Uranium Mining on the Colorado Plateau PDF Download

Author: Wilbert Leland Dare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mines and mineral resources
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Author: Raye Ringholz
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 0874214734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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A history of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s need for uranium ore in the 1950s, the frenzied search, and the aftermath. Now expanded to include the story of nuclear testing and its consequences, UraniumFrenzy has become the classic account of the uranium rush that gripped the Colorado Plateau region in the 1950s. Instigated by the U.S. government’s need for uranium to fuel its growing atomic weapons program, stimulated by Charlie Steen’s lucrative Mi Vida strike in 1952, manned by rookie prospectors from all walks of life, and driven to a fever pitch by penny stock promotions, the boom created a colorful era in the Four Corners region and Salt Lake City (where the stock frenzy was centered) but ultimately went bust. The thrill of those exciting times and the good fortune of some of the miners were countered by the darker aspects of uranium and its uses. Miners were not well informed regarding the dangers of radioactive decay products. Neither the government nor anyone else expended much effort educating them or protecting their health and safety. The effects of exposure to radiation in poorly ventilated mines appeared over time. The uranium boom is only part of the larger story of atomic weapons testing and its impact in the western United States. Nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site not only spurred uranium mining, they also had a disastrous impact on many Americans: downwinders in the eastward path of radiation clouds, military observers and guinea pigs in exposed positions, and Navajo and other uranium mill workers all became victims, as deaths from cancer and other radiation-caused diseases reached much higher than normal rates among them. Tons of radioactive waste left by mines, mills, and the nuclear industry and how to dispose of them are other nagging legacies of the nuclear era. Recent decades have brought multiple attempts by victims to obtain compensation from the federal government and other legal battles over disposal of nuclear waste. When courts refused to grant relief to downwinders and others, Congress eventually interceded and legislated compensation for a limited number of victims able to meet strict criteria, but did not adequately fund the program. Recently, Congress attempted to fix this shortfall, but in the meantime many downwinders and others holding compensation IOUs had died. Congressional and other efforts to dispose of waste have lately focused on Nevada and Utah, two states all too familiar with nuclear issues and reluctant to take on further radioactive burdens. “In a perceptive and touching narrative, Ringholz (The Wilderness Handbook) recalls that the Federal government in the early 1950s subsidized uranium mining for the coming atomic age. . . . Ringholz intrigues the reader with an expert blending of science, adventure, industry mania, finance, human triumph and despair and shameful official neglect.” —Publishers Weekly “The frenzied search for a reliable domestic source of uranium ore needed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s is the subject of Ringholz's breezy narrative, which is populated with colorful characters. . . . This is good popular reading for general collections in public libraries.” —Library Journal

Author: Raye Carleson Ringholz
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393026443
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Traces the history of uranium mining in America, following the efforts of ordinary people as they took part in the initial boom and the bust that followed

Author: Deidre Susan Busacca
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Author: Alfred T. Miesch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geology
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Prepared partly on behalf of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. A regional study with special reference to the Frenchy Incline deposit, San Miguel County, Colorado.

Author: Wilbert Leland Dare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mines and mineral resources
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Author: Wilbert Leland Dare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Colorado
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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This publication is one of a series prepared by the Federal Bureau of Mines on methods and costs of producing uranium ore on the Colorado Plateau. The information it contains was gathered in 1955-58 and applies to eight small operations. (See fig. 1.) Mining costs have increased since the data were I collected, but the information should be helpful in estimating future costs I at similar deposits. The Bureau of Mines had early experience in the production of carnotite-type ores on the Colorado Plateau. 3 4/ Under a cooperative agreement with the National Radium Institute in 1914-16, the Bureau mined and concentrated carnotite ore for recovery of radium, uranium, and vanadium. The ore was taken from claims in or near Long Park Montrose County, Colo., about 3 mi. south of La Salle Mining Co.'s La Salle mine, which is one of the mines described in this report. The Bureau leased the claims from Crucible Steel Mining & Milling Co., a subsidiary of Crucible Steel Co. of America, and from 1914 to 1916 produced 990 tons of high-grade ore, containing 2.6 pct. U308, and about 2,000 tons of mill-grade ore, containing 0.85 pct. U308. The high-grade ore was shipped directly to a radium-recovery plant built in Denver in 1914 under the cooperative agreement. There, commercial methods of extracting uranium, vanadium, and radium from carnotite ores were developed by Bureau personnel. The lower grade ore was concentrated at a small mill in Long Park before being shipped to Denver. The final recovery was 69,000 lb. of U308 and 8.8 g. of radium. The direct mining cost of producing the high-grade ore, including the labor to hand sort and sack it, was $35.96 per ton. Freighting the ore 58 miles to Placerville, Colo., the nearest rail point on the Rio Grande Southern Railway, cost $25.28 per ton, which included $4.55 per ton for ore bags and twine. Four-or six-horse teams pulled two wagons in tandem and made the round trip in 7 days. Four-horse teams hauled 3 1/2 to 4 tons, or about 105 72-lb. sacks of ore, and six-horse teams hauled 5 to 5 1/2 tons. The cost of shipping the ore to Denver, Colo., including the cost of loading the ore into narrow-gage cars at Placerville and transferring it to standard gage cars at Salida, Colo., was $8.59 a ton. Indirect costs at the mine were $9.92, the amortization charge was $1.19, and royalty was $10.47 per ton. The total cost was $91.41 per ton.

Author: George William Bain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Uranium ores
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Author: John Walter Gruner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Uranium ores
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Uranium mines and mining
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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