Trucks deliver tanks for installation at the Ross Project uranium mine and mill site near Mato Tipila in 2015. Photo courtesy Windcreek Services Inc.
Public can address Australians’ bid to expand uranium mine near sacred Mato Tipila
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News
Health & Environment Editor
www.nsweekly.com MOORCROFT, Wyo. –– On March 8, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) invited the public to comment on proposed expansion of Australia’s largest U.S. aquifer mining operation, also Wyoming’s newest uranium mine, located near Mato Tipila. Better known as Devil’s Tower National Monument, Mato Tipila is a Native American sacred site in Crook County in the northern Black Hills. The Australian company Peninsula Energy Ltd., through its wholly owned subsidiary, Strata Energy Inc., proposes an 8,000-acre expansion here of its Ross in-situ leach (ISL) mine and mill, which received a radioactive materials handling license for the original 1,721 acres of the project in 2015. The NRC granted the license despite contentions raised at administrative hearings by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Powder River Basin Resource Council. The non-profit groups questioned water and cultural resource impacts of the project. Representatives of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, the Chippewa Cree Tribe, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe debated the Ross Project’s implications for Mato Tipila (aka Bear’s Lodge), a traditional location for cultural activities, prayers, and other religious and spiritual purposes. As a result, the NRC ordered Strata Energy Inc. to comply with the terms and conditions of an April 24, 2014 Programmatic Agreement (PA) to protect cultural resources within the Ross project boundary.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: Public can address Australians’ bid to expand uranium mine near sacred Mato Tipila Federal Register Notice:
Strata Energy, Inc, Kendrick Expansion Area In Situ Uranium Recovery Project (March 8, 2016) (Contact Talli Nauman, NSN Health and Environment Editor at talli.nauman@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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