Uraniums found seeping into wells

Nature, not Los Alamos National Laboratory, is currently the leading source of uranium contamination in water around Espanola, Pojoaque, Nambe and Santa Fe. A number of private water wells around Pojoaque and Nambe have twice tested with uranium levels three to six times higher than the federal optional levels for safe drinking water. Meanwhile, Espanola shut down two wells this week after the condition Environment Department found elevated levels of uranium in the water supply. Espanola City Manager James Lujan said the wells will not be a difficulty in the future. "We plan to shut them off totally and plan to blend other wells that we do have in this area," said Lujan in a statement.

Around Santa Fe, a test of 475 wells last year found many with elevated uranium, but nothing compared to wells tested after in Nambe and Pojoaque. The testing and analysis were part of New Mexico Small Business Assistance project between LANL and the Good Water Company of Santa Fe, which designs, installs and services water cleansing systems. High uranium levels found in a half-dozen wells approximately the Nambe and Pojoaque corridor, between the Rio Grande and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, mirrored the results of a superior study conducted in 2005 by Santa Fe County and LANL. "One well in the corridor experienced with 60 times the EPA maximum contagion level for uranium," said Stephen Wiman, owner of Good Water Company.

Uranium is a radioactive serious metal that occurs naturally in some granites, ore bodies and sandstones found in the Southwest. It erodes and decays naturally into groundwater or as the result of uranium mining operation. It also is used as a division of nuclear research. People can be exposing to uranium through air, water and food. The U.S. Environmental defense Agency set 30 micrograms per liter as the safe drinking-water standard. Wells in the Pojoaque and Nambe corridor calculated with uranium levels from less than 30 to 1,800 micrograms per liter, according to Pat Longmire, a LANL groundwater chemist who helped examine the samples.

Court: Planned New Mexico uranium mine not on Navajo land

A New Mexico-based uranium manufacturer plans to move forward with a mining operation in the western part of the state after a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that its land is not part of Indian Country.The full 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in a 6-5 decision that the U.S. Environmental safety Agency erred when it determined that a parcel of land near the Navajo community of Church Rock was Indian land.

The decision means that Hydro Resources Inc. can seek an underground injection control permit from the state of New Mexico rather than the EPA, which has permitting influence on tribal lands.Hydro Resources wants to inject chemicals into the ground to release uranium and pump the solution to the surface in a process called in-situ escape.

“I think that it's clear we were right all along, and we have been vindicated,” said Rick Van Horn, senior vice president of operation for Hydro's parent firm, Uranium Resources Inc. “That doesn't mean we are going to go ahead and do this without discussion with the other stakeholders in the society and surrounding areas.”