Andrea J. Cook reports that mine developers and adversaries of a planned uranium mining operation in Custer and Fall River counties, South Dakota rarely agree, but on Thursday both saw a federal decision as a victory for their side.
The lengthy decision comes months, and hundreds of legal filings, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board took testimony on a contested license the NRC granted to Powertech Uranium, now Azarga Uranium, to develop its Dewey-Burdock in situ leach uranium facility near Edgemont. The licensing board found in Powertech favor on five of the adversarial challenges relating to water quality and quantity. It did, however, revise the Powertech license, instructing the company to make more efforts to find and properly abandon existing drill holes at the site to prevent contamination by rainfall draining into the subsurface. Such recent holes have standard procedures in place for appropriate abandonment using cement and bentonite, if needed. The thousands of historical holes are to be sealed when encountered.
Dewey-Burdock Project Manager Mark Hollenbeck of Edgemont said that they were very happy with all the science-based decisions that the court made,. Hollenbeck said all of the licensing board's decisions upheld the Powertech scientific presentations and data on water quality and hydrology.
The licensing board ruled in favor of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the unspecified threat the mining operation would pose to Native American cultural, historic and religious sites in the well-fields that could be easily managed with the cooperation of the Tribe.
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