A proposal to drill test holes in search of uranium in the mountains northeast of Stanley could be approved by this summer.
Idaho conservationists are already declaring the plan a dangerous one, with potentially devastating impacts on the Salmon River. The proposed drilling area is about three miles northwest of the confluence of the Salmon and the Yankee Fork.
Magnum Minerals USA, a subsidiary of Magnum Uranium of Vancouver, Canada, plans to sink as many as 71 exploratory holes over a 3.5-square-mile area during two phases. After core samples have been taken from each of the test holes, the company proposes to plug them with clay and five feet of cement. Under its proposal, Magnum would complete all reclamation activities within two years.
The company submitted its plan to the Salmon-Challis National Forest on March 5, and the forest closed a public comment period on the proposal on May 31. As required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Forest Service will now conduct an environmental analysis of the proposal, analyzing potential effects on water quality, fish, wildlife and other aspects of the environment.
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Once that is complete, Challis-Yankee Fork District Ranger Ralph Rau will decide whether to allow the test drilling.
"I could say no, but I'd have to justify that decision," Rau said.
He said the level of analysis needed for the exploratory portion of the project has not yet been determined. However, he said, the agency will not conduct an environmental impact statement, which is more detailed than an environmental assessment, just for the exploratory part of the project.
For the company to be granted the right to actually mine uranium, its exploratory drilling would have to indicate the presence of enough ore to economically justify a mining operation, Rau said. Prior to a decision on that, a new public comment period and NEPA analysis would take place, he said.
"You start an entirely new process," Rau said.
He said the NEPA portion of that process would likely justify a more in-depth environmental impact statement.
Dave Richmond, co-founder of Friends of the West, an environmental group based in the small town of Clayton, east of Stanley, called Magnum's proposal "totally irresponsible." He said there are other, less sensitive places where uranium could be mined. Clayton is about 25 miles downstream from the proposed drilling area.
"It's not necessary here," he said. "It seems insane."
Richmond said the Salmon River and its wildlife are more important than the economic benefits that uranium mining could provide.
"The salmon swim 900 miles to get to Stanley," he said. "That's a pretty important resource."
Linn Kincannon, central Idaho director for the Idaho Conservation League, contended that even the most carefully conducted mining operation couldn't totally contain radioactive materials. She pointed to the now-closed Hecla gold mine, on Grouse Creek in the Yankee Fork headwaters, as an example of an alleged state-of-the-art operation that leaked harmful contaminants into the river.
There is currently no uranium mining in Idaho. Though the idea that uranium deposits may be found in the state may come as a surprise to some, this wouldn't be the first time prospecting for the radioactive ore has taken place here.
A Forest Service map of the proposed exploratory drilling area, in the headwaters of Upper and Lower Harden creeks, indicates it is within the Stanley Uranium District. According to Forest Service documents, uranium ore was produced from mines there between 1958 and 1960, and exploratory drilling and trenching occurred during the same period.
"There is that history there," Rau said.
Magnum Uranium's Web site states that the company conducted an airborne radiometric and magnetic survey over the area last year. The survey identified "a large and significant uranium anomaly," the site states. "The anomaly covers an area of greater than 1.25 square miles."
The Web site states that the uranium is located in sandstone embedded in old stream channels in the underlying granite.
Rau said Magnum Uranium wouldn't have surveyed the area without knowledge of previous exploration there.
"There was actually a reason for the company's coming here," he said. "It's not just, 'I'll just drive up this road and see what I find.'"
Magnum's proposal also includes a request to temporarily reopen about .75 miles of closed road near Upper and Lower Harden creeks.
