GRANTS, N.M. – The Roca Honda Uranium Project, located about 3 miles northwest of the Village of San Mateo, is moving forward after several years of changing hands and on again, off again development attempts.
Michael Neumann, a consultant for Energy Fuels Resources Inc., said Strathmore Resources Ltd. was trying to develop the project when Energy Fuels came on the scene around 2011. Energy Fuels acquired Strathmore in August 2013 and a majority of the uranium project as well.
Strathmore, operator of Roca Honda Resources LLC, had formed a limited liability company with Sumitomo Corp. of Japan in July 2007 and held 60% interest until it purchased Sumitomo's 40% in May 2016 and transferred the property to Roca Honda.
Energy Fuels then acquired certain adjacent properties from Uranium Resources Inc. in 2015, along with the fee minerals interest in Section 17, a privately owned section that is part of Lee Ranch. The surface of Section 17 is leased to Fernandez Co. Ltd. of San Mateo as rangeland for grazing.
'Back to the drawing board'
More than 500 holes were drilled in the 1970s and early 1980s during the exploration of Section 17. Results of the drilling program led Kerr-McGee to sink a concrete-lined shaft to 1,469 feet below ground surface in the early 1980s. The existing shaft is drilled into the Westwater Canyon Member of the Morrison Formation. However, the Westwater Canyon aquifer, which floods the shaft to around 750 feet, is approximately 200 feet above the ore zone.
When URI sold the adjacent properties and fee minerals interest to Energy Fuels, that expanded the Roca Honda Project from three sections to four, Neumann said.
“So we had to go back to the drawing board with the mine plan once Energy Fuels acquired that section and put together a new mine plan,” he said, “and also had to kind of put a hiatus on the Forest Service review. While we were putting together a new plan, the Forest Service decided they were going to prepare a supplement to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
“We were well along on that road when COVID hit. The market was still in the doldrums and everything kind of came to a screeching halt. Rather than try and pursue that supplement to the EIS, the Forest Service thought it would make more sense and be less confusing to just reissue the draft and essentially start over with the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process,” Neumann said.
The Mine Operations and Reclamation Plan was last revised May 4 and submitted to the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division and the Cibola National Forest for review.
Dewatering the aquifer
Now that there is a pathway forward, Energy Fuels will work toward verifying the integrity of the existing shaft on Section 17. Once the shaft is verified to be in good working order, the plan is to sink the shaft another 200 feet to get it down into the ore, Neumann said, and then start drifting out of the bottom of the shaft, up toward the portion of the deposit that’s underneath the Forest Service land on Section 16.
“It will require some dewatering or in engineering terms, 'depressurizing' of the portion of the aquifer where the mine workings will go. There will be a series of wells that will be installed around the shaft and out along the line of 'drifts' or tunnels that would be built for the underground portion,” he said.
“Dewatering is expected to begin three or four years in advance of any planned construction other than having the mine water treatment plant in place to treat the water that has to be pumped out of the aquifer,” Neumann said.
Curtis Moore, vice president of Marketing and Corporate Development for Energy Fuels, said initial mine dewatering probably will be discharging about 10 cubic feet per second into the Rio San Jose, and then it will drop to about 5 cubic feet per second, long-term. Asked for a comparison, Moore said, “It is actually quite a bit of water. It's probably a small creek. I think that's one way to think about it.”
Neumann expressed the amount in gallons per minute. “The rate is going to start out at probably around 1,000 to 1,500 gpm and then ramp up as mine development occurs, to a maximum of as high as about 6,000 gallons per minute.”
Benefit for downstream users
The water will be run through the water treatment plant and then discharged near Kearns Field through a 20-inch pipeline to a recently re-engineered and widened stretch of the Rio San Jose streambed that runs through the Village of Milan. The total length of the pipeline varies from 20 to 26 miles, depending on the route chosen.
“The one permit that has been issued for the project is a mine dewatering permit,” Neumann said. “It limits the points of withdrawal and the maximum amount that can be pumped out per well, but it does not grant any sort of a water right or even a beneficial use.
“So Roca Honda would put the water into the Rio San Jose and then it’s available to any and all downstream users according to their needs and whatever agreements they might work out among themselves. Roca Honda has no ability to regulate who gets how much,” he said. Downstream users would include the Village of Milan, the city of Grants, and the pueblos of Acoma and Laguna.
Downstream of the discharge point, the water will create a year-round flow in the Rio San Jose, which could increase habitat and potentially benefit wildlife during the projected 12-year discharge period.
No adverse impact
Despite the region's extreme drought, “Past independent hydrogeological studies completed as a part of past permitting processes concluded that mine dewatering won't adversely impact any regional water supplies, nearby pueblos, or regional springs,” Moore said, citing Energy Fuels' Environment Department. “It represents a very small fraction of the groundwater system out there.”
“One of the things that is really important to understand as well is when the water is brought to the surface, we have to treat it essentially to EPA drinking water standards. The only thing that would be required to actually be able to drink it would be to chlorinate it. We're not going to chlorinate it but every other aspect of that water will be to drinking water standards.”
There also is the possibility of driving another shaft at some point. Moore said the project is planned as a two-shaft, modern underground mining operation utilizing room and pillar, and draft and fill mining methods designed to maximize worker safety and underground stability.
“A major advantage of the updated mine plan is the use of the existing shaft on Section 17 which reduces the need for additional surface disturbance. The bulk of the facilities, including the water treatment plant, are now planned for placement in Section 17, which is private land. The old mine plan had those facilities on Section 16, which is state land,” he said.
Portions of the proposed facilities will be located within previously disturbed historic mining areas to further minimize impacts. “It will all be underground mining, no surface mining,” Moore said. “It's not a big open pit so it's not going to have the big impacts that a lot of past mining had.”
Neumann said the total disturbed area footprint is 317 acres, 67 of which are on U.S. Forest Service land. There also are 58 acres of temporary disturbance from development drilling that will be reclaimed immediately. Construction is projected to start in 2028.