A detour through uranium country

[SamIam]

Here’s a little background on the next series of pictures. You can skip on by this, but to me its an interesting and little known story that is happening right under our noses with very little reporting of what’s going on.

Some years back I lived for a while in the small former uranium mining town of Naturita. Naturita is about as isolated as a place in the lower 48 can get. Its practically on the Utah border and the 9,000 ft Uncomphaghre Plateau due east of town makes it a good 3 hour drive in the summer to get to the county seat of Montrose – the closest town of any size. In the winter you sometimes just can’t get to Montrose from there.

As a consequence, Naturita is left pretty much to its own devises – such as they are. At one time, Naturita was a major center for uranium mining. During the Cold War, especially, Naturita’s uranium mines and mills were operating at a good clip and provided the main source of employment for the region.

Various companies, including General Electric, owned and ran the mines before going out of business or morphing into new corporations with paper trails that quickly became impossible to follow. Needless to say, the region soon became heavily contaminated with uranium tailings and waste.

Union Carbide was another such player in the uranium game. In 1928 Union Carbide took over a uranium mine and mill just up the Dolores River from Naturita in the town of Uravan. The company ran them until 1984. By 1986, contamination forced evacuation of the entire town. Not only was the town evacuated, it was razed to the ground. Uravan still appears on Colorado maps, but there is no “there” there anymore.

The uranium companies paid not a penny for clean-up of the region. Instead, taxpayers were left holding the bill. (What a surprise!) The EPA covered up tailings, built settling ponds, and evaluated the safety of the drinking water. The Department of Energy posted signs around the region warning against trespassing on contaminated areas. The DOE alone spent over 86.33 million dollars trying to clean up the Naturita site.

The region around Naturita is nothing if not surreal with its vanished towns, cattle drinking out of holding ponds clearly labeled as contaminated, and the awesomely dead Dolores River where not so much as a dragon fly lives.

And then there’s the cancer rate which is five times that found in the general population of the US. The mining companies blame this unusual cancer rate among former uranium workers on smoking. Yep, that’s right. Smoking is bad for you, but if you live in Western Colorado its REALLY bad. Many Native Americans also worked in the uranium industry and the cancer toll on them has been especially heavy. Say, didn’t they discover tobacco in the first place?

Since the mines have been shut down, the people of Naturita take care of parents with lung cancer (those damn smokers!), and drive 63 miles up the mountain to find work in the ski resort town of Telluride. The area is depressed and depressing.

But wait! Rescue has come at last! A company called Energy Fuels Resources Corporation is seeking approval for a new uranium mill only 12 miles from Naturita at a place called Pinon Ridge. — if the company can line up $140 million. It's hired a Hong Kong-based agent to hunt for capital in China, South Korea and other Asian nations where demand for uranium to fuel new power plants is growing.

Finally, we are going to export something to China for a change instead of the other way around. Isn’t that nice? And no one in Asia smokes, so they won’t have the cancer problem that Naturita has. Plus, when Energy Fuels Resources vanishes or morphs into a new company in the time honored uranium company tradition, OUR Department of Energy and EPA can pay the clean-up costs, so that Asia can have a source for “clean,” low-cost energy.

When I drove through Naturita last week, I noticed that things seem to have gotten worse over the past few years. Almost every other house was for sale. But there was hope, too. The houses that weren’t for sale had signs that read, “Approve the Pinon Ridge Mill!” I can see their point. The area is hopelessly contaminated anyway. Everyone already has cancer for some mysterious reason, so why not make hay (or uranium ore) while the sun shines?

Pic #1 The San Miguel River right outside of Naturita - this river has not been so badly polluted with uranium tailings as the Dolores further on.

Pic #2 The Dolores River - still pretty here.

These last two came off the Net, not my camera -

Pic #3 Downtown Naturita

Pic #4 One of the ubiquitous Federal warning signs that abound in the area.

(con't in next post)