Kleberg residents oppose new uranium mines

[struggle4progress]

07/31/2005

By LYNN BREZOSKY / Associated Press


The extended Garcia family has lived for five generations in a cluster of frame and trailer homes known, with some irony, as Garcia Hill because its compound sits maybe a foot higher than the surrounding scrub.

The Garcias have another local distinction: Their water is contaminated with uranium at levels so high the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration has told them to stop drinking and see their doctors because of a high risk of cancer.

The government and the company that has been mining uranium in the area for the last 20 years told the Garcias the contamination is natural seepage from the vein of the radioactive material that runs near their well, the very uranium that attracted Lewisville-based Uranium Resources Inc. to Kleberg County in the first place. <snip>

"That's weird that it's the only place and nobody else has it," Humberto Garcia said. "It just kind of raises questions. A quarter mile away we have relatives, and their well is OK." <snip>

http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8BMHTNO6.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Groundwater District Bill Dead

A bill to create a Kleberg County Groundwater Conservation District is dead, the victim of a strong lobbying effort by Uranium Resources, Inc. to remove itself from the provisions of the bill, State Rep. Juan Escobar said last week.

“I was confronted by State Rep. Roberto Puente of San Antonio, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, to either agree to an amendment exempting URI from the provisions of the groundwater district or kill the bill,” Escobar said.

“I refused to compromise and would rather kill the bill than create the only groundwater district out of 87 in Texas that would have exempted an entity from its authority,” Escobar said. <snip>

URI officials were equally open about their opposition to the bill and launched a strong lobbying and public relations campaign that many say ultimately led to the bill’s defeat. <snip>

http://www.kingsvillerecord.net/story84.shtml

[struggle4progress]

2. Company seeks new permit to draw uranium from aquifer

<snip> With uranium prices on a rebound, URI is seeking to renew a permit to draw uranium from an aquifer below Texas's Coastal Bend. At residents' request, a state administrative law judge will hear arguments that URI has failed to clean up abandoned mining sites and must not be allowed to endanger their water.

"There is no certainty that human life will be protected," said Enrique Valdivia, a legal aid attorney representing a family who last year learned the wells from which they've drawn drinking water for five generations was undrinkable because of uranium contamination. <snip>

Melanie Oberlin, an attorney for the citizens' group South Texas Opposes Pollution, said residents believe URI broke promises made in the 1980s that it would clean the wells within two years of completing mining.

Claiming financial problems from falling uranium prices, URI in the late 1990s said it was unable to complete water restoration. The state allowed URI to use some of its bond money to guarantee cleanup to begin restoration, and URI says restoration is proceeding. <snip>

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/12277587.htm