Nuclear power is one of the technologies being mentioned to help with global warming. An essential element of nuclear power is uranium for fuel. Guess what state is seeing activity around uranium exploration? From the Greeley Tribune "reg", "Powertech Uranium Corp. sent a letter to homeowners in October 2006 informing the couple of its intent to drill for uranium on their land. 'I looked at that letter and thought this has got to be joke,' Robin Davis, 42, said. 'We moved out here for the focus on our horses and riding lessons,' said Robin Davis. 'This is a nice place to do that sort of thing. There's no traffic on the road, and it's close enough to centralized locations like Fort Collins and Greeley.' Since area property owners do not own the mineral rights on the land, Powertech can drill when and where needed. In December, a representative from the company stopped to talk to Robin Davis. She informed him that she was busy giving a riding lesson but would take his card and contact him when she was free. That's the last she heard directly from a representative of Powertech, but she said her neighbor across the road is talking about selling his property to the mining giant. According to the company's Web site, the Centennial project includes 5,760 acres of uranium mineral rights in Weld County with more than 3,000 drill holes totaling approximately 1 million feet of drilling already completed.
"Richard Blubaugh, president of environment, health and safety for Powertech said the mining process the company will be using at the Centennial site is called in-situ recovery, a process that is safer and used for surface-mining techniques. The process is done by injecting a bi-carbonate solution that will mobilize the uranium. Some residents in Weld say the process will destroy their drinking water. 'We are not using an acid solution,' Blubaugh said. 'The industry doesn't use that type of solution in this country. To date, there is no confirmed uranium in-situ operation contamination to drinking water supply. There are allegations, but that doesn't mean they're true.' Uranium mining is not new to Weld County. Uranium test sites were done in 1979 in the Grover and Keota area. According to Carol Shwayder's book on Weld County history, the Wyoming Mineral Corp. of Fort Collins operated a leaching plant at the site. A year ago, Powertech bought the mineral rights for 5,780 acres of land from Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Blubaugh said the company before Anadarko -- Rocky Mountain Energy Co. -- tested sites in northern Colorado and found uranium deposits throughout. He said the drilling should be a couple of hundreds of feet deep and will create some noise but not as much as an oil-drilling site, which drills thousands of feet below ground level. Lane Douglas, project manager of the Centennial site, said this is just the beginning stages of accessing the minerals in northern Colorado. 'We're very early in the process,' he said. 'We're years away from opening the mine. We're a long way off.'[...]
"Public meetings planned: In Larimer County: A public meeting will be from 6-9 p.m. at the Leeper Center, 3800 Wilson Ave., in Wellington on April 21; In Weld County: A public meeting will start at 6 p.m. on May 2, at the Nunn Town Hall, 185 Lincoln St."
"2008 pres"
7:44:26 AM 
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