Mar 08, 2008 - 04:06:16 CST
Picture a ton of lignite. That's a pile that will fill the driveway. Picture 40 barrels of oil lined up halfway down the block. Then picture a uranium pellet the size of your pinkie fingertip.All three have the same energy potential. All three occur naturally in North Dakota.
The Department of Mineral Resources has been fielding phone calls from mineral owners who themselves have been fielding phone calls from people interested in leasing their uranium minerals.
Coal and oil leases - now, these are familiar standbys. People are curious why the sudden interest in uranium 30 to 40 years after the last uranium was mined out of the hills in southwestern North Dakota.
The department doesn't know and doesn't ask whether mineral owners have signed any lease agreements.
It does know it has not been approached by any company for a permit to explore for uranium in North Dakota.
Ed Murphy, state geologist, thinks it's only a matter of time.
"We see it coming on the horizon. Now there is interest," Murphy said.
The department will talk to the public at 6:30 p.m. Monday night in Belfield's community hall about new uranium mining rules.
There are two reasons why uranium is so hot. First, there's a growing recognition that more nuclear reactors may be required to fill the country's energy needs.
Second, the uranium stockpile from retired nuclear weapons is running low and not much uranium is mined either in the United States, or around the world.
The market tells all. The March spot price for uranium is at $95 a pound, when according to the Department of Energy, it peaked at $120 a pound in 1975 and dipped and hovered at $10 a pound for several years after 2000.
To get ready for a possible new wave of uranium mining, the department must first get up to speed.
Uranium mining will be dramatically different from the "good" old days, if good they were.
Then, the uranium mined in North Dakota came from what's called "uraniferous coal," and prospectors paid by the Atomic Energy Commission literally waved Geiger counters around Billings, Stark, Slope and Golden Valley counties to find it.
The uranium-bearing coal was dug up and burned because uranium concentrates in the ash. The mining and to some extent the incineration occurred in North Dakota, but the actual uranium extraction was done elsewhere.
In all, about 592,000 pounds of uranium were mined in North Dakota from 20 active pits in the '50s into the late '60s. That was not much of a U-boom, really, but in those pre-reclamation days the old uranium pits were often left open and sealed with clay liners decades later using federal funds.
Jackie Anheluk, of rural Belfield, plans to be at the meeting.
She and her husband, Jerry, have six children. Three have Crohn's, a disease that impairs and can destroy the digestive tract and for which there is remission but no cure.
The Anheluks believe an old uranium mine around where their cattle grazed - some they butchered for their own consumption - could have caused the disease.
In 2002, they contacted the Public Service Commission about the exposed uranium pit, and the PSC moved rapidly to seal it over with a clay liner.
The Belfield school received federal funds to vent cancer-causing radon gas, which is a daughter byproduct of uranium, when dangerously high levels, probably from fill dirt used during construction, were detected in the school.
Anheluk said she understands uranium mining now will be much different than the old days, but she's still concerned.
"It is a big deal," she said. "The way they process now, I would hope just by years of experience, would be an improvement."
Murphy said it very likely would be.
Murphy said uranium mining will go to deeper uranium bearing sandstone deposits - 200 to 500 feet below surface - rather than the shallow uraniferous coal seams.
The technology won't look anything like it used to.
Gord Struthers is spokesman for Cameco Corp., headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
The company mines and extracts 2.7 million pounds of uranium annually from two sandstone-deposit mines in Wyoming and Nebraska.
Struthers said the company uses what is now fairly standard technology called "in situ leaching," or ISL.
The process injects water combined with bicarbonate and oxygen into the saturated sandstone layer to dissolve the uranium.
The uranium solution is pumped back up and run through resin beads that bond over the uranium and the beads are processed to extract uranium yellowcake concentrate. The yellowcake is further purified in Canada and much is exported back to nuclear power reactors in the United States.
Struthers said the injection well water comes from the sandstone aquifer and the aquifers are not suitable for cattle or human consumption anyway.
The injection wells are laid out in patterns in mine units and don't disturb the land, raise dust, or impact air quality, he said. The well drilling and construction of a water pipeline gathering system do require surface disturbance.
"There's no digging, no ore, no tailings. It's very low intensity," Struthers said.
He said Cameco, working with health departments in Nebraska and Wyoming, reconditions the aquifers and must prove over a period of years that no uranium remains in dissolved form.
Murphy, the state geologist, was among several who looked at Cameco's Crow Butte mine in Nebraska in preparation for writing new uranium rules for North Dakota.
He said there were about 90 wells for every 10 acres and those remain in place for about 10 years, covering active uranium recovery and the reconditioning period. He said the surface can be hayed, but not grazed, in the interim.
Struthers said Cameco is exploring for other deposits in its lease holdings in Wyoming and further afield in South Dakota, but not in North Dakota.
Murphy said in situ leaching is new to when the agency's rules were written back in the late '60s and new rules, like in Nebraska and Wyoming, will emphasize underground water monitoring both in the mine "zone" and beyond.
Overall, though, it appears to be safer than the process used years ago because there's no radiation exposure at the surface, nor to anyone down in the pits, Murphy said.
"The technology has changed and we need to get it on the books so it's there," he said.
(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)
jo wrote on Mar 8, 2008 9:30 AM:
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