WNA reported on October, 2020 that uranium mining in the U.S. today is undertaken by few companies on a relatively small scale. Uranium exploration is undertaken by many companies, often going over areas that were mined in the 1950s-80s.
Uranium production is from one mill (White Mesa, Utah) fed by four or five underground mines and several in-situ leach (ISL) operations, see EIA Report). Most US uranium-producing states are 'agreement states' vis a vis the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and have authority to issue permits and regulate uranium mining and milling. The NRC's role is then minimal. In February 2015 Wyoming, the major uranium production state, passed legislation to make it an agreement state, along with all the other uranium-producing states. The NRC agreed to this in 2018. Five of the six operating uranium recovery facilities previously under NRC oversight are in Wyoming. Under a 2010 agreement the NRC collaborates with the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on environmental assessment of mine proposals. A majority of US uranium production comes from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
However, land access is partly controlled by the US government, and in 2011 the Interior Secretary issued an order banning new hardrock uranium mining in about 4000 square km of land in Arizona for 20 years, which sterilized 145,000 tU of known resources according to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and also much prospective ground. The industry contends that uranium exploration and mining here would not compromise the Grand Canyon watershed. The land is not within the Grand Canyon National Park or the buffer zone protecting the national park. The industry contends that that the land withdrawal is not justified by information in the Interior Department’s environmental assessment, and is an “arbitrary agency action” under the Administrative Procedure Act, and that it fails to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take the “hard look” at the withdrawal’s consequences that the U.S. Supreme Court required in a unanimous 1989 decision. In March 2013 a US District Court judge declined to overturn the mining ban, and in October 2014 the US District Court affirmed the ban (see NEI comment). This was then appealed, and in December 2017 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the earlier decisions.
In January 2015 the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new health and environmental protection standards for uranium extraction including tighter groundwater quality and monitoring standards, under the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978. The proposed standards address the increased use of ISL for uranium recovery in the USA. The proposed rule describes how ISL facilities are to characterize groundwater chemistry before commencing uranium mining. The rule would also require compliance with whichever standard is most stringent from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act for each of 13 groundwater constituents: arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, silver, nitrate, molybdenum, radium, total uranium, and gross alpha particle activity. The final post-mining water quality would need to match the original, and be monitored for 30 years by the operator unless chemistry was satisfactory and stable over three years. The final standards will be administered by the NRC.
This is a comprehensive coverage of current uranium exploration and mining in the U.S., read on .........................
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