The San Miguel County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday met with opposing sides in a debate over a new uranium processing technology that could be used at mines in the county. The county is readying comments on possible regulation of the new technology, called ablation, to be submitted to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment by July 22.
County attorney Steve Zwick said the CDPHE is considering six options for regulating the uranium ablation technology. The first would defer regulation to the state Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety; Zwick indicated the county likely would not recommend that option. The other five options represent varying degrees of CDPHE oversight of the technology.
According to a 2015 white paper submitted by Black Range Minerals to the CDPHE, ablation mining technology “is a method of mining mineral deposits from host rock. (Ablation mining technology) is able to disassociate, or mine, mineral coatings from sand grains in sandstone hosted uranium mineral deposits. After this disassociation is complete, the coarse sand grains can be screened from the mineral fines, producing cleaned sand grains and uranium mineral ore fines.”
George Glasier, president and founder of Western Minerals Corporation, which completed an acquisition of Black Range last year, told the San Miguel BOCC ablation mining could help clean up leftover uranium at area mines, as well as allow mining companies to process uranium more affordably and efficiently. Western Uranium holds uranium mining permits at the Sunday Mine Complex in western San Miguel County as well as other locations in Colorado and Utah. Environmental advocates told the board the ablation process needs to be tested further before it’s employed in the county.
The CDPHE process is an attempt to determine if the ablation technology should be considered a mining process or a milling process. According to Glasier, the milling regulations are more stringent.
“If you want to kill this process, require a mill license,” he told the commissioners. “If (the CDPHE) determines that this needs a mill license, this technology is dead.”
Glasier told the Daily Planet last week that Piñon Ridge Mining, another Western Uranium subsidiary, owns the Sunday mining sites, and Black Range Minerals owns the new ablation technology.
Jennifer Thurston, executive director of the Information Network for Responsible Mining, told the commissioners that she’s holding out hope the ablation technology can be put to good use, but that it shouldn’t be tested in San Miguel County.
“I see some potential for innovation with this technology, and I think they need to continue to develop it,” she said at the Wednesday meeting. “As a native of San Miguel County, I have a personal objection to San Miguel being an experiment site. Maybe some other place would be very happy to do it. We need more rigorous science.”
Thurston added that she hopes the new technology will be required to go through a public licensing process.
While the county will provide input of their own, additional public comment can be sent to Jennifer Opila, Radiation Program Manager, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 4300 Cherry Creek South Drive, Denver, CO 80260, or to[email protected].
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