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Four conservation groups this week filed suit against the Department of
Energy over its plan to expand uranium mining leases along the Dolores
River Canyon in southwest Colorado.
"The Department of Energy must thoroughly consider all of the
consequences of vastly expanding its uranium leasing and mining program
in western Colorado," said Brian Farnsworth of the Colorado-based
Information Network for Responsible Mining (INFORM). "The federal
government cannot blindly stumble along with this proposal, which could
permanently and irretrievably contaminate precious water, soil, and
wildlife habitat."
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District
Court for the District of Colorado by INFORM, the Colorado
Environmental Coalition, the Center for Native Ecosystems and the
Center for Biological Diversity, claims DOE and the Office of Legacy
Management failed to fulfill National Environmental Policy Act
requirements.
The lawsuit claims NEPA "mandates that the
DOE/OLM adequately consider the environmental impacts of the federal
uranium mining program involving the Uravan Mineral Belt before fully
expanding the active program, before offering leases for as many as 38
individual uranium mining claims on federal land, and before
stimulating a boom in uranium prospecting and mining in the unique
canyons of western Colorado."
In July 2007, DOE issued a
Uranium Leasing Program Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment and
Finding of No Significant Impact for 27,000 acres of DOE-managed land
near the Dolores River, a tributary to the Colorado River, which is the
primary water supply for about 25 million people in seven Western
states.
The conservation groups are quick to point out
that besides the water supply issues associated with the area, the
Dolores and Colorado rivers support river otters, bald eagles, and four
fish species protected under the Endangered Species Act: the Colorado
pikeminnow, razorback sucker, and humpback and bonytail chub. Increased
uranium mining, these groups argue, will only hurt these species.
That
is among the reasons the groups resorted to litigation when on July 10
of this year, DOE announced leases were being issued for uranium mining
in southwest Colorado.
The 10-year leases, which the
plaintiffs say could lead to approval of 38 uranium mines, are being
issued "without conducting the mandatory lease-tier NEPA analysis," the
lawsuit states.
"The Department of Energy shouldn't gamble
with the future of Colorado communities, rivers, mountains and
wildlife, by rushing to approve such a large number of new uranium
mines -- certainly without requiring adequate protections to prevent
pollution," said biologist Megan Mueller of the Center for Native
Ecosystems.
Already, the area has experienced an increased
interest in uranium mining even though the area has not fully recovered
from contamination from past uranium development.
"This is
the epicenter of the uranium mining boom in Colorado," said Megan
Corrigan, a staff biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems.
"We
must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and ensure that our
water, our environment and our people are protected from uranium
pollution," said Travis Stills, the attorney for the lawsuit and with
the Energy Minerals Law Center. "It's deeply troubling that the federal
government is spending our taxes planning new mining before
contamination from past mining has been cleaned up."
The
leases at issue in this lawsuit involve land withdrawn from management
by the Bureau of Land Management over a half century ago and taken over
by DOE for the purpose of nuclear production, according to Corrigan.
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