Coloradans grapple with promise, threat of uranium

This time, it will be different.

This time, the boom won't go bust.

This time, the government can be trusted to do its job.

This time, regulators won't look the other way while men die in the mines and mills.

The uranium renaissance isn't here yet, but plans are in place for a new mill in this town between Durango and Grand Junction. Combined with a federal leasing program, the effort could restart a mining lifestyle that's little more than a childhood memory to many people here.

If the promises are fulfilled, the reopened mines would draw workers from as far away as Cortez, 98 miles to the south, according to government studies.

"We will build this mill, which will make the uranium industry go again in Western Colorado," said George Glasier, CEO of Energy Fuels Corp., the company behind the mill.

The promise has many area residents remembering the good old days, when the mines were open, the schools were full of kids and the bars and restaurants full of paying customers. Other veterans of the last boom still bear their Cold War scars.

"I don't want to see any more people die," said Reed Hayes of Paradox, who worked in a uranium mill in Moab, Utah, in the 1960s. He's one of only three men from the original crew left alive, and he's battled burning rashes his whole life.

"A lot of my friends - 23 of my friends - died of lung cancer," Hayes said.

Sherry Ross of Naturita grew up in Uravan, a mill town whose name was a contraction of the words Uranium and Vanadium but was wiped off the map after an environmental cleanup that began in the 1980s and was completed last year. Like Hayes, she knows people killed by the mills. But unlike him, she thinks the new mill would be much safer.

"My vegetables came out of the garden at Uravan," Ross said. "My dad died of it at an early age. There's a lot of people here whose fathers died of it. But we wouldn't want it here unless we thought it was safe for our children and grandchildren."

The local debate could echo across the country. The Four Corners once was the capital of the nuclear West, with thousands of miners pulling ore out of the mountains for American atomic weapons. During World War II, the discarded uranium ore in a tailings pile at the old vanadium mill in Durango suddenly became a matter of national security, serving as a source of fuel for the Manhattan Project, which built the world's first atomic bombs.

Hunger for energy

When uranium atoms are split inside a nuclear reactor, heat is generated. This heat is transferred to water, which becomes steam, which then turns turbines to produce electricity.

Congress has made it easier to build nuclear reactors in the last decade, and the United States will add another 25 to 30 reactors by 2030, said Felix Killar, a uranium expert at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group that lobbies for increased use of nuclear power. China and India will add 40 or 50.

"It's really the international market that's causing a lot of the interest," Killar said.

Nuclear power plants don't emit carbon dioxide, so they could get a boost if the Senate passes President Barack Obama's plan to regulate global-warming emissions.

"We just need electricity. The country continues to expand, and we just need the power," Killar said.

Mill could invigorate mines

The Montrose County Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of a permit for the mill. The decision now rests with the county commissioners, who probably will hold a hearing in mid- to late August, said Montrose County spokeswoman Ana Mostaccero.

The mill also will need a permit from the state health department's radiation division. Glasier, with Energy Fuels Corp., expects to apply for the state permit in October, and the process will take about 15 months, said Steve Tarlton, radiation program manager for the health department.

Despite these precautionary steps, the government's previous attempt to oversee uranium mining inspires little confidence in the mill's critics.

The U.S. Department of Energy admits that inspectors knew the dangers posed by uranium mines and mills decades ago, yet they looked the other way and even concealed the danger from workers while hundreds of them developed cancer and died.

But the times and laws have changed, Tarlton said.

The state maintains strict guidelines of 5 rems for how much radiation a worker can take each year.

For nearby residents, only 0.1 rems are allowed, or 2 percent of the worker standard.

The average American is exposed to 0.1-0.2 rems each year from natural substances. The National Academy of Sciences says no level of radiation is completely safe. Even the smallest dose leads to a very small increase in risk for cancer. But the 5-rem annual standard is based on research showing a low risk for that exposure level.

"When I was a kid, we didn't have seat belts. Things are different now. The same is true of the uranium industry," Tarlton said. "We have learned a lot from past mistakes."

Mill stirs emotions

Many of the old-timers are miners or the children of miners who want another shot at a boom.

Glasier is a local rancher and miner. He formed Energy Fuels Corp., which is headquartered in Toronto and trades on the Canadian stock exchange. Its staff, though, is mostly in Colorado.

Meetings of the Montrose County Planning Commission last month were packed, with mill fans and opponents from Telluride to Paradox. Actress Darryl Hannah showed up to protest the mill.

Mining families from the western end staged their own protest with small handmade signs. One man's sign read: "If you don't live on the West End of Montrose County, your opinion don't count!"

Despite the man's wishes, the opinions of outsiders do count in the unfolding saga of Colorado uranium.

The fate of the mill and the mines will be decided in court chambers and conference rooms in Denver, corporate board rooms across North America and the stock exchange in New York.

jhanel@durangoherald.com