Court won't review NM uranium mining permit

A federal appeals court has refused to review a ruling upholding a federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision that will allow a company to leach uranium at an aquifer that supplies drinking water for 15,000 Navajos in northwestern New Mexico. The 10th U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied the opponents' request for a rehearing on Hydro Resources Inc.'s licenses. The 2-1 opinion said the NRC met NEPA requirements in its consideration of the cumulative impact of airborne radiation and correctly interpreted the Atomic Energy Act to require consideration only of airborne radiation from the licensed operation. The Denver court heard arguments in 2008 in what lawyers called the first-ever challenge to NRC approval of licenses for an in-situ uranium mining operation. Eastern Dine Against Uranium Mining, the Southwest Research and Information Center and ranchers Grace Sam and Marilyn Morris contended the NRC violated federal law in approving permits for Hydro Resources' leach mining near the Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock...more