ACF Partners Join Village to Stop Uranium Mine: Effects could be devastating

by Ann Rothe, ACF Program Officer

The Inupiat village of Elim (pop. 339) in northwest Alaska is perhaps best known as one of the checkpoints on the famed Iditarod Trail. In the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome, Elim is one of the last stops before mushers cross the icy, windblown expanse of Norton Sound.

Residents of the village have relied for hundreds of years on the environment—in the form of salmon, seals, walrus, beluga whales, caribou, moose, plants, and berries—to sustain their way of life.

Elim is now facing a challenge that could seriously affect the environment, and thus the health and well-being of all its people. Exploration work is underway for a uranium mine 30 miles northeast of the village in a place the Inupiat know as—ironically—Death Valley.

The village is concerned that contaminants from the mine will affect the fish and wildlife they depend on for subsistence, and expose them to cancer-causing toxics.

The mine will sit at the headwaters of Boulder Creek, a tributary of the Tubuktulik River. The village draws its drinking water from the river, and the river sustains healthy salmon fisheries on which they depend for subsistence.

The mine could produce as much as one million pounds of U3O8, a processed uranium ore known as “yellowcake,” or milled uranium oxide. It is primarily used in the generation of nuclear power and in nuclear weapons.

Evidence of the health impacts of uranium mining is widespread. In the Navajo Nation in the southwest US, source of much of the country’s uranium supply, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that “potential health effects include lung cancer from inhalation of radioactive particles, as well as bone cancer and impaired kidney function from exposure to radionucleotides in drinking water.” (See Navajo Nation story, page 3.)

The proposed method for extracting uranium at Boulder Creek is called “in-situ leaching.” It involves drilling a series of wells into the ore deposit, and injecting a leaching liquid (such as sulfuric acid) down the wells to strip the uranium from the ore deposit. The uranium-bearing liquid is then pumped to the surface, where the uranium is extracted from the liquid and the waste fluid is discharged into a tailings impoundment.

In-situ leaching for mining uranium in the Lower 48 has resulted in significant and long-term contamination of surface and groundwater. Superfund Sites related to uranium contamination include Uravan, CO; Fremont National Forest, OR; Weldon Springs, MO; Oak Ridge, TN; and numerous others.

The mine at Elim, called the Boulder Creek Mine, is being developed by Triex Minerals Corporation and Full Metals Minerals, Ltd., two multinational mining companies based in Canada. The mine site encompasses 45 square miles of state and federal mining claims on wildlands of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula.

In an open letter to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Elim high school student Irene Murphy explained, “We are against having Triex drill at Boulder Creek…Uranium will affect our air, water, animals, fish, everything. If you take out one thing or even change it a little in the ecosystem, everything else will be affected by it, too.”

Because uranium is considered a “strategic metal*,” review and permitting of mine development (including preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement), is being done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Elim is counting on help from Alaskans for Responsible Mining, an ACF-supported coalition of Alaska conservation groups that work together on mining issues across the state.

Trustees for Alaska and Alaska Community Action on Toxics, coalition members who are also ACF grantees, are advising Elim’s tribal council on how to take part in the NRC review and permitting process. They are also helping Elim develop legal and legislative strategies to block mine development. In addition, Elim is getting support and advice from the Navajo Nation, which has banned uranium mining on its tribal lands in New Mexico.

Elim is caught between the ravages of climate change and the global appetite for energy. The solution lies largely in energy conservation and ensuring that the environmental impacts of any energy source are carefully considered—especially during the permitting process. Empowering local voices to protect their human rights is an important role of the Alaska Conservation Foundation—a role made possible by your support.

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*A metal that is considered essential for domestic industry and national security.

Read the rest of the Summer 2008 Dispatch.