nuclear-news

Russian uranium ban reopens threat of uranium mining escalation in US

Executives from Uranium Energy, Terrapower, Centrus and Energy Fuels couldn’t contain their excitement. Nor can they wait to begin mining, milling, and enriching uranium again in the US, to the detriment most especially of Native American tribes living on the land already permanently scarred and poisoned by previous such operations and who are still waiting for adequate or any cleanup and reparations.

Beyond Nuclear, By Linda Pentz Gunter, 19 May 24

When Russia first invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, no one knew how long the fighting would continue and what the outcome might be. Kyiv was expected to fall immediately. It didn’t. More than two years on, the war continues and the rumblings from Russia about nuclear weapons use grow frighteningly louder.

The rush by the United States and its NATO allies at the time of the invasion to help defend — and to some extent arm — Ukraine included a quick decision to sanction Russian fossil fuel imports. On March 8, 2022, just 12 days after the invasion, US president, Joe Biden, signed an Executive Order banning the import of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal to the United States. Russian uranium was not included.

At the time of the 2022 ban on Russian fossil fuels, many of us in the anti-nuclear movement were agitating for a Russian uranium ban as well. At least 12% of US uranium imports comes from Russia to fuel domestic US reactors. That number rises to close to 50% if you also factor in uranium sourced from Russian satellites Kazakhstan (25%) and Uzbekistan (11%). (Canada is the other major single-source supplier of uranium to the US at 27%.)

On May 13, 2024, President Biden finally signed into law a bipartisan bill — the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act — banning imports of Russian low-enriched uranium. According to the bill, the ban affects: “Unirradiated low-enriched uranium that is produced in the Russian Federation or by a Russian entity” (read Rosatom operating outside Russia).

When we were pushing for a Russian uranium boycott at the start of the war, it was in the context of highlighting the detriment of nuclear power and fed into our agenda to permanently end the use of this dangerous and discriminatory technology. We asked then why the nuclear sector was getting a pass. Now we have the answer. The bill is a poisoned pill, almost literally.

The bill’s enactment “releases $2.72 billion in appropriated funds to the Department of Energy to invest in domestic uranium enrichment further advancing a secure and resilient global nuclear energy fuel supply consistent with our international obligations,” said the US State Department. 

This is all part of the absurd agenda to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050 (too late) and, said the State Department, “to establish a secure nuclear fuel supply chain, independent of adversarial influence, for decades to come.” It will do nothing of the kind.

While the new law may claim to end US dependency on Russian uranium, it does not end American addiction to a fatal energy source that victimizes the communities least resourced to fight back. Furthermore, it will make America’s path to a renewable energy economy all the harder, redirecting funds and precious time toward the most expensive and slowest way to address the climate crisis (nuclear) instead of faster, cheaper renewables.

There are no prizes for guessing who was cheering the loudest as Biden wielded his pen last week.

Executives from Uranium Energy, Terrapower, Centrus and Energy Fuels couldn’t contain their excitement. Nor can they wait to begin mining, milling, and enriching uranium again in the US, to the detriment most especially of Native American tribes living on the land already permanently scarred and poisoned by previous such operations and who are still waiting for adequate or any cleanup and reparations.

One of those places, the Grand Canyon, is already under threat from the Pinyon Plain uranium mine, a project of Canadian-owned Energy Fuels and which started operations in January 2024, against the strong opposition of the Havasupai tribe who live there.

“We have been against uranium mining for decades because of the known risks to land and air, water and people,” said Carletta Tilousi, a leader of the Havasupai tribe who is fighting to cancel the uranium operations at Pinyon Plain, which is located near Red Butte, a sacred site to the Havsupai people. 

“Uranium mining in the southwest has scarred and left a horrifying legacy of death in our communities. Thousands of abandoned uranium mines on federal and tribal lands have not been cleaned up,” she said. 

“Uranium will continue to poison the Grand Canyon including the aquifers that feed into the Colorado River,” added Tilousi. “Contaminants from the uranium mine are likely to make their way to the deep aquifers that feed Havasu Springs. The mine closure is the only way to avoid this risk.”

The Navajo Nation, who have banned uranium mining on their territory, was home to more than 500 uranium mines at peak operations, all of which are now abandoned but not cleaned up. (There are more than 4,000 abandoned uranium mine sites across the US.) Tribal members understand all too well what uranium mining can do to the health and wellbeing of a community.

“This decision by Biden is terrible news,” said former uranium mine worker, Larry King of the Navajo Nation, a member of Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining that has advocated mine cleanup for decades. Added King: “They’ve never returned an aquifer to pre-mining stages,” after extracting uranium through in-situ leach mining, the predominant technique currently used. “The companies got what they want out of Navajo and moved on.”

Despite the ban, the Navajo Nation had already been under a renewed threat of resumed uranium mining when Uranium Resources tried to open a new in situ leach mine at Church Rock, a plan that was defeated by tribal opposition. But Toronto-based Laramide Resources has since bought out Uranium Resources and wants to mine uranium there because the land is surrounded by — but not within — the boundaries of the Navajo reservation.

King’s home lies within view of Laramide’s plans. “The environmental impact statement says there are certain dwellings within the diameter of the project and those people will have to move,” King said. “I’m not moving. This is where I’m from. I’m not moving a foot.”

After Biden signed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, the Washington Post ran a disgracefully slanted article, in which not a single Native American voice was heard. Reporter Maxine Joselow quoted executives from four nuclear corporations and two politicians, all of whom favored the legislation. She made only a glancing reference to mine opponents as “others” and “still others” after prefacing their anonymous mention with “Though some environmentalists support nuclear power…”

But she was more than happy to repeat the utter nonsense spewed by Energy Fuels senior vice president, Curtis Moore, who said the company’s Grand Canyon mine would have “zero” risk to water supplies there and that “Uranium is absolutely essential to the fight against climate change.”

Americans, and especially Native Americans, will pay the price for this bill which, instead of banning uranium imports and transitioning away from nuclear power, seeks instead to stimulate exponential domestic growth of this dirty industry………………………………………………………..

it’s unclear how deeply the boycott will actually harm Russia and when. As bne IntelliNews clarified in a January 19, 2024 article: “even though Kazakhstan is the world’s biggest player in uranium supply, much of its milled uranium travels through Russian conversion plants before it is exported to global markets.” Russia has “control of over 26% of Kazakh uranium deposits and holds rights to an additional 22% of annual production.”

However, the Russia uranium ban doesn’t specifically include Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan and the “Russian entity” wording in the bill leaves the situation vague.

Kazakhstan seems to have no doubt about the opportunity presented by the Russia ban and is eager to fill the void. “This bill represents a significant opportunity for Kazakhstan, the world’s largest producer of uranium, which could potentially step into the breach and provide the mineral necessary to meet the U.S.’ nuclear energy needs,” reported The Times of Central Asia in January after the bill had passed the US House last December.

Furthermore, there is a pretty big waiver included in the bill which could keep the door wide open to Russian uranium. It states that imports can continue if “no alternative viable source of low-enriched uranium is available to sustain the continued operation of a nuclear reactor or a United States nuclear energy company; or importation of low-enriched uranium described in paragraph (1) is in the national interest.”

This is in place to insure against a resulting shortage of uranium fuel supplies that could cause US reactors to shut down prematurely or permanently. The waiver extends until January 2028. So a win-win for Rosatom, Kazatomprom, North American uranium corporations, the US Congress and the Biden Administration, and another tragic betrayal of Native American people.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International.  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/05/19/terrible-news/

May 20, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Speaking with one voice -tribes call for cleanup, remediation and an end to uranium mining and milling

The early uranium they mined was for atomic bombs dropped on other brown people far away. Later, the mined uranium was used to fuel nuclear power plants whose radioactive releases increase leukemia rates in children living nearby and whose waste is targeted at, yes, more Native communities. 

By Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear 7 Apr 24

They were there to tell their stories. The contamination of air, land and water. The sicknesses. The displacement. The loss of community, culture and language. The deprivation of fundamental human rights. And they spoke with one voice in their plea for justice, the voice of Indigenous peoples in the United States and their lived experience of uranium mines and mills.

The occasion was a thematic hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) at the Organization of American States. The topic was: United States: Impacts of uranium exploitation on indigenous peoples’ rights.

The speakers came from Navajo, Arapaho, Havasupai, Ute and Oglala Lakota. 

And, across the room, they came from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of the Interior.

The Native American speakers made the same plea they have reiterated for decades: effective cleanup and removal of the radioactive waste that has poisoned their communities and people, and will do so again as long new uranium mines are allowed to go forward. And no new mines.

The personal stories they told the listeners — representatives from the US government, the IACHR panel and members of the public in the audience —were those of universal injustice against Indigenous communities, stories that have been told before and, seemingly, have to be told over and over. They are stories that are listened to and not heard, often not responded to and almost never acted upon. 

“We used to drink the spring water,” said Anfreny Badback of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, a member of the White Mesa Concerned Community who oppose operations at the White Mesa uranium mill near Blanding, Utah. “We don’t anymore.”

The mill belongs to Energy Fuels and is the last remaining such facility in the United States. It receives uranium tailings and other radioactive materials for “processing” and dumping. The mill was built right next to the tribal community on top of hundreds of culturally significant sites, a consideration that is routinely ignored.

Teracita Keyanna, a Navajo woman from the Red Water Pond Road Community Association, described how she had to take her family out of their home community because of the health risks to her children due to the continued failure to clean up the radiological contamination from the Church Rock uranium mine and mill. The mill suffered a devastating tailings pond dam break in 1979 that resulted in the biggest accidental release of radioactive waste in US history. As a result of the relocation, Keyanna said, her children are losing touch with their language and culture.

“We are the poorest community in the country but rich in cultural practices” said Tonia Stands, an Oglala Lakota who testified with her small daughter at her side. ……………………………………………………………………….

All of the stories were those of erasure. To be erased does not necessitate a massacre. It can just be decades-long neglect by the US government to make right a terrible wrong. The loss of a safe environment; no access to clean water or healthy food; the neglect of adequate or even any cleanup; the destruction of a culture; the deprivation of tradition and language. All of these constitute a genocide. No one called it that at the hearing. But that is what it is.

From the government spokespeople we heard mainly that they were doing their best; that they had listened; had held consultations; or that it fell outside their jurisdiction. 

But, as Christopher Balkhan from the IACHR panel pointed out, there seemed to be some sort of disconnect between the official regulations “and what is actually happening”. He noted the difference between free, prior and informed consent and consultation. Was the former being offered to these communities? “If not, why not?” he asked.

On the government side, tossed bones were presented as lavish gifts. Clifford Villa, Deputy Assistant Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, sought to reassure the communities that cleanup operations in their communities would deliver an abundance of jobs to residents as if somehow the opportunity to clean up a toxic mess not of their making and which had sickened and killed their families for decades should be accepted as some sort of honor. 

Similarly, Bryan Newland, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior, praised the uranium mining carried about by tribes as part of a “long-lasting contribution to the national security of the United States.” 

But it was nothing of the kind. The early uranium they mined was for atomic bombs dropped on other brown people far away. Later, the mined uranium was used to fuel nuclear power plants whose radioactive releases increase leukemia rates in children living nearby and whose waste is targeted at, yes, more Native communities. 

The cleanup requests have “fallen on deaf ears” said Edith Hood, also of the Navajo Red Water Pond Road Community. Many wondered if the same was happening at the IACHR hearing. The collective presentations of both the civil society and government sides were squeezed into 20 minutes apiece, with another 12 minutes for follow-up to questions from the commission.

“I’ve been a leader for 20 years and I have not seen a single response from any state or fed agency to my tribe on our pleas to stop Pinyon mine,” said Carletta Tilousi of the Havasupai Tribal Council at a press conference after the event. She and her tribe are fighting the newly active Pinyon Plain uranium mine at the edge of the Grand Canyon and the headwaters of Havasu Creek, owned by Energy Fuels Resources…………………………………………………….

Eric Jantz, legal director at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center and representing the tribal speakers, summed up their requests in his opening remarks, noting in particular the absence of consent. What they wanted, he said, were three things: 

• For the United States to place a moratorium on all new uranium mining and processing on Indigenous lands or near culturally important sites until it has remediated all legacy waste and implemented laws governing uranium development that are consistent with its human rights obligations; 
• That the US begin phasing out ongoing uranium mining and processing in Indigenous communities. The only exception to this moratorium would be when an Indigenous nation has given its free, prior and informed consent to develop mineral resources within its jurisdiction. Free, informed and prior consent should especially include the right to say ‘no’. 
• Finally, during a moratorium, federal agencies responsible for regulating uranium production and remediation should review and change as necessary their policies, and regulations should be consistent with the United States’ human rights obligations.

………………………………………………………………………………………….. The IACHR can recommend a corrective course to the U.S. government. The big question now is will they?

Watch the full hearing.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/04/07/speaking-with-one-voice/

April 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Tribes condemn start of uranium mining at Pinyon Plain Mine south of Grand Canyon

ADRIAN SKABELUND Sun Staff Reporter, Jan 13, 2024,
 https://azdailysun.com/news/local/tribes-condemn-start-of-uranium-mining-at-pinyon-plain-mine-south-of-grand-canyon/article_13efb3b0-b16a-11ee-973a-c789810e105e.html

Two northern Arizona tribes this week condemned the start of operations at a uranium mine just south of the Grand Canyon.

The statements came after Denver-based company Energy Fuels Inc. announced last month that operations at its Pinyon Plain Mine had commenced.

“It is with heavy hearts that we must acknowledge that our greatest fear has come true,” a statement from the Havasupai Tribal Council read.

Meanwhile, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a statement that mining remains opposed “by all neighboring tribes that have forever called Grand Canyon their home.”

The Havasupai Tribe, along with many conservation groups, have long worried that the mine could contaminate area groundwater.

The Pinyon Plain Mine, previously known as the Canyon Mine, sits above the Redwall-Muav aquifer, which acts as a source of water for countless seeps and springs throughout the Grand Canyon, and is the sole source of drinking water for the Havasupai.

The mine also sits near Red Butte, an area with deep cultural importance to the Havasupai.

Energy Fuels has insisted that mining poses no risk to groundwater in the area.

Energy Fuels Vice President of Marketing and Development Curtis Moore said last month that the concerns over contamination were unfounded and designed to scare the public and push an antinuclear political agenda.

But those statements provided little comfort to those opposed to the mine.

“As guardians of the Grand Canyon, we the Havsuw ‘Baaja, the Havasupai Tribe, have opposed uranium mining in and around our reservation and the Grand Canyon since time immemorial. We do this to protect our people, our land, our water, our past, our present and our future,” a statement from the Havasupai Council read. “And yet, despite the historic and current assistance and advocacy from numerous allies, and the countless letters, phone calls and personal pleas, our urgent requests to stop this life-threatening action have been disregarded.”

Nygren on Thursday called on the federal government to protect tribes from the impact of new mining.

“I join our neighboring tribes and the many non-Native organizations to implore the federal government to uphold its promise to protect us,” Nygren wrote. “We are very concerned about the impending transport of radioactive materials from the Pinyon Plain/Canyon uranium mine to White Mesa Mill in Utah.”

The statements came as activists say they have observed uranium ore being stockpiled at the mine site.

Moore previously told the Arizona Daily Sun they didn’t yet know when they would begin to haul ore from the mine to the Utah Mill for processing. He said it was likely to begin within the year, however.

In 2012, the Navajo Nation passed a law banning the transportation of uranium ore within Navajo lands. That law does not impact federal highways that cross tribal lands.

There are two potential routes trucks bringing uranium ore from the mine to the Utah mill could take. One would direct trucks through Flagstaff, while a second would utilize ranching roads to skirt north of the city. Still, both routes pass through the Navajo Nation on U.S. Route 89.

Nygren also said he was disappointed that he and other tribal officials only learned mining operations had commenced through media reports, as opposed to hearing the news from federal partners.

“Despite all of our objections through the years, we learn through the media, rather than from our federal trustee — the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management — as would correctly expect, that our land and water will again be threatened with contamination,” he said. “Our relatives, the Havasupai, Hualapai and other tribes along the Colorado River, are bracing themselves for renewed anxiety, worry and constant unease about the safety of their resources and homelands.”

There is a long and controversial history of uranium mining within northern Arizona.

Throughout the Cold War era, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted and often processed from Navajo Nation lands. Hundreds of those mines, often near Navajo communities, were then abandoned by the companies operating them.

More than 500 contaminated sites remain across the Navajo Nation.

February 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment