The potential environmental effects of a proposed cleanup plan for a shuttered uranium mine in New Mexico likely will not stand in the way of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approving the cleanup, according to an agency report published this week.
The “adverse environmental impacts” of the proposed license amendment for the United Nuclear Corporation’s Church Rock Site — which would allow a General Electric-led decommissioning team to move roughly 765,000 cubic meters of radioactive mine waste to a nearby mill site over four years — would “not preclude issuing” such an amendment, NRC said in a final environmental impact statement (EIS) released Wednesday.
The proposed action is part of a larger cleanup effort at Church Rock stemming from a 1979 dam breach that dumped 94 million gallons of radioactive slurry into the nearby Puerco River. The project has been vehemently opposed by the Navajo nation, whose territory surrounds the Church Rock site in northwestern New Mexico.
Over the course of its environmental review, NRC found that issuing the proposed license amendment would have “small” to “moderate” effects on land use, soil and water quality and other resources.
The agency did, however, acknowledge that “from the perspective of the local communities,” allowing the decommissioning crew to move Church Rock’s mine waste would “inflict major impacts on the social, spiritual, and cultural well-being of some Navajo people.”
Despite that, the NRC reasoned that the Navajo communities would continue to be disproportionately affected by the presence of Church Rock’s radioactive mine waste even if the agency refused to grant the proposed license amendment.
“Environmental and economic impacts would result from the delay of remediating the [Church Rock] Mine Site and other potential productive uses of the land, the continuation of impacts to water resources, and the threat of public radiological impacts posed by [Church Rock] mine waste, resulting in disproportionately high and adverse impacts on the minority or low-income populations … until a remedy is selected and implemented,” NRC said.
The Navajo Nation, for its part, has recommended that Church Rock’s waste be moved as far away from them as possible. In an April 2021 letter to NRC, national President Jonathan Nez expressed concern that radioactive waste from the mine wasn’t being moved far enough away from local Navajo communities, the closest of which is only about a tenth of a mile from the mill disposal site.
If the license amendment is approved, NRC said in its EIS that the General Electric decommissioning crew could finish shipping the waste away from the shuttered mine within four years or so.
