David Louis reports that Mohave County officials will soon step up lobbying efforts to convince the new administration to lift a 20-year ban on uranium mining on the Arizona strip. The ban, imposed in 2012, carved out more than 1 million acres north of Lake Havasu City from mining operations. Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson would like to see the moratorium lifted.
With enough pressure, they trust that the new administration will realize the economic strain imposed on Mohave County and other counties in Arizona because of the Obama administration 2012 withdrawal, Johnson said. Studies have shown that the Arizona Strip contains some of the U.S. highest grade domestic uranium deposits, a resource that cannot be allowed to remain untapped, Johnson said.
This ban included both public lands and national forest system lands, he added. Uranium mining would have brought in nearly $29 billion to their local economy over a 42-year period. This ban took away the needed growth and jobs from their area.
A report done by the American Clean Energy Resource Trust found that during the 1980s, seven mines in the northern Arizona produced 19 million pounds of uranium, the energy equivalent of approximately 676 million barrels of oil. During the past 20 years, the U.S. has produced on average about 4 million pounds of uranium per year. But domestic consumption from nuclear power plants averages between 50 and 60 million pounds per year.
I think that mining is probably the quickest way to bounce back economically, Johnson said. This industry is something you can use to immediately put people back to work. Curtis Moore, Energy Fuels vice president of marketing supports Johnson direction.
We thought the ban was too broad, Moore said. There really was no legal justification in putting the withdrawal in place. Right now this is preventing the exploration and development of the uranium deposits in this area, and although these are fairly small historical mines in the area.
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