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Energy Fuels wants less restrictions in processing waste at the proposed Pinon Ridge uranium mill
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Original photo by Marie Moore
Energy Fuels is trying to alter its special use permit application. They want to open up the restriction, imposed by the Montrose Planning Commission, that states, “only raw uranium ore processed on-site may be stored in the tailings cells.”
The Montrose Daily Press reports that Energy Fuels CEO, George Glasier, brought up the proposed change for discussion late at the June 10 meeting, the second public hearing before the Planning Commission, after public comments were closed. By this time, many members of the public had already left.
In testimony at the May 19 meeting in Nucla, before a large crowd in the high school gymnasium, Energy Fuels had publicly stated they had “no plans to process any material other than uranium ore,” according to the Montrose Daily Press.
It now appears that Energy Fuels, facing an unstable uranium market, is scrabbling to increase profits by processing waste materials from other sites.
“I think that we are looking at a special use permit for a mill that cannot make a decent profit on uranium ore and instead wants to get permitted as an industrial uranium-hazardous materials recycler,” Stills said, as quoted in the Montrose Daily Press.
While Energy Fuels claims they had always intended to process other products, such as the water treatment filters from mines they own, the fact that they had failed to mention this at the first open meeting, or at any other time, is troubling. It illustrates that management at the company knows milling is contentious, and has sought to keep certain information from the public. This underscores one of the major problems with this industry – the incentive to jump through the hoops and accomplish the minimally accepted mandates while clutching a secret agenda.
Glasier has said in meetings last year that he “is in it for the money.” That he doesn’t care where the yellowcake goes, who buys it, or for what ultimate purpose it is used. The mill, he said, “is at the front end of the fuel cycle. These questions [about the end-use of the product] can be asked, but I don’t have any answers,” he said. When pressed about the safety of constructing a mill in a potentially geologically active basin, where salt mining has caused minor earthquakes in the recent past, last year at a meeting in Norwood, Glasier quipped, “These are questions for the regulators. And they might listen. But I won’t. I am going to do everything I can to build this uranium mill.”
Clearly, chasing money can lead to dangerous shortcuts during pursuit. It’s hard to stay objective when $300 million in annual revenues is stopping up your eyes.
At the same meeting last year, Glasier seemed to intimate there isn’t going to be too much mining in the region, perhaps alluding to his new proposal to mill waste streams from other sites.
“[We are] never going to have a big uranium mine in this area,” he said. “The nature of the deposit is such that [about 200 tons per day would be locally produced].” And yet the mill will be designed to process 1,000 tons a day.
Lots doesn’t add up. Phil Egidi, the Environmental Protection Specialist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment’s Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division, charged with reviewing the mill, is reported by the Montrose Daily Press as having suggested to Energy Fuels that their hoped-for mill also process source materials, such as filters from municipal treatment facilities with high radioactivity in the water. Apparently, according to the Daily Press, discussions between Egidi and Energy Fuels had included milling ion resin columns from filters containing uranium from water treatment facilities in southeast and southwest Colorado, uranium from in-situ mining facilities in Wyoming, Nebraska and Texas, and “possibly uranium from Energy Fuel’s own mining water treatment facilities,” to quote the Press.
Phil Egidi, the Environmental Protection Specialist at the CDPHE, holds an associate science degree from Mesa State college. He is in charge of making sure the correct procedures are followed, particularly the Financial Assurance required for adequate clean up, and the protection of the environment.
“We approached the [Planning] commission at the end of the June 10 hearing because the state (Phil Egidi) had suggested, between the two hearings, that we process the municipal ion resin filters in order to reduce the costs to municipalities with high uranium and those are to be found throughout the West,” the Montrose Daily Press reports Glasier saying Wednesday evening.
“That would not be a mining development-related permit in an agricultural area, and if that were the case, this would not be a valid application,” the Montrose Daily Press records Stills saying. “Energy Fuels has totally misled the public in these hearings and in past public meetings, and this new information should be a focus of public comment and a new application.”
The Montrose Daily Press reports that Montrose County Planning Director Steve White “stressed that neither he nor the planning commission had direct knowledge of any discussion of other waste streams prior to the public hearings.”
The third hearing will be held on July 1, 6 pm, at Friendship hall in Montrose. It will be up to the Planning Commission then to decide whether further public comment is warranted. But if this is to be an objective, transparent application, which seeks to inform the public of all potential risks, a new application should be submitted, and the public should get their two-cents worth. After all, everyone else in this business is expecting to make millions.
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