Push is on for mine cleanup funds to go to uranium sites

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged. The GAO lists about 800 abandoned hardrock mine sites in New Mexico and says at least one-fourth have environmental problems such as radioactivity or chemical contamination. Half of Wyoming's 956 sites are environmentally degraded, as are 9,900 of Arizona's 50,000 abandoned sites and 5,200 of California's 47,000-plus sites...AP