Re: AW: [Fwd: [Know_Nukes] (NYT) Navajo Miners Battle a DeadlyLegacy of Yell...

["Philip Egidi" <phil.egidi@state.co.us>]

There is still some limited uranium mining in the western US.  One of

our licensees is currently mining ore from western Colorado, but at a

very limited amount.

The author of the article may be confusing "yellow cake" with

carnotite, a form of uranium ore.  It is often yellow, and is powdery. 

Uranium mill tailings, which in the past did blow off-site, were

generally grey to buff-colored.  Carnotite is found in sandstone

formations, and was a prime ore source of uranium in the west, with the

notable exception of pitchblende ore found on the Front Range of 

Colorado, near Denver.  The last of the pitchblende mines recently

closed, and is now in reclamation.





Phil Egidi

Colorado

>>> <RuthWeiner@AOL.com> 05/19/03 08:55PM >>>

In a message dated 5/19/03 4:15:20 PM Mountain Daylight Time, 

franz.schoenhofer@chello.at writes:



> Even more I think that uranium mining has been finished since long in

this 

> area and in the meantime rain should have removed the "yellow cake".

The 

> uranium mine which I visited in 1988 mined pitchblende containing ore

and 

> this ore was shipped far away for the production of yellow cake. To

my 

> knowledge there cannot have been many factories producing yellow cake

in 

> this area and Moab is not in the Navajo reservation.....



Several points:



Solution mining is now done instead of "hard rock" mining, but mining

is 

still done.



You are quite right about yellowcake.  It is produced from uranium ore

at 

Portsmouth, OH (and maybe at Oak ridge) but not anywhere near the

Navajo 

reservation.



Moab actually sits very near Indian lands.  It is sort of in the middle

of 

Canyonlands Nationalo Park.



Ruth

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com

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