Uranium firm lobbied to mine Bears Ears monument

[Judi Lynn]

By THE WASHINGTON POST |
PUBLISHED: December 8, 2017 at 5:00 pm | UPDATED: December 8, 2017 at 5:01 pm

By Juliet Eilperin | Washington Post

A uranium company launched a concerted lobbying campaign to scale back Bears Ears National Monument, saying such action would give it easier access to the area’s uranium deposits and help it operate a nearby processing mill, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and top Utah Republicans have said repeatedly that questions of mining or drilling played no role in President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that he was cutting the site by more than 1.1 million acres, or 85 percent. Trump also signed a proclamation nearly halving the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is also in southern Utah and has significant coal deposits.

“This is not about energy,” Zinke told reporters Tuesday. “There is no mine within Bears Ears.”

But the nation’s sole uranium processing mill sits directly next to the boundaries that President Barack Obama designated a year ago when he established Bears Ears. The documents show that Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc., a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, urged the Trump administration to limit the monument to the smallest size needed to protect key objects and areas, such as archeological sites, to make it easier to access the radioactive ore.

More:
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/08/uranium-firm-lobbied-to-mine-bears-ears-monument/

[Thor_MN]

1. There is no mine within Bears Ears. Yet.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. There is a Uranium mine a couple of miles away

on what is known as the Arizona Stripe. Tons of old Claims within the Bears Ears that most likely have been snapped up in recent months.

[NNadir]

3. Actually, there is no reason technically to mine uranium.

The uranium and thorium already mined are sufficient to supply 100% of the world's energy supply for several centuries.

In order to do this, depleted uranium needs to be converted into plutonium. Thorium - a radioactive byproduct of the mining of lanthanides for useless wind and electric car industries now being indiscriminately dumped - needs to be transmuted into uranium-233.

I referenced the calculations of this fact elsewhere: Current Energy Demand; Ethical Energy Demand; Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come