A new podcast by journalists Andy Lyman and Laura Paskus aims to keep New Mexico news and people front and center. On their inaugural episode of “Lesser Known New Mexico,” the two spoke with Source New Mexico’s Patrick Lohmann about his recent coverage on the potential restart of uranium mining in the state. Both of the potential mine projects are around Mount Taylor, which is sacred to the Navajo Nation.
PATRICK LOHMANN: And these mines, if they are approved, would be the first new mines, uranium mines, in New Mexico in more than 50 years, in a state where uranium mining has left this legacy that we're continuing to feel today. And as I've been reporting on it more, all of these barriers that existed, that people thought existed, between there being new uranium mines in New Mexico, of all places, have kind of fallen away. That's been the thing that's been compelling and sort of disturbing about following this.
LAURA PASKUS: The protection of Mount Taylor years ago was this amazing effort by the Navajo Nation and the Pueblos and environmentalists and communities in the state of New Mexico. Is all that work gone now?
LOHMANN: I mean, I think that the state, the Mining and Minerals division, still has a role to play. Those protections were reaffirmed in the legislature, in a House Memorial, but that's really just non-binding. You know, I think maybe areas around there, some private ownership around there, those are areas where it can get in, but as far as I can understand based on where it stands now, that the parts that are under Forest Service control, there's just not nearly as many protections as there were before. And then there are these global forces that are pushing them to fruition. I've heard from different observers, like different prices, but the moment the price of uranium hits $100 a pound, that's the break-even point to make these mines profitable. For the first time in years, it hit $103 a pound or something last January, and then went down, but it steadily increased.
And you talk to the mine itself, Energy Fuels is the company that's trying to do it, they say that's way too early/soon to say, but all of the things that have been happening with the executive order on uranium production and the tariffs on any number of things, all of those are kind of pointing to at least as far as the mine is concerned, a potentially profitable mine occurring. I think those protections are still in place, but this was not on people's radar, and now it increasingly is, and the things people are looking to, to save Mount Taylor, are kind of being eroded as we speak.
ANDY LYMAN: So, what do you want readers to remember from your story? Can you think of one thing out of some of your coverage on this that you want readers to understand?
LOHMANN: You might have had some reassurance, some sense of like, “oh, it couldn't happen.” But I'll just go through a couple more. One is that NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act], you know the thing where you have to do this very involved Environmental Impact Statement [EIS] and allow public comment, the years-long process, and the data that would have existed in the 2011 draft EIS for one of these mines, for example, all of that data is so old that everyone just assumes it would have to occur again, which could delay this process. But who knows whether that would need to be the case? And there are just these kind of like efforts with the Trump administration to really gut these long and involved and necessary reviews.
So that's one burden, one barrier that's knocked over. Another is that the company that is trying to mine from Roca Honda needs a way to transport that material to a mill in Utah that it also owns, and the Navajo Nation has struck an agreement -- that it won't release to the public -- to allow for the transport of uranium material. That agreement was, you know, related to the Pinyon Plain uranium mine in Arizona. Currently, there are three to five trucks carrying uranium ore from the Pinyon Plain mine to the White Mesa mill in Utah through the Navajo Nation, per this agreement. But according to the Navajo Nation, there's also a provision in this agreement that applies to the Roca Honda mine in New Mexico that would allow many more trucks, because there's just way more uranium material to be transported from the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation through New Mexico from Mount Taylor/Grants area to Utah
In exchange, the Navajo nation would point out that Energy Fuels has offered to clean up 30,000 additional tons of legacy uranium waste on the Navajo Nation in exchange for allowing it to take the ore from Roca Honda. But I've just heard from a lot of people who have a lot of concerns about the way that this uranium cleanup is supposed to be done. It's this, what they say is untested, new process, and the mine would be making money off of the material, at least by its own account, though they've referred to it as like doing a Good Samaritan Act to clean up this material.
So, I think there's just a lot of questions about what this cleanup will look like, which is, you know, what the company offered in exchange for being able to do tons and tons of this uranium ore across the Navajo Nation, including in New Mexico. So, I guess there are just a lot of things that we thought were in the way, and they are no longer in the way. We were talking so much about the legacy of uranium mining in New Mexico, and so, the concept that there would be a new mine here just struck me, and so many people, as totally crazy. But I think we're talking about that now. Ata least that's how I'm approaching this reporting, is like it could happen.