Interest renewed in uranium exploration in South Dakota

By Steve Miller, Journal Staff Writer | Saturday, September 24, 2005

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BURDOCK -- Uranium mining could be making a comeback in southwestern South Dakota because of rising prices for the mineral and better methods of getting it out of the ground.

In July, two companies leased mineral rights to 2,600 acres of state land in Fall River and Custer counties.

The area of interest is near the former community of Burdock, northwest of Edgemont — a few miles west of the concentration of uranium mines that fell silent more than 30 years ago, according to Mike Cepak of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Energy Metals of Vancouver, British Columbia, acquired leases on four tracts. Neutron Energy of Casper, Wyo., and Phoenix leased one tract. The companies are also talking to local landowners in hopes of getting leases from them, Cepak said.

However, he noted that it could be years before mining actually resumes.

Cepak said new methods of getting uranium out of the ground are safer than those used back in the 1950s and '60s and that the state has tightened its laws since then, but the new interest is prompting DENR to review its environmental regulations.

Cepak, DENR's natural- resources engineering director, said prices for uranium oxide, known as yellow cake, have increased from $9 a pound a few years ago to about $30 a pound now.

Although there has been no nuclear power plant development in the United States for more than 20 years, nuclear energy is still expanding worldwide, Cepak said, helping drive up demand for uranium. China, for example, plans to build 30 nuclear power plants over the next 15 years, he said.

Meanwhile, worldwide stocks of uranium are slowly being depleted, Cepak said.

The oil price crunch is another factor. "With oil prices going up, suddenly uranium is being looked at as another viable source of energy," he said.

"There is even some talk among environmental groups that uranium might not be as bad as fossil fuels because it doesn't contribute to global warming."

Kelsey Boltz, president of Neutron Energy, obviously agrees.

"It's finally dawning on people that nuclear power for electricity generation is one of the very few solutions to this enormous energy problem we have," Boltz said in an interview this week from his Phoenix office.

Neutron Energy is mining or exploring for uranium in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.

Boltz said he doesn't know when he will seek a South Dakota permit to explore for uranium. "We're still in the acquisition stage."

Cepak said it could be months before DENR begins seeing applications for exploration permits.

After an exploration permit is granted, a company could begin application for a mining permit. That process could take years, Cepak said. A mining permit would come under existing mining laws.

Cepak said the current uranium-mining methods are safer than old open-pit mines used when mining began in western South Dakota.

The companies propose to use "in-situ leach" mining in which they inject oxygenated carbonated water into the ground, Cepak said. The practice wouldn't involve open pits or underground mines, only structures on the surface.

Boltz explained that the solution injected into the ground oxidizes the uranium. The solution is pumped to the surface, where the uranium oxide is stripped from the solution in the form of a powder or slurry known as yellow cake. The yellow cake is hauled to another facility where it is concentrated and upgraded.

Boltz said there is little risk on site because the yellow cake has very slight radiation levels.

Residents of Fall River County in the southwest and Harding County in the northwest corners of the state have complained in past years that radioactive pollution from the old, abandoned uranium mines has posed health risks, including higher incidences of cancer. State Health Department officials said earlier this year that there is no statistical evidence to support the most recent claims from Harding County.

In any case, Cepak said, state regulations are much stricter now than when uranium mining began in Fall River County in the early 1950s.

"The regulations we have in place now would never allow a company to walk away from a site like they did in the 1960s, where they stripped off the overburden, dumped it over the side and just left the site," he said. "We wouldn't allow them to leave the site like that."

The U.S. Forest Service is developing plans to reclaim abandoned uranium mine sites in Harding County that were further exposed by erosion.

Cepak said the Fall River open pits didn't seem to have erosion problems as severe as those in Harding County, but the Blue Lagoon mine eight miles north of Edgemont has a pit lake containing acid water and heavy metals, some of which are radioactive.

Cepak said DENR's main concern for in-situ mines would be the potential for groundwater contamination.

DENR is re-examining its regulations and comparing them with those used in Nebraska and Wyoming to regulate in-situ uranium mines in those states, he said.

Cepak said the state closed out its last uranium exploration permit in 1993. There has been no mining since the early 1970s, he said.

That could begin to change, although it might not be soon. "I think we're in the grassroots stage," Cepak said. "It could be a 10-year process to get these things running."

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com