A Utah uranium mill this year received 138 tons of uranium-bearing material from Japan. Environmentalists claim the material is harmful radioactive waste, while the industry says it’s a fuel source for clean energy.
The material includes uranium-bearing ores, resins, sands and carbon that remain after uranium extraction testing at two Japan Atomic Energy Agency facilities in Honshu, Japan. The White Mesa Mill — located in Blanding and owned by Energy Fuels Inc., a Canadian company with corporate headquarters outside Denver — will extract and sell the uranium left in the materials to nuclear power plants.
After the company culls the uranium from the material, they store the waste on-site in containment ponds. Environmentalists fear that waste threatens local water supplies, air quality and public health.
“This latest shipment from Japan shifts the burden of Japan’s radioactive legacy from Japanese citizens to the people of White Mesa,” said Tim Peterson, cultural landscapes director for the environmental nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust.
Shipping records show that the shipment from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency traveled across the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo to Everett, Wash. in January. Then, the material was trucked over 1,000 miles to the White Mesa Mill.
An Energy Fuels spokesperson confirmed that the company was paid a fee for receiving the materials from Japan.
“We recover uranium — a valuable clean energy resource — from various feed materials, which most people would think is a good thing (unless you’re an anti-nuclear activist),” the Energy Fuels spokesperson wrote in an email.
Energy Fuels notified the Utah Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control of its plans to process the materials in 2020. The company said that the shipments are natural ores and “equivalent feed materials” that should be regulated the same as ore transported to the mill from uranium mines.
The Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control agreed that Energy Fuels did not need an additional license for processing the materials.
“The uranium from these shipments will be used to power U.S. homes, schools and businesses,” said Curtis Moore, Energy Fuels’ senior vice president of marketing and corporate development. “As with the uranium ore we process, tailings from this shipment are safely stored in specially lined impoundments that are continuously monitored.”
In 2020, Energy Fuels President and CEO Mark Chalmers reported that the company makes between $5 million and $15 million a year from processing “alternate feeds,” like the material for Japan.
“If the mill’s operators are getting paid to receive this shipment from Japan, it’s not for processing uranium, but for disposing of waste the Japanese people don’t want near their communities,” Peterson added.
In 2005, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency paid the White Mesa Mill $5.8 million to accept 500 tons of uranium-contaminated soil. The mill also received alternate feeds from Estonia in 2022, according to Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control documents.
Uranium is the most widely used fuel for nuclear energy, a zero-emission energy source according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Fuels currently produces uranium ore at the La Sal Mines Complex in La Sal and the Pinyon Plain Mine near the Grand Canyon.
