NUCLA – Despite falling uranium prices, George Glasier of Energy Fuels Inc. is pressing ahead with plans to open a uranium processing mill in the Paradox Valley.

“We’re in the last quarter of the one-year process to collect background data,” Glasier said. “We’re also in the special use permit process with Montrose County and I think we will have the first public meeting in March.”

Glasier said he’s waiting for the county to set a date for the public meeting, which will be in Naturita, and in the meantime he plans to meet with the West End advisory committee to the Montrose County Planning Commission.

“The issues in the West End are different and so far away from Montrose, so we need to take the advice of local people,” he said.

The county is currently using Buckhorn Geotech to review the water source for the proposed mill on ranchland that belongs to Glasier.

Glasier said he expects to go through the planning process and meet with the Montrose County Board of Commissioners with his request for a special use permit by May or June.

People opposed to a mill in the Paradox Valley often cite the Superfund site of a former mill at Uravan, about 12 miles as the crow flies from the town of Paradox, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just completed a 20-year, $120 million cleanup. According to the EPA, more than 13 million cubic yards of mill tailings, evaporation pond precipitates and other contaminants were removed from 50 mill structures. More than 380 million gallons of contaminated liquid were treated.

Glasier has said in the past that his mill will be environmentally friendly and all contaminants will be dealt with properly.

Not everyone agrees. The website savingparadox.org points out the perils of the proposed mill: “Large radioactive tailings piles and evaporation ponds would be left behind forever. The results would be real estate devaluation, family farms going under from water depletion, big government spending on containment forever, potential childhood and elderly cancers, and contamination of the Dolores, San Miguel and Colorado rivers.”

Although he’s aware of opposition to the mill, Glasier estimated “probably 95 percent of people on the West End” would like to see the mill built.

“They are losing jobs there almost daily,” he said. “The gas industry shut down and pulled out and jobs were pulled as fast as they were created. The drillers are not coming in. One restaurant shut down and there’s nobody at the hotel.”

As Montrose County works on revising its master plan, Glasier said the most important issue for the West End should be jobs.

“The number one issue on the West End is economic viability, far greater than water quality or transportation,” he said. “If you don’t have jobs, you can’t live here, so what’s the point of having clean air? This mill would be the best thing to happen to the West End of the county, the only thing that would create long-term jobs.”

With the mines going and the mill to support it, he added, hundreds of people would find work.

“Without the mill, these mines aren’t going to go,” he said.

Glasier has claims to five uranium mine sites in western Colorado and Utah, including the Whirlwind Mine in Mesa County, which is currently on standby after closing in November and putting nine people out of work.

“The mill is fully permitted and we could turn on a month’s notice and hire miners back” once the price of uranium goes up again, he said, and then he’s talking about more mines.

“We have no mines in Montrose County, but I have property, so the next mine could be in Montrose County,” he said.

If Glasier gains approval by the county and is allowed to build the mill, it will produce yellow cake uranium. While the Uravan mill produced most of the radioactive uranium for the development of the atomic bomb, according to a recent article in High Country News, the yellow cake produced near Paradox would be used to produce energy through nuclear reactors, according to Glasier.