BLM State Office Wants More Information

TELLURIDE — Even as the Montrose County Board of County Commissioners were deliberating whether or not to approve a special use permit for a proposed uranium mill in Paradox Valley, the Bureau of Land Management Colorado State Office recently dealt a temporary setback to plans to expand uranium and vanadium mining southwest of Naturita.

The San Juan Public Lands Center in Dolores in January approved plans by the Denison Mines Corporation to expand its operations at the Topaz Mine, but after reviewing the decision at the request of the Sheep Mountain Alliance and other conservation organizations, the COSO remanded it back to the regional division, stating that it lacked data on the environmental impact of the expansion.

“The BLM COSO finds that the San Juan Public Lands Center has not met all legal and technical [National Environmental Policy Act] standards in review, analysis, and comment incorporation in the decision…Areas of concern are the lack of data associated with the expansion of waste piles, and in ground water in the mines,” Lynn E. Rust, the BLM’s deputy state director for Energy, Lands and Minerals, wrote in her decision.

“This Mine permit analysis should rely on the best available data, not simply on the data submitted if better data can be readily obtained,” she later stated.

Located within the Uravan Mineral Belt, the Topaz mine is one of five underground mines included in the Toronto-based company’s Sunday Mines complex in Big Gypsum Valley. Exploration there began in 1977, with most development occurring through the mid-1980s, as Topaz went through a series of different ownerships. In 1990, Denison acquired all five mines and today conducts activities as a single operation.

In addition to expanding the waste-rock piles, the decision was to provide seven new vent holes, exploration drilling, extend underground declines and rehabilitate mine workings. New surface disturbance would total about 20 acres.

While existing waste-rock dumps at the mine were constructed prior to 1979, before regulations restricted the dumping of unknown materials in direct contact with soil, bedrock and groundwater, today’s regulatory environment employs much stricter controls.

These days dump rock characterization studies with long-term monitoring and mitigation requirements are required prior to permitting. Rust noted that had Denison’s application been for a new mine rather than an existing mine expansion, then the characterization study would have been required, likely providing the best available information.

But since mine dumps have been at the location for at least 30 years, real world evidence of the impacts to soil and water below them could be easily obtained. As a result, she directed the company to get that information.

“They could have used data from the site, but they didn’t,” said SMA director Hilary White.

“We argued that in order to study environmental impacts you have to have baseline information,” explained Jeff Parsons of the Western Mining Action Project, the lead attorney representing the conservation groups.

“You can’t predict impact if you don’t know what’s going on in the ground,” he continued.

“We have been directed to go back an do some more analysis,” said Jamie Sellar-Baker, Associate Manager of the Dolores Public Lands Office, who signed the Finding of No Significant Impact and Decision Record for the proposal.

She estimated that the additional analysis could take another year, at which point, “It’s possible that we may need to issue a new decision which could outline additional mitigation measures for the proposed mine expansion,” she said.

“There is also the chance that the testing will reveal no new information and there will

be no effect to the original decision to expand the dump area.”

Despite the victory, the groups were unsuccessful in persuading the COSO to look beyond the lone project to require an analysis of the cumulative effects of reopening the region to the uranium industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management currently manages 25,000 acres within the Uravan Mineral Belt under its Uranium Leasing Program.

“A regional and programmatic analysis for uranium and vanadium mining are beyond the scope of this site-specific mine expansion analysis,” Rust wrote.

But beyond the scope or not, the reality of multiple uranium operations all located in a relatively small area isn’t going away.

“That’s another major issue here,” said Parsons, calling the cumulative impacts “the elephant in the room.”

“It makes more sense to address this now,” he said.