Department of Energy Release PEIS that Ignores Economic Realities and Perpetuates False Hope in Southwest Colorado Communities

The Department of Energy released a Record of Decision on May 6, 2014 declaring its intent to continue the Uranium Leasing Program on public land across southwest Colorado for “10 years or for another reasonable period.” The PEIS was the result of a 2011 injunction by a federal judge halting a previously approved lease program. The U.S. District Court Judge found that the DOE issued a flawed decision analysis supporting its intent to reissue the uranium leases. The judge ordered the DOE to conduct a thorough environmental analysis, consider all cumulative impacts and suspended all activity on the lease tracts immediately.The decision impacts 31 lease tracts on over 25,000 acres of land in the Dolores River Corridor, spanning Mesa, Montrose and San Miguel Counties. Four leases are immediately adjacent to the Dolores River. Although the DOE claims that the lease tracts are safe and clean, they admit in the decision document that the tracts are in various states of remediation, including State Rep. Don Coram’s Gold Eagle tracts near the Dolores on which “reclamation is needed.” The DOE is not currently requiring remediation bonding from lease owners and does not intend to address bonding “until a future date.”“The ROD completely ignores the economic reality that the uranium industry is at rock bottom with prices well below those needed to bring uranium to the market,” stated Hilary Cooper, past executive director of Sheep Mountain Alliance, one of the conservation groups challenging the earlier decision. “The DOE had an opportunity to promote remediation, creating both jobs and much-needed clean up. and instead they potentially wasted  millions in taxpayer funds, conducting yet another faulty environmental analysis and holding these communities hostage to false hope.”According to the ROD, the Uranium Lease Program was initially authorized by Congress “to develop a domestic supply of uranium.” Energy Fuels, a Canadian company leasing seven tracts in the ULP, has contracts with countries outside the U.S., including China, to sell its uranium abroad. In addition, the DOE currently manages, what some estimate to be 500 to 600 million tons of extracted uranium. According to documents published on www.energy.gov, the DOE’s website, “This inventory exceeds DOE’s current and projected energy and defense program needs.”“One has to wonder about the DOE’s underlying motivation when there is no demand for domestic uranium”, said Cooper. “They could have stimulated the economies of these communities left struggling from the vicious cycles of the industry, and yet this decision has the potential to send domestic supplies of uranium abroad if it ever makes economic sense to mine.”“At this time we look forward to an explanation from the agency on how the PEIS satisfies federal law,” said Cooper, referring to the DOE’s injunction requirement to confer with conservation groups who filed the challenge.