Radiation spill in Northern Territory’s “sickness country”

Kakadu uranium leak: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’ SMH,December 14, 2013  Tim Elliott To the Jawoyn people, of southern Kakadu, it’s known as buladjang, or ”sickness country”, pockets of land not fit for regular habitation.

It was here, they believed, that the creation ancestor Bula ended his travels and left his spirit underground. Only recently have scientists found a correlation between mineral deposits such as uranium and the location of major Bula sites.

Ranger uranium mine, north of the Jawoyn, unleashed its own kind of sickness last Saturday when a leach tank burst, spilling 1 million litres of highly acidic uranium slurry that engulfed the mine and breached containment lines. The mine’s operator, Energy Resources Australia, said no one was hurt, and that the spill had no effect on the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park, which surrounds the site.

But photos obtained by Fairfax Media for the first time show the extent of the damage. ”I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Melanie Impey, environmental officer for the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the local Mirarr people. ”The tank was just a mangled mass of metal.”…..

Ranger has experienced more than 200 spills, leaks and breaches since opening in 1979. In 2002, ERA detected high uranium levels downstream from Ranger but failed to inform the traditional owners for five weeks. In 2004, 28 Ranger workers were found to have drank and showered in water containing 400 times the legal limit of uranium. Later, an excavator covered in radioactive mud was taken to the town of Jabiru for cleaning, contaminating a mechanic and his children.

Ranger’s chief regulator is the Northern Territory government, which takes advice from the Supervising Scientists Division, a Commonwealth agency that oversees environmental standards within Kakadu. ERA says its record is good, pointing out the SSD has always given the mine a clean bill of health …. http://www.smh.com.au/national/kakadu-uranium-leak-ive-never-seen-anything-like-it-20131213-2zcy5.html#ixzz2nU8DGzF

Senator Larissa Waters probes Australian govt’s plan to abandon environmental regulation

 Senator WATERS: …..Am I clear in that you will attempt to retain Commonwealth land and water but will not attempt to retain jurisdiction over state-run projects? 

Dr Bacon…… We are yet to have the detailed discussions with each state and territory 

The hand over of EPBC nuclear approvals to states,Senate estimates committee 18 Nov 2013 | Scott Ludlam

“……...Senator WATERS: “…….Could you please explain to me: what is the intended effect of the alteration to the scope of the bilateral agreement as regards nuclear actions and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park waters and Commonwealth waters? What is the effective change? It is on page 7, particularly clause 12.3. ……..

on nukes, are there some carve-outs? I do not quite understand clause 12.4(c) about nuclear actions. Are you intending to impart all nuclear action that is currently regulated under the EPBC Act to Queensland? Or are you intending to retain some power over the assessment of nuclear actions? ……..

Senators Waters and Ludlam ask questions on hand over of environmental  nuclear approvals to the States

Mr Barker: It does not give it to Queensland; it carves it out of the agreement.
Senator WATERS: It doesn’t?
Mr Barker: That is right.
Senator WATERS: So you are retaining the assessment of all aspects of nuclear actions that are currently regulated federally?
Mr Barker: No, that provision effectively prohibits those types of actions-a nuclear power plant, an enrichment plant or that type of thing-from being approved under the EPBC Act. There is no role for an assessment or approval of those types of activities. ….

Senator WATERS: So the Commonwealth will retain its full responsibility for the assessment and approval of any nuclear actions, be they prohibited or not by the terms of act-and the state cannot have any role in assessing or approving that? Is that correct?
Mr Barker: No. Maybe I am confusing things a little. I apologise. That provision relates to a subset of nuclear actions which cannot be approved under the EPBC Act. Uranium mining and other types of mining which involve radioactive products and decayed products of uranium, for example, can be assessed and approved under the EPBC Act.
Senator WATERS: By whom?
Mr Barker: Approved by the Commonwealth minister and assessed, under this agreement, by the state.

Senator WATERS: Thank you-that is what I was trying to get at. So this does give away the assessment of uranium mining to Queensland where previously it sat with the feds?
Mr Barker: Yes, it allows the state to undertake those assessments, subject to the agreement.
Senator LUDLAM: Would you not call that a substantive change? When you listed your two substantive matters, the fact that you would be delegating uranium assessment back to a state government-you did not list that as a matter you thought was worth drawing to our attention as substantive?

Dr Bacon: When I talked about the main substantive changes, one of them was to broaden the matters of national environmental significance which can be assessed under the Queensland assessment bilateral. When I mentioned ‘nuclear’, I had intended to include the nuclear matters which can be assessed by the Commonwealth. This assessment bilateral, once it is finalised by the state, does include uranium mining under the EPBC Act.
Senator LUDLAM: Is this seen as a model for future relations with other states, including WA, for example, where there are live assessment processes afoot?
Dr Bacon: The policy is to broaden, wherever we can, assessment bilateral agreements with states and territories-or, if there is no existing assessment bilateral agreement, to put one in place. With the example of WA, we would be looking at options for broadening their current assessment bilateral agreement.

Senator WATERS: On that second aspect of the change about the single set of conditions, is it yet known who will be enforcing those conditions? My sense from the agreement is that the intention is that the state will be implementing most of the conditions and the Commonwealth will be only tacking on what cannot be done by the state. Who will be responsible for the enforcement of this single set of conditions? Does that mean there will be no federal conditions and no more enforcement by the feds-or by the community to hold the feds to those conditions?
Mr Barker: I think this is a matter still to be discussed with the states-about exactly the shape in which that might be embedded between the Commonwealth and the state. It sort of depends on which jurisdiction is imposing the condition.
Senator WATERS: Yes, precisely. …..

Senator WATERS: There is currently Commonwealth jurisdiction over all matters of national environmental significance, so if that is your logic you would not hand off any of them. I do not want to verbal you. Am I clear in that you will attempt to retain Commonwealth land and water but will not attempt to retain jurisdiction over state-run projects?
Dr Bacon: In relation to other matters, we will be doing a very detailed analysis of the processes that each state and territory puts forward for accreditation. We are yet to have the detailed discussions with each state and territory about which processes we will be looking at in relation to the approvals bilateral agreements. It is probably premature to be able to say precisely which processes will be in scope for those agreements and in which state.
Senator WATERS: Has the minister instructed the department to maintain his earlier public statements about those areas being quarantined from a handoff of approval powers to the states, or has the minister not instructed the department to keep those areas?
Dr Bacon: I think I have already said that the policy position is to pursue as comprehensive an approach as possible and we are yet to have the detailed discussions about which particular processes we may be looking at for accreditation. ..http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/estimates/hand-over-epbc-nuclear-approvals-states

uranium mining threat to Western Australia’s largest National Park

WA’s biggest national park faces uranium threat  National and state environment groups have vowed to fight plans for a uranium mine that would directly threaten Western Australia’s largest national park.   The Australian Conservation Foundation and the Conservation Council of WA will join groups across the nation to challenge plans by the Canadian multinational Cameco, which today lodged an Environmental Review Management Plan for the Kintyre uranium mine at Karlamilyi National Park (Rudall River) with the WA Environment Protection Agency.

“Kintyre is in one of the most unique and diverse ecosystems in the country and is directly connected to WA’s largest national park,” said ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney. “The proposal to mine at Kintyre has been actively contested since the 1980s and will continue to be a priority issue for the environment movement given the high conservation values of the area and the unique risks of uranium mining.

“Many things have changed since the first proposal to mine Kintyre, including a severe and sustained slump in the uranium price and increased pressure on nuclear power from the growth in renewable energy and concerns fuelled by the continuing Fukushima crisis.“This is not the time – and certainly not the place – to give a green light to yellowcake.”

The Kintyre uranium deposit is nestled between two branches of Yanadagodge Creek which feeds springs and lake systems throughout the Karlamilyi National Park and the communities of Punmu and Parngurr.  Radioactive contamination of water sources is already an issue in the area with elevated uranium levels found in Parngurr’s (Cotton Creek) drinking water.

“We will use every available avenue to challenge this dangerous proposal,” said CCWA campaigner Mia Pepper. “Cameco’s plan for a 1km wide, 1.5km long open pit only 500 metres from the Yanadagodge Creek could have devastating impacts on this fragile desert ecosystem.”

“Uranium poses unacceptable and unnecessary risks to the environment and public health. Cameco’s plan is a long way from being economically viable or environmentally approved.”

Cameco’s plan will be open for public comment for fourteen weeks.

Contact: Dave Sweeney 0408 317 812 or Mia Pepper 0415 380 808

Uranium mining’s threat to Tanzania’s health, environment, and tourism

poaching, which has been rampant in the Selous and government is doing little to stop it because word has it senior people are benefiting from the trade in blood ivory……

So perhaps, cynical as we know them to be, they let the reserve be poached empty and then shrug and tell us that is is no longer suitable for tourism and did they not always say mining is the future for the country? 

No one will dare to really expose the dangers of uranium mining to the Tanzanian public and so most people will only get the uptalk of government and not the downside of the environmental fallout’.

Tanzania conservationists reject uranium mining approvals BY PROF. DR. WOLFGANG H. THOME, ETN AFRICA CORRESPONDENT | DEC 27, 2013 Reactions to media reports in Tanzania, publishing details of approvals for uranium mining given by the country’s Atomic Energy Commission, were swift and harsh, and predicatably given on condition of anonymity, no wonder considering Tanzania’s record of often brutal suppression of dissent, especially when big commercial interests are at stake……

Uranium mining in the Selous has led to world wide protests and led to the government putting a mechanism into place to carve out over 200 square kilometres of the Selous territory to evade sanctions by UNESCO, which had made the Selous Game Reserve a World Heritage Site – for the Tanzanian government not an issue it seems as they habitually ignore that status in favour of ‘development’ as the equally controversial Serengeti highway plans prove.

Uranium mining is by wide consent a hugely toxic affair, and even carving out the Selous site for mining and production will still affect the reserve and its water sources, as well as the people depending on the rivers and streams, for generations to come…….

Wrote one regular highly respected conservationist: ‘What do you expect when a government hellbent to mine uranium commissions a study undertaken by a government agency. Of course they dance to their masters tunes. They continue to belittle the fallout and effects of uranium which is a toxic substance….

Tanzania has a huge potential in tourism especially in the Selous where only a small area has been tapped into. New camps could generate a lot more employment than a uranium mine would do and it is sustainable long term which mining is not. But there are of course those pending issues with poaching, which has been rampant in the Selous and government is doing little to stop it because word has it senior people are benefiting from the trade in blood ivory……

So perhaps, cynical as we know them to be, they let the reserve be poached empty and then shrug and tell us that is is no longer suitable for tourism and did they not always say mining is the future for the country? And of course the Selous region is remote, so they are obviously not bothered about the relatively few people who will be affected when the toxic fallout strikes. Investigative journalism in our country is all but dead because of the way the media are harassed when they exposed bad schemes in the past which involved government. No one will dare to really expose the dangers of uranium mining to the Tanzanian public and so most people will only get the uptalk of government and not the downside of the environmental fallout’. http://www.eturbonews.com/41136/tanzania-conservationists-rejects-uranium-mining-approvals

Unsolved problems in South Dakota uranium mining plans

Uranium mine hearings reveal questions about proposed project Rapid City Journal 3 Nov 13 After two weeks of public testimony, one thing has become clear about the proposed uranium mine that would operate near Edgemont: many things about the project remain unclear.

The process paperwork and permit applications …..

“It consists of nearly 80,000 pages of documents, very complex documents,” said Hickey, who represents the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. ,,,,,,

As a pair of governor-appointed state permit boards decide whether to allow uranium mining to South Dakota, the stakes couldn’t be higher, and yet the issue couldn’t be murkier. As he testified at last week’s hearings, John Mays, vice president of engineering for Powertech, didn’t ease the concerns of opponents who worry over potential groundwater contamination.

Under questioning, Mays refused to commit Powertech to cleaning water in the mining area to its pre-mining condition. Mays said it was a primary goal, but not a requirement.

Nor would Mays specify what other heavy metals might be extracted along with uranium and then injected back into the aquifers.

Mays testified that only uranium and vanadium — another metal the company hopes to mine — are certain to circulate in and out of the ground. As for arsenic, selenium, molybdenum, and other potentially harmful metals, Mays wouldn’t say.

“What you’re telling this board is that you don’t really know what’s in that ore yet?” Bruce Ellison asked Mays. Ellison is an attorney for Clean Water Alliance, a group of mining opponents. “You haven’t done enough testing?”

Mays said those metals could turn up, but “we don’t know exactly.”

In at least one other in situ mine site, water after clean-up showed increased concentrations of some of those substances, according to evidence introduced by Ellison.

Dozens of leaks and violations at other in situ mines around the country show that contamination is possible. Some recent instances are only a few hours drive from Dewey-Burdock.

In 2010, Wyoming state officials found problems with contaminants moving through groundwater at the Christensen Ranch site near Gillette. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality sent a letter to the mine’s owner stating that uranium levels were “over 70 times” what was allowed in groundwater near the mine’s permit boundary.

In 2011, the state of Wyoming issued a violation after up to 10,000 gallons of sodium chloride brine spilled into a dry stream at the Irigaray site of the Willow Creek mine. The mine’s owner, Uranium One, took two weeks to notify the state. It should have done so in 24 hours.

Powertech attorney Max Main has objected to examples of other in situ mine violations being brought up in the hearing.  Other inconsistencies arise

The NRC will likely grant Powertech its full operating license in December, according to Mays. That, however, will come before a hearing disputing the commission’s environmental impact statement is scheduled, according to Mays’ testimony.

Despite the fact that the Atomic Energy Licensing Board has upheld those disputes, the company will get its license, according to Mays.

It’s just another of the perceived inconsistencies that rankle opponents.

Opponents spent part of the hearing noting the different numbers Powertech has given. For example, the company is requesting state permission to use up to 8,500 gallons per minute of water. But in describing the mining operation to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the company said it needed only 4,000 gallons per minute.

So, too, the amount of uranium mined and the numbers of jobs Dewey-Burdock would create have changed. Mining opponents argue that this means the company’s application is incomplete and should be rejected……..

Oversight concerns

The issue of who and how the mining will be regulated remains somewhat of an open question. The North Dakota oil boom is a reminder that it’s easy to be skeptical of the regulators responsible for overseeing mines.

 

Need for inquiry in Queensland’s dubious uranium mining prospects

The Newman government must hold a fully independent and open inquiry into the real risks of uranium mining before Queensland starts down a risky pathway for existing industries, workers and our environment.

If it’s as safe as they claim, then they have nothing to fear from any inquiry.

Independent inquiry needed into uranium mining  Brisbane Times, Mark Bailey, October 23, 2013 This week marks one year since the Newman government breaking its pre-election promise by overturning Queensland’s ban on uranium mining – without any mandate to do so.

Queenslanders across the state should be deeply worried about the dangers of mining and transporting uranium yellow cake due to the many radioactive risks involved. It was no surprise to hear Premier Campbell Newman admitting no research or modelling had been done before overturning the ban.

Given the extensive history of over 150 recorded mishaps at the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory, why would our state allow a uranium mine located in our tropical climate prone to heavy summer rainfall and cyclones from the Coral Sea and the Gulf?

The four main Queensland uranium deposits likely to be mined are all at risk of extreme weather events as Cyclone Yasi showed. The highest grade uranium deposit is located only 50 kilometres from Townsville at Ben Lomond and substantial deposits are located near Georgetown, Mount Isa and Westmoreland, on the NT border near the Gulf.

Given the vast amounts of radioactive sludge (or ‘tailings’) involved in uranium mining, the impact of inevitable extreme weather events slamming into mine sites with many hectares of tailings risks radioactive sludge spreading over vast distances in our state. That’s not a risk worth taking for existing industries in north and north-west Queensland let alone residents.

Uranium mines use vast amounts of water that are likely to come from the Great Artesian Basin for most of the year. While rainfall is often torrential in the wet season in north Queensland, much of the north west is dry most of the time.

The cumulative impact on the Great Artesian Basin of anywhere between one to five uranium mines may have a significant impact on water resources for other existing agricultural and cattle industries. Once one uranium mine is approved then other mines will likely be approved……

Shamefully, the Newman government has not ruled out exporting uranium across the Great Barrier Reef which should be a source of great national and international concern.

In the short-to-medium term the Newman government wants uranium yellow cake to export via one of two licensed uranium ports in Australia at Adelaide or Darwin.

Should mine applications at Ben Lomond, Georgetown or Westmoreland be lodged and approved, the most direct road routes by regular road trains to Adelaide are vast and would take the yellow cake uranium on a 3000km road journey via a range of outback routes.

There has been no consultation with outback townships at all and it’s obvious why. If an accident involving an inferno occurs with a yellow cake uranium semi-trailer or road train such as the semi trailer blaze in Sydney recently, the local community and pastoral industries will have a serious widespread case of radioactive contamination on their hands which will damage their industry for a long time.

Uranium mines also have a massive impact on the local environment as uranium ore only a tiny proportion of the ore mined causing huge scars and vast amounts of radioactive tailings. Mine sites are very expensive to clean up and Queensland’s last uranium mine at Mary Kathleen still has substantial unresolved issues more than thirty years later. Who ends up paying for rehabilitation? You and I. The taxpayer.

The Newman government must hold a fully independent and open inquiry into the real risks of uranium mining before Queensland starts down a risky pathway for existing industries, workers and our environment.

If it’s as safe as they claim, then they have nothing to fear from any inquiry. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/independent-inquiry-needed-into-uranium-mining-20131023-2w18g.html#ixzz2ihP3oPHF

Despite new equipment ERA’s uranium mine still fraught with problems

Environment Centre NT, 17 Sept 13, Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia will unveil its new brine concentrator – a long overdue piece of infrastructure that seeks to address both chronic water management problems and contaminated process water – at its aging Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu on Thursday.

The Ranger mine has been plagued with water and waste management problems that have caused extended shutdowns and deep concerns about impact on the World Heritage Kakadu National Park. “The new infrastructure is a long overdue and welcome initiative,” said Lauren Mellor, Nuclear Free NT Campaigner with the Environment Centre NT.

“The delay in commissioning this key piece of equipment is a poor reflection on ERA’s commitment to rehabilitation, given the company’s long history of water mismanagement. That ERA has been allowed to continue mining and expanding its waste water inventory, now estimated at eleven gigalitres, without having an effective waste water management plan or the ability to treat process water shows a disturbing lack of regulatory rigour.”

National and NT environment groups have been encouraged by early trials of the brine concentrator that indicate it will start to reduce the waste water inventory, but say there is a long way to go before water management is responsibly addressed at Ranger. ERA still has no plans to stop an estimated 100,000 litres of contaminated liquid leaking daily from below the tailings dam – a major operational risk that could lead to uncontrolled groundwater contamination.

“Because of ERA’s slow response Ranger barely has adequate waste water storage capacity ahead of the coming wet season,” Ms Mellor said.

ERA continues to advance a contested plan for a new underground mining operation (Ranger 3 Deeps) at the troubled site.  This plan is the subject of a federal assessment process. After three years of significant losses ERA hopes Ranger 3 Deeps will be the start of a new chapter for the mine. However, with Ranger’s operational period due to end in 2021 ERA has, if approved and at best, only five years to mine – at a time when the global uranium market remains deeply depressed.

“Any expansion of underground operations at Ranger would inevitably add cost, time and complexity to the already daunting rehabilitation task facing ERA and Rio Tinto,” said Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Dave Sweeney.

“Given the high risks of the planned underground operation and the low return, with a constrained commodity price, ERA would do well to cut its losses.

“The company should halt the R3D project – as it did with its earlier flawed acid heap leaching proposal – and concentrate its brine and its brain on the challenges raised in responsibly ending operations, rehabilitating Ranger and assisting the transition to a post-mining future for this World Heritage listed region.”

Contact:

Lauren Mellor, Environment Centre NT, 0413 534 125

Dave Sweeney, Australian Conservation Foundation, 0408 317 812

Greenland’s pollution danger, now that uranium mining possible, due to climate change

“Uranium mining at Kuannersuit (Kvanefjeldet) will leave behind millions of tonnes of tailings containing some of the most toxic radioactive substances,” wrote Mikkel Myrup, the chairman of Avataq, an environmental watchdog group. ”The waste will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and in the long term, the mining could cause comprehensive radioactive contamination, which—because of the health risks—would make it dangerous to live in and make it necessary to ban fishing, hunting, agriculture and animal husbandry in significant parts of Southern Greenland.”

Greenland Has Melted So Much That We Can Mine It for Uranium Now Motherboard, By Brian Merchant 28 Oct 13, Climate change has finally melted enough of Greenland to allow mining companies to exploit its natural resources. And it’s got a lot. The remote, increasingly well-named island nation has a payload of uranium and rare earth elements buried beneath its quickly-thinning ice sheets.

Last year, nearly 97 percent of Greenland’s ice cover melted during the summer. That hadn’t happened for 123 years. And while big melts like that are thought to happen from time to time, scientists think Greenland is melting six times faster than it would have if humans didn’t load the atmosphere up with coal and oil pollution. Clearly, not everyone is disappointed with the result.

As with the other major industries circling the warming Arctic like a vulture—oil and shipping companies being the biggest—mining corporations have long licked their chops at the prospect of digging into Greenland’s untapped mineral reserves……

Greenland’s parliament just voted to allow Australia and China to start mining away. The vote was as close as they come: 15 for, 14 against, with the common call for jobs and economic growth winning out over immense environmental concerns.

“We cannot live with unemployment and cost-of-living increases while our economy is at a standstill. It is therefore necessary that we eliminate zero tolerance towards uranium now,” Greenland’s prime minister, Aleqa Hammond told a local paper. Hammond’s pro-growth plan won out over a plea from 48 NGOs that signed a statement calling for the no-uranium rule to be upheld.

“Uranium mining at Kuannersuit (Kvanefjeldet) will leave behind millions of tonnes of tailings containing some of the most toxic radioactive substances,” wrote Mikkel Myrup, the chairman of Avataq, an environmental watchdog group. ”The waste will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and in the long term, the mining could cause comprehensive radioactive contamination, which—because of the health risks—would make it dangerous to live in and make it necessary to ban fishing, hunting, agriculture and animal husbandry in significant parts of Southern Greenland.”

Alas, the mining is going forward, radioactive byproducts in the pristine sea or no. Chinese and Australian companies will be first through the gates, as the former has a stranglehold on the rare earth mining industry. So now, as more and more of Greenland’s ice sheet drains away every year, so will the possibilities to halt the resource extraction rush.

It won’t be years until these operations get off the ground—and by the time they do, who knows what treasures Greenland’s receding ice-line may have revealed? Whatever it is, we’ll be sure to harvest it for profit, dumping our hazardous byproduct into the once-icy waters we’ve since turned to slush. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/enough-of-greenland-has-melted-to-let-china-mine-it-for-uranium

Cameco and uranium pollution in Saskatchewan

Cameco, Sierra Club face off over uranium licences for Saskatchewan mines  THE STAR PHOENIX THE CANADIAN PRESS SEPTEMBER 30, 2013 SASKATOON – An environmental group is raising pollution concerns about Cameco’s uranium mining in northern Saskatchewan to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

But Cameco says the Sierra Club’s allegations that it massively exceeded regulatory limits are false.

The commission will hear from both sides as public hearings start Tuesday on Cameco’s application to renew its mine and mill licences for its Key Lake, McArthur River and Rabbit Lake facilities.

“The most disturbing thing we discovered in the process of preparing the submission were huge, very huge numbers, in terms of pollution that’s coming from the plant and getting into the environment,” John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said Monday.

“Every kind of pollutant that comes out of them, their numbers are way over the limits and no one’s been enforcing it.”

The Sierra Club says that as of 2010, water releases from the Deilmann tailings facility in cadmium exceed the Saskatchewan standard by 5,782 per cent.

It says the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment allows Cameco to release water from tailings ponds directly into the environment at Horsefly Lake.

The organization also says at the McArthur River site, concentrations of arsenic, selenium, and uranium in water effluent have exceeded the standards by 54 per cent for arsenic, 700 per cent for selenium and 1,230 per cent for uranium. It says blueberries and fish are contaminated with uranium.

The Sierra Club says the pollution is increasing the risk to human health and local eco-systems.

“We think that before any kind of change, any kind of renewal of the licence, there needs to be an environmental impact study — which there hasn’t been yet,” Bennett said in an interview from Ottawa……..

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings, which are being held in La Ronge, will last three days and will be webcast on nuclearsafety.gc.ca. http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Cameco+Sierra+Club+face+over+uranium+licences+Saskatchewan/8978684/story.html

No uranium mining in Black Hills, Colorado – say 50 medical groups

The acceptance by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that “the restoration of an ISL-mined aquifer to pre-mining water quality is … an impossibility.”

 “the loss of large volumes of water in such mining operations is not in the public interest” when “considering the projected future scarcity of uncontaminated fresh water in our semi-arid region.”

SD medical association unanimously against uranium mining in Hills http://www.bhpioneer.com/local_news/article_833ccd96-2536-11e3-b6be-0019bb2963f4.html 24 Sept 13, 

Group hopes to work with Colorado Medical Society, bring petition to AMA By Adam Hurlburt Black Hills Pioneer

CHAMBERLAIN — The South Dakota State Medical Association has come out in opposition of uranium mining in the Black Hills in direct response to Powertech USA’s proposed in situ leach (ISL) uranium mining project in Fall River County, making it the second statewide medical association to publicly oppose uranium mining in response to a Powertech ISL uranium mining proposal in the past six years.

At a recent meeting held in Chamberlain, the SDSMA’s 78-member Council of Physicians unanimously voted to support a petition opposing not only Powertech’s proposed Dewey-Burdock ISL uranium mining project in the Southern Hills, but uranium mining of any type in the Black Hills Area.