EPA draws fire from OST

PINE RIDGE – The EPA broke two federal laws on Nov. 24 by permitting underground water use for uranium mining and waste disposal at the proposed Dewey Burdock site in the southern Black Hills, according to Oglala Sioux Tribe Water Resources Department Administrator Reno Red Cloud Sr.

“The OST and environmental groups will be meeting next week and working on a response to this action,” he told journalists at a news conference following the EPA announcement.

“We are aware of the EPA failure to comply with the NEPA-NHPA regulations for consultation. We will respond soon,” he said at the online conference.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe and numerous other intervenors already have taken the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and private foreign investors to federal court and administrative appeals boards over more than 10 years for violating  the bedrock NEPA, or National Environmental Protection Act, and NHPA, or National Historic Preservation Act in pursuit of Dewey Burdock permits.

Those two laws require government-to-government consultation between U.S. and tribal authorities when Native cultural resources are impacted by project permit requests, such as this one by Canada-based Chinese multi-national Azarga Uranium Corp. and its wholly owned subsidiary Powertech USA Inc.

Without conducting the consultation to the tribe’s satisfaction, the EPA announced it has proceeded to grant an exemption from compliance with the quality standards of the Clean Drinking Water Act and two permits to punch some 4,000 new injection well holes in the aquifers for this project.

“These permits reflect many years of evaluation and public comment on Powertech’s applications to recover uranium from ore-bearing formations at the Dewey-Burdock project location,” said EPA Regional Administrator Gregory Sopkin.

The action is “based on a thorough consideration of scientific, technical and regulatory aspects of the permits, and a review of all comments received, including those received during tribal consultation. This process has contributed to the development of requirements that will protect the region’s groundwater while enabling the safe recovery of valuable uranium resources.”

The well permitting would satisfy the corporate proposal to use 8,500 gallons per minute of public water free-of-charge for mining and disposal indefinitely, directly affecting the Inyan Kara and Minnelusa aquifers most immediately.

Blake Steele, Azarga Uranium Corp. president and CEO, called the permitting a “critical milestone,” saying it “significantly de-risks our flagship asset, the advanced stage, low-cost Dewey Burdock Project, and moves the company substantially closer to becoming the next uranium producer in the U.S.A.”

The project would be the first radioactive in situ leach mining in South Dakota. It would be located on 10,000 acres of Custer and Fall River counties adjacent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and upstream at the headwaters of the Cheyenne River in unceded 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory.

The in-situ technique leaches uranium from the rock by injecting chemicals into the underground water table to dissolve the deposits. Pumps force the minerals in solution through pipes to the surface. There, the radioactive material is refined into yellow cake for shipment to nuclear fuel and weapons manufacturers.

The exemption is needed to carry out the project because “the restoration of an in-situ leach-mined aquifer to pre-mining water quality is an impossibility,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says.

The exemption and permitting allow the water extraction, as well as wastewater disposal by aquifer injection.

Project foes throughout a decade of regulatory wrangling have relied on expert opinion that in situ leach mining at this location “cannot be adequately contained,” due to the tendency of fissures under pressure to exchange flows between water tables and surface water.

“During the course of its operation, the Dewey Burdock ISL Project will most likely contaminate the region with unconfined lixiviant,” geologist Hannon LaGarry has testified to the NRC.

“This contamination will pollute and render unusable groundwater and surface water southwards into Nebraska and surface waters within the Cheyenne River drainage eastwards into greater South Dakota,” LaGarry notes.

“It’s very likely that the oxidants used to free the uranium will also cause the destruction of underground storage containers and release their contents into the area’s ground and surface waters,” he adds.

The EPA revised and reissued draft permits in 2019 after the first round of comments on them in 2017 drew more than 90 percent opposition to the project. At a hearing on the reissued drafts in Hot Springs on Oct. 5, 2019, 100 percent of speakers voiced opposition.

The latest EPA action could clear the way for the South Dakota Water Management Board to conduct hearings on whether to grant the water rights.

However, the next step is a 30-day mandatory period for petitioning to an EPA appeals board with objections. That is followed by another 30 days of EPA response time, making Jan. 22 the first possible date for a final outcome in this permitting. Then at least nine other permits also would be needed.

“Board hearings to finalize the key state permits were deferred until the federal permits, namely those pertaining to the NRC and EPA, were issued,” Azarga Uranium Corp. recalled in a media release, adding that the company now “will recommence the state permitting process imminently.

However, at the news conference, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance Director Lilias Jarding said, “I don’t expect to see state activity picking up any time soon.”

With these permits, “the Environmental Protection Agency has said it’s okay to allow the toxic and radioactive contamination of groundwater aquifers – aquifers that are needed in our semi-arid region,” she objected. “The agency says that the risks associated with this dangerous project are ‘acceptable’,” she said.

“The EPA issued the permits before it tested the groundwater aquifer where the company wants to pump wastewater into disposal wells.  The water in this aquifer is safe drinking water in nearby areas,” she said.

“It is illegal to pump wastewater into safe drinking water.  The aquifer’s water should have been tested before any permit was issued to insure it is protected.”

More than 200 improperly reclaimed sites remain from previous radioactive and toxic uranium prospecting and excavation in the area. They should be cleaned up before any more risk accrues, she said.

In addition, “Funding that is being put into this for nuclear power should be put into renewable resources, instead. It’s time to move full scale into renewables.”

She said the EPA’s review of the project “is not serious or complete,” adding, “Despite the time they’ve had to do a good job, the documents issued with the permits and the permit process appear rushed.”

This project “has a long way to go and can still be stopped in a number of ways,” she said. “The most important way to stop a project like this is through citizen involvement, and we encourage people to stay involved.”

Contact talli Nauman at Talli.nauman (at) gmail.com

 

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