A future in lithium and uranium?
Mines and mills spark debate on health and jobs
by Kenny Fallon Jr.
At the City Council meeting of January 9th, everyone in the audience agreed to start limiting their remarks to three minutes each during the official public comment period. This was promptly disregarded as people spoke freely for the rest of the meeting, mainly with concerns over a proposed experimental lithium mine and a proposed uranium mill. Several people, such as Richard Ryan, Tim Vetere, Kim McFarlane, Christine Sheeter, Gayna Salinas, Kelly Dunham, and Tammy Howland were concerned about health and safety: would settlement ponds leak into soil that’s too fractured to actually contain it, and would the mine likely use more water than claimed? Would uranium processing hurt local farms and people’s health?
Sarah Fields and John Weisheit of Moab emphasized that the mill company, Western Uranium and Vanadium Corporation, might not be trustworthy after being caught lying multiple times this past year about their work. The commenters’ primary concern was that the Council might be rushing projects along without adequate research or public input, which was later echoed by members of the Planning Commission.
The Council eventually moved on to discussing a city zoning code change to allow “mineral extraction and processing” to take place within city limits. Usually any potential change to the zoning code goes through the Planning Commission for review before the City Council can decide what to do. Instead, the Council wanted to move the change along using a state law which allows them to consider the Commission’s “lack of a timely recommendation as a negative recommendation”. Who decides what counts as a “timely” recommendation? According to Mayor Ren Hatt “...the council is the legislative body and they wanted to move”. City Manager Tyler Hunt and Planning and Zoning Administrator David Wilson have indeed been working the past month to “help the lithium project progress” and draft a potential legislation.
After voting to use that state law, the Council proceeded to discuss the zoning code themselves. The proposed change would allow mineral extraction as a conditional use (meaning the Planning Commission would review it and the City Council would vote on it) in all of the city’s industrial zones (I-1, I-2, and I-3). These zones are mostly vacant areas on the east end of town by the old missile base, although they also include the Super 8 and Conoco gas station.
After a brief discussion, Councilor Bo Harrison motioned to approve the code change with one adjustment: mineral extraction and processing would be by-right in zone I-3. This means that permits for these uses would not go through the Planning Commission or City Council, and if all non-City permits were approved, any applicant who checked the boxes would be allowed to build. The Council voted to make this code change unanimously.
Gayna Salinas brought this last minute amendment up at a later City Council meeting: “to me that was a conflict of interest for the person that made the proposal because [Councilor Harrison] is working in [mineral extraction and processing] in zone I-3.” to which Harrison responded “I am not an owner of High Desert Excavating, I am an employee. And according to the city attorney, if High Desert does work with A1 [a company owned by Anson, the Australian company proposing an experimental lithium mine], there’s no conflict there. If I was receiving any direct compensation from A1 with my name on it? Absolutely. But that is not the case.” Salinas may have also been referring to Harrison’s partial ownership of BOSYDABA Holdings LLC, which sold A1 the potential lithium mine site for a reported $2.4 million in September 2023.
There’s another lithium extraction project that made progress in the past month. At their January 16th meeting the Planning Commission approved a permit for Blackstone Minerals (also owned by Anson, like A1 Lithium) to begin exploratory drilling for lithium near the “black pyramid” uranium tailings pile. Blackstone Minerals owns a property on the south end of city limits where they’d like to build a pilot project. A company representative at the meeting described it as a demonstration to “prove out their technology in real time”, which should end six to eighteen months after starting. Commissioners Kim McFarlane and Kent Johnson suggested adding a requirement to the conditional use permit that Blackstone must report all potentially hazardous materials on site to the Green River Fire Department. The Commission then unanimously approved the permit with that condition.
Back at the City Council meeting, the next item was discussing whether the city would give a non-binding letter of recommendation to Western Uranium and Vanadium Corporation (WUC), a Canadian company, for their proposed uranium mill in the Green River Industrial Park. Mayor Hatt clarified that while the letter would imply the people of Green River supported the mill, anyone is free to gather signatures opposing the project. Sarah Fields asked “what’s so great about a uranium mill” for the city, to which Councilor Kent Nelson replied “...to someone like you it might not make sense that someone like me would want a uranium mill. When I was younger, I used to drive a truck [with] ore to the White Mesa uranium mill, which was a job for me. Right now there is nothing here, unless [kids] want to become a schoolteacher like me, a truck driver, a ditch rider, or work for UPS just to make ends meet in this community. And you’re not from this community. When I was younger driving through Moab, you guys would stand out there with signs and take pictures of my truck because I was headed to the mill. And I’m sure you’ll do that again, trying to stop it. But I’m for it.”
The City Council voted unanimously to send the letter. While only one of the items on agendas this month was directly related to the proposed experimental lithium mine, many saw the mine as the first of what might come in the area’s future economy. Mayor Hatt also said: “Since I’ve been mayor, I’ve gone to the Silicon Slopes conference, I’ve gone to the Utah Office of Tourism conference…and I’ve gone to several…companies. I’ve met in their offices and asked them ‘is there any sort of interest in building something in Green River’. But none of them are doing anything yet. There aren’t any [other] companies that have bought land and offered to create an industry as of yet. My point is: should the city wait indefinitely?”
Councilor Guy Webster concluded “you know, I wish lithium would go away. I wish that we didn’t have to be worrying about electric cars and all that, but guess what? My wishes are not coming true. We’re getting it force-fed to us. Unfortunately the demographic that keeps saying we gotta have electric cars just thinks you plug into the wall, the power miraculously appears, and the batteries just somehow fall out of the sky and into your car.” To some, the mines and mills will have to go somewhere, so why not here?