Uranium?

[Hayduke]

Hey, not sure if this is where I should post this , but have any of you noticed the recent surge in uranium claims in the west? It seems the increase in use of nuclear energy overseas has raised the price of uranium enough to renew interest. Natural gas exploration is a big environmental issue right now, but I predict uranium mining will be just as big an issue in Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Arizona in the coming years. What's really amazing to me is that mining companies pay no royalties to the government on what they will be extracting! It just seems like a shame to build all those new roads and mines on public land, just to have the product shipped overseas and get nothing out of it.

Here's some information I found on the subject. First is a couple of statements from companies planning work in Utah.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthews - Jan. 22, 2007) -
Atomic Minerals Ltd. ("Atomic" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:ATL.P) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement in principle with 0754257 B.C. Ltd. (the "Target") dated January 11, 2007 (the "Agreement") to acquire all of the issued and outstanding securities of the Target (the "Proposed Acquisition").

Summary of the Target's Significant Assets

Through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, the Target holds mining leases over two separate groups of claims in the State of Colorado which are known to host uranium deposits - one in Dolores County and San Miguel County (the "Dolores Anticline") and the other in Grand County (the "Grand County Claims"). Each of the leases are subject to certain royalty interest, annual fees and annual exploration expenditures and are described below.

The Dolores Anticline

The Dolores Anticline is located on a 19,255 acre parcel of property in Dolores and San Miguel counties in southwestern Colorado, USA. The property is within a one-hour drive of the town of Dove Creek, Colorado, which is located approximately 100 air kilometres northwest of Durango, Colorado.

The Target's interest in the Dolores Anticline is held through a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Target pursuant to an exclusive mining lease dated May 30, 2006 with Kee Nez Resources, LLC of Colorado as the registered holder, and Mayan Minerals Ltd. ("Mayan") of British Columbia as the beneficial owner. The lease is for a term of 5 years with an option to extend for a further 5 years. Pursuant to the terms of the lease, the Target's subsidiary must pay lease payments totalling US$677,000 over the first 5 years of the term, and an additional US$100,000 at the end of each year thereafter prior to the commencement of production. There are no minimum exploration expenditures stipulated for the claims in the lease.

The Grand County Claims

The Grand County Claims are comprised of 230 unpatented mining claims located in western Colorado, which are divided into three distinct properties: Troublesome Creek which is comprised of 123 claims over 2,460 acres, Little-Wolford Mountain which is comprised of 127 claims over 2,540 acres, and Beaver Creek which is comprised of 27 claims over 540 acres.

The Target's interest in the Grand County Claims is also held through a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Target pursuant to an exclusive mining lease dated September 11, 2006 with Augustus Ventures, LLC ("Augustus") of Colorado as the registered holder and the beneficial owner. The lease is for a term of 10 years with an option to extend for a further 10 years. Pursuant to the terms of the lease, the Target's wholly-owned subsidiary must pay a total of US$452,000 over the first 10 years of the term and US$45,000 on the date the first drilling permit is received in respect of claims on the leased property. The leased property is subject to a minimum annual work commitment in the amount of US$150,000 in the first year after the effective date of the lease, US$210,000 in the second year after the effective date of the lease and US$240,000 in the third year after the effective date of the lease.

KELOWNA, BC, Jan. 16 /CNW/ -
Trigon Uranium Corp. (TSX-V:TEL;OTC-US:TELWF.PK) today announced that it has expanded its claims in the Henry Mountains project area to 886 mining claims and 3 Utah State Leases totaling over 19,200 acres. The completed land package now composes a significant and highly prospective area in the Shootaring Canyon region of the Henry Mountains Uranium district. Trigon's Henry Mountains property adjoins Denison Mines Corp.'s Tony M, Southwest, Copper Bench and Indian Bench uranium deposits. For a map showing the Company's land position in the Shootaring Canyon area, please visit http://files.newswire.ca/569/ShootaringCanyonmap.pdf.

Mr. Sidney Himmel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trigon Uranium Corp. stated: "Upon completing the two month geological program in the Henry Mountains project, including mapping of the different sandstone horizons in the area, we established the uranium mineralization trends and the target sandstone depths. Based on this information we secured additional land to complete what we believe to be the optimal land package. The next stage of exploration will involve drilling along the projected main mineralized trend. We have initiated work to acquire the necessary permits for a drilling program slated for the late spring of this year."

Significant uranium deposits occur in the Henry Mountains in the Salt Wash member sandstones of the Upper Jurassic Morrison formation. Known uranium deposits in the Shootaring Canyon area host in excess of 20 Million lbs of U(3)O(8). Denison Mines Corp. has announced plans to start production at the Tony M mine in 2007 and at its Bullfrog Property (Indian Bench, Copper Bench and Southwest deposits) in mid-2008. These deposits form two main trends; the Southwest deposit trends north-south and the Indian Bench-Copper Bench deposits trend southeast-northwest. The trends are more or less contiguous and, to date, the Indian Bench-Copper Bench trend is known to extend for more than 8 km. Trigon's newly acquired claims increase the Company's land position immediately to the west of the Indian Bench deposit.

Southwest United States

In the United States, Denison's exploration activities are ramping up after a 25 year hiatus. An estimated 90,000 feet (28,000 meters) of drilling is planned in 2007, with work initially concentrating near the Company's permitted and producing mines in Utah and Colorado.

http://www.ccnmatthews.com/docs/DenisonMap.jpg

Here's an interesting (and long) series about past mining on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona, and the potential for new mining.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo-series,0,4515615.special

Here's an editorial from a paper in Colorado about the recent boom.

Uranium boom in the West
New rush gains steam

By Dusty Horwitt
Denver Post

Late last year, the Bush administration delivered two big gifts to the nuclear power industry, signing deals to help India produce more energy from nuclear reactors and for Westinghouse to build four new reactors in China.

Those countries are half a world away from Colorado, but the worldwide resurgence of interest in nuclear power runs risks for the state's public lands, health and safety.

The nuclear industry's efforts to recast itself as a supposedly clean source of energy - a spin echoed by the administration - has helped spark a uranium boom in the American West. Interior Department records show a sharp increase in mining claims on Western public lands since 2002, driven by a seven-fold increase in the price of uranium.

As recently as 2004, no uranium interests were among the largest mineral claimholders in the West. Now, government data show that uranium interests are among the biggest claimholders across the region - in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

According to Interior records, mining interests staked just 300 claims for uranium in Colorado in fiscal year 2004. But in the two years since, uranium interests have staked almost 3,500 claims in the state. The new claims are concentrated near the historic uranium towns of Nucla and Naturita in Montrose County, and in Rio Blanco and Moffat counties in the state's northwestern corner.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety says several older uranium mines in the state could be producing soon.

The Cotter Corp. has four mines near Naturita that were active until about a year ago. The mines closed in part due to rising fuel prices for transporting the ore to Colorado's lone uranium mill in Cañon City.

International Uranium also has about three or four mines in Disappointment Valley in southwestern Colorado. The mines have permits and are being readied for production.

Beyond Colorado, public land snatched up in this new land rush includes 365 claims staked within 5 miles of the Grand Canyon, many for uranium. A company that has staked dozens of these claims, Quaterra Resources of Canada, has already proposed to drill exploratory holes for uranium just north of the canyon. The operation would include a helicopter pad to carry mining supplies and ore in and out.

The idea of helicopter flights of radioactive material near America's greatest natural treasure, already crisscrossed by dozens of tourist flyovers a day, is disconcerting. But there are broader impacts from uranium mining. Colorado and other Western states are littered with radioactive waste sites that are legacies of previous uranium booms during the 1950s and the 1970s, when nuclear power plants sprouted across the nation and the price of uranium soared.

The Department of Energy has begun a decade-long project to clean up 12 million tons of radioactive uranium mine waste near Moab, Utah, that have contaminated land near the Colorado River.

The waste is a threat that could pollute drinking water for millions. Cleanup estimates range between $412 million and $697 million.

In a recent series, the Los Angeles Times found that abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners have led to deaths from lung cancer and a degenerative disease that's come to be called Navajo neuropathy. Among other routes of exposure, the Navajo had unknowingly drunk water from abandoned mine pits and had constructed some of their homes from the radioactive mine waste.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel recently reported that residents of Monticello, Utah, have unusually high rates of cancer they believe were caused by a now-closed uranium mill.

Residents recalled replacing their screen doors because the metal mesh would become yellow and corroded. Schools used ground-up uranium waste in kids' sandboxes.

Also complicating the matter is the antiquated federal mining law, written in 1872, that governs much of the new uranium mining. Under the law, filing a claim for as little as $1 an acre allows companies to mine on federal land - a right the government has rarely challenged despite the fact that metals mining is the nation's leading source of toxic pollution.

Mining interests routinely leave behind multimillion-dollar cleanups, yet - unlike timber, oil and gas and every other extractive industry operating on public land - they pay no royalties to taxpayers. There is no federal fund to clean up abandoned metal mines.

Mining uranium is not the only concern heightened by the nuclear resurgence. We still have no answer to the problems of disposing of the waste from nuclear reactors.

Even if the government's designated national nuclear waste dumpsite at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is opened, storing waste there will mean 50 years of cross-country nuclear waste shipments through major cities. We should ask if spending billions of dollars to subsidize the nuclear industry is a better choice than investing our tax dollars in clean renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Mining is a necessary part of a modern economy. But before permanently scarring some of our most treasured places to feed the nuclear industry, we should first dig deeper into the empty promise of nuclear power.

Here's a neat map that shows new claims since 2002 in an area of eastern Utah and Western Colorado. It came from this interactive website that lets you look at new claims throughout the US. http://www.ewg.org/sites/mining_google/US/index.php

 

[sreekers]

There is a Uranium mine close to South Pass City here in Wyoming that is possibly going to be reopened. It was open and running during the cold war days and the rumors flew about it reopening after it closed. They say the talks about it are getting close, and on a couple drives some new stuff has happened there, don't know if it will actually happen.

 

[Delw]

arizona has a pretty big one in unit 9 just south of the grand canyon we found it by accident one day cutting a christmas tree.

Delw

 

[Hayduke]

There are thousands of abandoned mines and thousands of miles of roads left over from the last boom. They are still cleaning up tailings and gating portals.

We will see I guess. Maybe I am getting worked up about nothing. Nobody else seems too worried about it. Is there any good hunting in the Henry Mountains in Utah or Grand County Colorado? How about the San Juan unit in Utah?