Photo by: Reuters
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – US uranium mine developer Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) on Thursday said the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had revoked the aquiver exemption (AE) for part of its Goliad in-situ recovery (ISR) project, in southern Texas.
Corpus Christi, Texas-based UEC said, despite the EPA having reaffirmed a 2012 decision to uphold its granting of an existing AE for UEC’s Goliad ISR project, it was temporarily withdrawing the AE for the north-western portion of the project, which the company said contained less than 10% of the uranium resource.
The AE would allow UEC to use a water solution fortified with gaseous oxygen to dissolve uranium ore underground and then pump the uranium-bearing mixture back to the surface.
The company said the AE had been withdrawn until more information was provided for that segment of the project area in the planned and normal course of mine development.
Goliad County residents with water wells near the approved site took the EPA to federal court in December, arguing that UEC and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had to do more testing of the water flow in the Goliad aquifer to prove residual waste would remain in the exempted area.
In reaction, UEC started a 60-day review process, which the agency extended once and was later delayed by a UEC request for more time to meet the new standards.
UEC insisted that the EPA decision supported its current plan of operations at the Goliad project.
“The company is pleased with this result, which is in accord with our plans for the Goliad project. UEC’s scalable hub-and-spoke strategy, a proven model for increasing uranium extraction and maintaining a low-cost profile, is continuing as planned. We are executing this plan [at] the company’s Goliad, Burke Hollow, Palangana, Longhorn and additional South Texas projects,” UEC president and CEO Amir Adnani said.