Trump "emergency" fast-tracks Utah uranium mine
The BLM must complete a full environmental review in just 14 days
⛏️ Mining Monitor ⛏️
The proposed Velvet-Wood uranium mine in the Lisbon Valley of southeastern Utah will be the first test of the Trump administration’s “emergency permitting procedures” for oil and gas, uranium, coal, biofuels, and critical mineral projects on federal lands. The environmental assessment, which would normally take at least one year to complete, will be compressed down to just 14 days, effectively precluding public input, tribal consultation, and any meaningful analysis of the project’s potential impacts or dangers.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dispelled any notions that he has even an inkling of conservationist leanings by fast-tracking the project, stating, “The expedited mining project review represents exactly the kind of decisive action we need to secure our energy future.” The department justifies the accelerated review by noting that the underground mine would “result in only three acres of new surface disturbance.”
That may be true, but surface disturbance is just one of the many impacts inflicted by an underground mine. There is also the potential for surface and groundwater contamination, and of hazards associated with radioactive waste rock disposal and trucking uranium ore from the mine to the mill.
The Velvet uranium mine sits on a sloping sandstone ridge about a half-dozen miles from the Colorado state line. The mine operated in the 1970s, but has been idle since the mid-1980s, when the U.S. uranium industry as a whole mostly collapsed. Now Anfield Energy, a Canadian company, wants to combine the Velvet Mine with the nearby Wood prospect to form a larger operation on over 2,000 acres that it would call the Velvet-Wood Mine.
The landscape there is not exactly pristine or unmarred. The mine site lies about a mile away from the Lisbon Valley Copper Mine, and on the same ridge as Charlie Steen’s now defunct Mi Vida Mine, which sparked a 1950s uranium prospecting frenzy centered in Moab. The valley is also home to a shuttered uranium mill that continues to contaminate groundwater, numerous oil and gas wells that ooze hydrogen sulfide, and a natural gas plant that Utah recently sued over numerous air pollution violations.
That doesn’t mean further damage can’t be done. Over the last four decades many parts of the Lisbon Valley, including the Velvet-Wood site, have healed somewhat. Wizened, ancient junipers that escaped the bulldozers blades cling to existence still, and one can still find cottonwoods and willows in sandy wash bottoms. On the several occasions that I’ve visited the Lisbon Valley, it has been remarkably quiet and devoid of humans. A new mine would change all of that.
Anfield first submitted its proposed operating plan to the Bureau of Land Management’s Monticello Field Office in April 2024. But the BLM found that it was deficient, and asked Anfield to supply additional information, including regarding water treatment and waste rock storage. In September, the BLM found additional deficiencies in the newly submitted plan, and said it wouldn’t move forward with the review until they were addressed. Now, at Anfield’s request, the BLM is being ordered to complete the review in 14 days.
Underground mines typically hijack the hydrology of the landscape they’re in, pulling groundwater into the mine’s drifts and tunnels, where it can pick up naturally occurring heavy metals and radioactive elements before it flows out of the adit, or mine opening, into the environment. An estimated 50 million gallons of water has built up in the mine workings over the last four decades, meaning Anfield will have to dewater the mine prior to commencing operations. Anfield’s operating plan notes that the accumulated water is “of marginal quality with elevated concentrations of dissolved solids and sulfate and elevated radionuclide activity levels.” It would run the water through a treatment plant prior to discharging it.
Utah regulators last year tentatively permitted the Velvet-Wood Mine to discharge up to 500,000 gallons of radium, uranium, and zinc-tainted water into an unnamed wash each day — conditioned on approval of a proposed water treatment plant. That wash empties into Big Indian Wash, which leads to Hatch Wash and Kane Springs Creek, which then runs into the Colorado River downstream from Moab.
Anfield plans to process ore from the Velvet-Wood in its Shootaring uranium mill near Ticaboo, Utah, which the company hopes to reopen. The mill was built in the late 1970s and operated for just 76 days in 1982 before shutting down and has been idle ever since. Last year Anfield applied with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality for a license renewal for the facility. Velvet-Wood ore hauling trucks would have to travel about 200 miles to the mill, either by going through Moab and Hanksville, or through Monticello and Blanding and Bears Ears National Monument.
As I’ve often said, President Donald Trump’s sometimes unhinged executive orders don’t have much meaning until they play out on the ground. Now his “energy emergency” order is doing just that in the long-abused Lisbon Valley. The BLM has yet to open any public comment period, but if and when they do, you’ll only have a few days to be heard. The BLM’s NEPA page for the Velvet-Wood Mine can be found here.
Find the Velvet-Wood Mine, along with dozens of other mining-related sites, at the Land Desk’s Mining Monitor Map.
📸 Parting Shots 🎞️
There’s still a bit of snow in southwestern Colorado’s high country, but only a bit. On south facing slopes around 10,000 feet, the ground yesterday was not only bare of snow, but also dry and eerily warm. Here are some images of various elevations and snowpack levels.
Wait, you were in Silverton today? So was I (checking the snow status).
Trump has certainly seemed to declare a lot of emergencies in the short time he's been in office. Seems like one every month averaging. Pretty soon he's going to run out. What's next- a pine cone shortage emergency?