operated safely and without harming surface or underground water for more than a decade. No evidence has shown that water from the mine has migrated off site, they argued, and test wells at the perimeter of the mining area have shown no contamination problems.

Much of the opponents’ argument about the threat to underground water is based on a report by Chadron State College geology instructor Hannan LaGarry, which says that faults and fractures in underground rock layers could provide a link between the localized aquifer used for mining and other water bearing formations.

“My clients strongly believe that the right to clean and useable water is a human right,” said Bruce Ellison, an attorney for several of the mine opponents. “And we believe... that there is a plausible causation between the area being mined currently... and water supplies being utilized on the reservation.”

Other geologists don’t support the idea of fractures that connect the aquifers, however, said Tyson Smith, an attorney for Crow Butte. “LaGarry has a more recent interpretation. That’s not a substitute for site-specific data. At the site level, we don’t have these fractures,” he said.

The Oglala tribe and the Treaty Council also argue that they have additional rights to control operation of the mine because it is on land that was granted to the tribe under federal treaties in 1851 and 1868.

No firm timetable is in place for decisions on the license renewal, NRC administrative judge Micheal Gibson said at the conclusion of the hearing at Chadon State College’s Sandoz Center. The four judges on the panel hope to have a decision on the ‘standing’ of the opponents within a couple of months, he said, while action on the license itself won’t come until the NRC staff completes its analysis of the renewal application. Operations at the mine can continue while the application is being reviewed.

Gibson and the three other NRC judges hearing the renewal application toured the mine site Thursday morning and then visited the Pine Ridge Reservation in the afternoon before returning to Washington, D.C.