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Mining revival: a uranium boom for a wary West
Seven mines are open so far in five Western states, including one in Utah.
from the June 19, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
The increased demand is also luring back prospectors, the dreamers and schemers who first put Moab on the map long before the first mountain biker circuited the Slickrock Trail.
"They are draping all over the countertops looking at different maps," says Susan Shoemaker, who works part time at the visitor's center. "You can tell they are looking for something different than mountain biking trails."
Anyone can stake a mineral rights claim on public lands and pay $125 a year to hold it. Congress may soon revise this system, dating back to 1872, to require payment of royalties to the government.
Stakeholders are hoping to collect royalties or get bought out by big companies. This month, Trigon Uranium Corp of British Columbia struck a royalty agreement with the owners of 73 mining claims in Utah. Other Canadian firms like Denison Mines of Toronto and SXR Uranium One of Vancouver are buying out US mining companies and reopening their long-shuttered facilities.
But it's a slow process to bring the industry back from zero.
"If it's a three-volume saga, we're now beginning Volume Two," says Sidney Himmel, CEO of Trigon. Companies are starting to move beyond the paperwork into looking at reactivating the old plants. "You go there and guess what, they are all stuck together with rust," he adds. Environmental and worker mishaps are rare now, says Mr. Himmel, and companies design for contingencies.
"The vast majority of the time ... things work out fine," he says. "How serious is the mining industry about these issues? I'd say more serious than ever."
At Denison's Pandora mine, pastel-colored electronics from the 1960s sit on dusty shelves. Such equipment, while old, remains valuable. Because of a shortage, Denison is building its own, less sophisticated, gamma probes.
Experienced people are also in short supply. "When an industry goes stale and stagnant for a period of time, people disappear," says Peter Farmer, CEO of Denison. "We've got two or three of these old pros, and we're training a bunch of the young people. But that takes time."
One of the old pros is Pandora's superintendent, Jim Fisher, who has been mining since 1966. "It's an exciting time for the entire area," he says. "A lot of people are being put back to work, and it's taking them out of lower paying jobs."
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