Rio Grande Resources is applying to reactivate the uranium mine on Mount Taylor, a volcano north of Grants that is sacred to several Native American tribes and pueblos.
The mine was closed in 1992 but has received four standby permits since, allowing mine owners to avoid cleaning up and reclaiming the site to protect from contaminating the groundwater of nearby communities.
The request to reactivate the mine is simply a ploy to get around the New Mexico Mining Act law that doesn’t require reclamation until the mine closes permanently.
The state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department will hold a public hearing at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 4, in Grants about the permit to reactivate Mount Taylor uranium mine.
Please attend this meeting to send a loud message to the state and Rio Grande Resources that it is time to permanently close and clean up the Mount Taylor Zombie Mine!
What: Environment Department public meeting on permit to reactivate Mount Taylor uranium mine.
Where: Cibola County Offices Commission meeting room,
515 West High St. in Grants, N.M.
When: 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 4
For more information: Email riogrande.chapter@sierraclub.org
Click here to read notice of public meeting
Thank you,
Robert Tohe, Our Wild America New Mexico representative, Sierra Club
Photo: Beyond My Ken By Beyond My Ken (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Has any one seen any EPA water analysis, or know where the mine is going to extract, contaminate, and release (filtered) water?
Hi — this is from Susan Gordon at Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment:
Very complicated question. One of our many arguments with the Agencies charged with issuing permits is that they mostly rely on “self-reporting” from the industry providing technical data. There is some independent monitoring, but not enough. This is the location on the NM Environment Department’s Mining and Minerals Division that holds all the documents related to the Mt Taylor permits:
http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/MMD/MARP/PermitPendMineRegEx.html