But mining company spent more than $700,000 on U.P. uranium exploration in 2009
By Eartha Jane Melzer, Michigan Messenger
Upper Peninsula lawmakers are railing against a ballot measure to create standards for uranium mining, claiming that no uranium ore has been discovered in Michigan. However, a Canadian uranium mining company says it’s found uranium in the U.P., scientists have warned that its uranium exploration could harm groundwater, and the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department is warning that residential wells in several counties already have elevated levels of the radioactive metal.
In a statement this week, Sen. Mike Prusi (D-Ishpeming), Sen. Jason Allen (R-Traverse City), Rep. Mike Lahti (D-Hancock), Rep. Steve Lindberg (D-Marquette) and Rep. Judy Nerat (D-Wallace) accused sponsors of a proposed 2010 ballot measure on mining of talking about uranium mining in order to scare people and destroy the mining industry.
“No ‘uranium mining’ activity has ever existed,” the lawmakers stated, “nor has any uranium ore been discovered, in our state.”
However, according to a July 2009 financial report from Bitterroot Resources Ltd., a 17-hole uranium exploration drilling program concluded last December “identified several areas which warrant additional exploration.” The company said it spent $717,403 on Michigan uranium exploration in the first nine months of 2009.
On the sections of the company website devoted to its Upper Peninsula uranium exploration Bitterroot states that early drilling “encountered a 0.6-metre interval containing 75 ppm U, including two 0.12-metre intervals containing more than 100 ppm U. These intervals are significant as they confirm that uranium-bearing fluids have been mobile within the Jacobsville Basin.”
The presence of uranium in this area is also known to local health officials. The Western Upper Peninsula Health Department has issued a uranium advisory.
“Scattered drinking water sources in the Western Upper Peninsula have been found to contain uranium in amounts that exceed the federal Maximum Contaminant Level,” the health department states. “The source of the uranium may be the shale deposits that run inconsistently through the Jacobsville Sandstone formation. Water supplies with radioactivity have been found in Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw, and Ontonagon Counties.”
The department states that uranium-laced water may be associated with kidney damage and cancer and that people with wells constructed in the Jacobsville Sandstone formation should have their water tested for uranium.
Last year the National Forest Service granted permits for uranium exploration in the Ottawa National Forest and spokeswoman Lee Ann Atkinson told Michigan Messenger at the time that 50 test wells were authorized.
During the public comment period on this uranium exploration proposal by Trans Superior Resources, a subsidiary of Bitterroot Resources Ltd., Todd Warner, natural resources director for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, noted that the company’s plan to bury drill cuttings on Forest Service land could result in radioactive compounds leaching into area groundwater.
“If a uranium ore body is disturbed in its natural geological setting, radium and polonium will inevitably be released into our environment,” Warner wrote in comments entered into the record. “The Forest Service has not noted that any additional or added precautions or testing is being required due to the potential or likely presence of uranium, radium, polonium and other radioactive elements.”
Because of the risk of chemical reactions that can cause minerals to contaminate the water supply, metallic mining requires permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said Hal Fitch, director of the agency’s Office of Geological Survey. But due to what Fitch called “a weakness in the statute,” exploratory mineral wells in the rocky western half of the Upper Peninsula are exempt from permit requirements.
In the case of the uranium test wells in the national forests, the DEQ will visit and observe operations after being voluntarily contacted by the mining company, Fitch said.
The Michigan Save Our Water Committee says U.P. lawmakers are mischaracterizing their proposed ballot initiative.
“We are not talking about banning future uranium mining,” said spokesman Duncan Campbell. “We don’t have any regulations covering uranium, all we are asking is that we have some regulations to cover uranium.”
Read more of Eartha J. Melzer’s articles at Michigan Messenger.
LSMN
Eve Divine
doncorvette
