Something with generational impact is happening once again right here in western New Mexico.
Roca Honda Resources, LLC has submitted a mine operations and reclamation plan as part of a new mine permit application for the Roca Honda project near San Mateo. A legal notice in this edition of the Cibola Citizen outlines the proposal: a conventional underground uranium mining operation, a roughly 21-year mine life, approximately 305 acres of surface disturbance, and treated mine dewatering flows that would be sent by pipeline along NM 605 to Milan, where the treated water would discharge into the Rio San Jose.
That is a lot to take in. It is a serious sign that uranium is no longer just part of Cibola’s past. It is once again part of our future.
I have written before that Cibola County stands at the threshold of a new energy chapter. Roca Honda is just one of multiple ongoing projects that prove this to be accurate.
Our country needs energy security. The world needs reliable, clean baseload power. Nuclear energy is becoming more important as America reduces dependence on hostile foreign supply chains and navigates a future shaped by artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and national defense.
That future requires uranium.
And Cibola County knows uranium.
We know the pride of it. We know the curse of it. We know what the boom brought, and we know what was left behind when it ended – we still suffer with the cancer it brought! That history should not make us afraid of opportunity or of the future, it should make us serious about what we face.
Roca Honda can be a good thing.
It can bring jobs, investment, tax base, contracting opportunities and renewed attention to a region that helped power America once before. Roca Honda could help Cibola and McKinley counties position themselves in a national energy conversation that is only going to grow louder in the years ahead.
But for this to truly benefit Cibola County, this operation has to be done right.
Doing this project right means doing it with transparency.
It means Roca Honda Resources, LLC and all of the other uranium companies must have respect for San Mateo, Milan, Grants, nearby landowners, Indigenous communities, local governments and everyone who lives in Cibola and McKinley Counties, with the consequences of these mining decisions. Transparency means providing clear answers about water, roads, hauling, monitoring, reclamation, emergency planning and long-term responsibility.
It also means local leaders should not treat uranium mining as something happening far away in a regulatory office in Santa Fe. This is here, in our community. This is ours to understand, discuss and help shape.
The legal notice gives people the right to submit written comments and request a public hearing. That process should be used by the people. Not to shut down the conversation, but to make it stronger and understand how uranium extraction is going to benefit our community while being safer than last time.
Cibola County cannot afford to sleep through its next boom.
Uranium mining is coming back, and we need to make sure the benefits remain here, the safeguards are real, and the future we build is stronger – safer and healthier – than the one we inherited.
This could be good for Cibola.
Now we have to make sure it is.
God Bless Cibola County God Bless the United States of America and all of our troops.