Found a different recent article that goes into a little more depth.
Like this excerpt in particular; “It’s important to remember that the aquifer is exempt in the first place,” NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley said before the hearing. “It’s full of uranium. You wouldn’t want to drink it, and you wouldn’t want your cattle to drink it.”
Strata Energy should know by early January whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will add new requirements to its license for Wyoming’s sixth in-situ leach uranium mine.
The Powder River Basin Resource Council and Natural Resources Defense Council filed complaints to the permit the commission issued for the mine in April. A two-day hearing for evidence on those claims concluded Wednesday at Cam-plex.
The groups contended that pre-mining groundwater data was incomplete before the license was issued, unplugged bore holes from past operations created unaddressed risk for movement of mining chemicals away from the mining zone, and the license does not address potential environmental impacts if the mine is unable to restore water quality to pre-mining conditions.
The panel of three judges heard arguments from teams of attorneys and expert witnesses from the environmental groups, Strata Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that was responsible for issuing the permit.
The judges will decide whether to add stipulations to the permit by January, subject to the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval and to appeals in a federal court.
“It’s always difficult for a small group like us to participate in these processes,” said Shannon Anderson, staff attorney for the Powder River Basin Resource Council.
Just to get to this point has been a three-year process since the first complaints with the permitting process for Strata were filed, she said.
Strata started going through the regulatory process as early as 2009 and got the first of a series of state and federal permits for different aspects of the operation in 2011.
The in-situ mining process involves drilling injection wells into formations with uranium ore, injecting a solution of oxidizers into the ore to make a uranium-rich solution, then pumping the solution to the surface and processing the uranium into the stock used for nuclear fuel.
A ring of monitor wells around the production zone and wells in the formations above and below the production zone allow operators to detect any chemicals moving away from the production zone.
The hearing covered the first contention on groundwater data Tuesday.
The NRC permitting process doesn’t require full, scientifically defensible water quality data before a license is issued. The environmental groups argued the laws that allow public involvement in permitting processes require that information be available.
Commission staff and Strata argued that post-licensing data that will be collected about the water in the narrow production zone, not the entire site, will be sufficient to set remediation targets.
“If this is the best practice, why aren’t we doing it?” Judge Paul Bollwerk III said to NRC staff, referring to the type of baseline water data the environmental groups say is required.
Open bore holes
Wednesday saw arguments on the other contentions.
More than 1,000 open bore holes from a past research project at the site increase the likelihood of mining fluids traveling from the production aquifer to surrounding formations.
The company didn’t have requirements that would hold them to finding and plugging those holes, according to the resource council and defense council.
Strata’s permit requires that it make a good faith effort to find and plug and abandon any open bore holes inside the ring of monitor wells.
Like any in-situ leach uranium mining permit, it also has specific requirements for controlling the well system any time contaminants move away from the production zone.
“I think from the joint interveners’ perspective, to paraphrase Yoda, the problem is that there is no try, there is only do,” Bollwerk said.
There are records of 1,382 holes the company is responsible for plugging, and they have found 1,265 and plugged 55 so far, according to testimony.
“We have performed pump tests that identified wells that, were they left in that condition, would have caused an excursion,” said Hal Demuth, senior engineer for Petrotech and an expert witness for Strata. “They have been addressed.”
The pump tests last between 72 hours and about a week. Putting pressure on the system for that period of time is not enough to prove one way or another whether water, and all the minerals and compounds that go with it, move between the aquifers during a multi-year operation, said Richard Abitz, a geochemist and expert witness for the environmental groups.
There are also legacy oil and gas wells in the mine area, but Strata says state data on those wells shows they were plugged and abandoned properly.
“Based on a review of state data, I have no concerns,” Demuth said.
Remediation targets
The mine’s original remediation target will be set at the quality of the water before mining starts.
The environmental groups argue that regulators did not consider impacts if those targets can’t be met.
If past is prelude, those targets will not be met, and the commission has processes in place to address that.
No in-situ leach mine has successfully reached pre-mining water quality for every constituent. Instead, the commission is able to set alternate levels with the requirement that they protect human health and environment and are as strict as reasonable on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s important to remember that the aquifer is exempt in the first place,” NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley said before the hearing. “It’s full of uranium. You wouldn’t want to drink it, and you wouldn’t want your cattle to drink it.”
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