Uravan, in Southern Colorado, was once a bustling uranium mill town in the West End of our county. There, unbeknownst to employees, uranium ore was covertly transformed into green sludge and used in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now Uravan is a deserted cleanup site, too hazardous for residence. Chainlink fencing encloses ponds full of radioactive salts. In the surrounding hills, thorium still laces the ground where cattle graze, and tailings heaped outside of open pit uranium mines continue to leach runoff into the San Miguel River, like open sores.

So it was with some consternation that I learned recently about the resurgence of uranium mining in the West End. After 20 years of dormancy, new owners of the Cotter Corporation have been granted a permit to mine uranium in San Miguel County. Apparently, there’s a sudden demand for yellowcake, a 300 percent price j...
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