The View from La Altura

The Coastal Bend Sierra Club is tracking the latest news of citizen efforts to block uranium mining contamination in Texas and to improve regulation at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) under the Safe Drinking Water Act in our state. Please see the Coastal Bend site for the latest updates.

Here are the situations to be aware of and to help set right.

New Ground Water Conservation District
The last Texas Legislative session which ran January - May of 2009 established a ground water conservation district to operate in Brooks, Jim Hogg, and Jim Wells Counties. The initially appointed Brush Country Ground Water Conservation District held its first meeting on November 23. It will serve until the electorate in those counties elects the second board. ALTURA encourages concerned persons living in these counties to participate in activities of the District in whatever way possible to help prevent ground water contamination by uranium mining in South Texas.

Uranium Energy Corporation applied for a permit to mine uranium in Goliad County. Goliad County achieved standing to protest the permit in a contested case hearing that was originally scheduled for January 2010 and has been postponed until March 2010.

Concerned citizens can call the TCEQ, 512-239-2334 to track the status of three other South Texas uranium mines: Mesteña's Alta Mesa mine in Brooks County, Caithness' Silver Lake mine in Jim Hogg County, and South Texas Mining Ventures' La Palangana mine in Duval County. It is doubtful these mines are producing right now, but we need your help to make sure.

Uranium Resources Incorporated is not producing in its In Situ Leech uranium mine. at Garcia Hill in Ricardo, near Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas due to volatility of uranium mining prices. The company has not restored the aquifer to pre-mining conditions.after previous uranium mining.

No uranium mining company has restored a Texas aquifer to pre-mining conditions after uranium mining contamination.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION & 2009 NEWS
Over 200 Texans from across the Coastal Bend attended a Preliminary Hearing before the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) on Thursday, May 19 concerning Uranium Energy Corporation's application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to mine uranium in Goliad County's drinking water aquifer. ALTURA participants asked SOAH and the TCEQ to uphold the protections of the Safe Drinking Water Act and deny UEC a permit to pollute.

For more information about the UEC hearing in Goliad, read more.

To understand why Goliad County is unified in opposition to uranium mining view these videos:
Uranium Mining Exploration contaminates groundwater -- Art Dohmann discusses the high stakes involved.
Uranium Mining and the Safe Drinking Water Act -- Attorney Jim Blackburn discusses the legal right to clean water.

Other ALTURA NEWS…,
Thank you ALTURA watchdogs who keep all eyes on the uranium mining industry in South Texas.

Most Texans don’t realize there is uranium mining in our state. To see the locations of the active, inactive, and pending Uranium mines in south Texas, please check out ALTURA'S OWN INTERACTIVE MAP.

Mark Walsh, Vice President of South Texas Opposes Pollution (STOP) reports good news from Kleberg County. In January of this year, Mark Pelizza, Vice President of Uranium Resources Incorporated announced in the Kingsville Record that URI was scaling back its operations at Kingsville Dome mine due to the depressed price of uranium yellow cake. Pelizza stated they were terminating the mining operations but promised to continue restoration of the groundwater. STOP and Kleberg County officials are skeptical about the restoration promises because URI has failed to restore for the past 25 years. To this date, URI has not met its obligation spelled out in their TCEQ mining permit to restore the water, stabilize the aquifer, and reclaim the surface in any of their three production areas.
Read more.Mark Walsh and Ann Ewing accept Environmental Justice Award for ALTURA groups

The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club presented its 2008 Environmental Justice Award to ALTURA and its participating groups, South Texas Opposes Pollution (STOP), Uranium Information at Goliad, and the Coastal Bend Sierra Club for uniting Texans concerned about uranium mining contamination of water, earth, and air and for raising consciousness and building commitments about this problem in our communities and beyond.

81st Texas State Legislature.
South Texas Legislators did not introduce the uranium mining bills we wanted this Session. We asked several, including Representative Gonzalez Toureilles who carried uranium mining legislation last session, to carry one of the key policies we want to see become law. That is, baseline testing with statistically unbiased sampling of water before exploration for uranium mining. We also were not successful this Session in finding the right Legislator to carry our Moratorium on uranium mining in drinking water aquifers.

So far, we haven’t seen any bad uranium mining bills filed; however we are watching for industry’s amendments that could be introduced in Committees or on the floor of the Texas State House or Senate. We ask our lawmakers to uphold the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act and not allow moneyed uranium mining industry lobbyists to persuade you otherwise.

We pray that before the 82nd Texas State Legislature in 2011, a South Texas Legislator will step up to put policies in place to make sure our water is tested properly before uranium mining exploration is allowed to begin so we can prove that it is drinking water and must not be polluted by uranium mining companies.