by John Dudley (Letter to the Editor)
Rocky Mountain News
March 5, 2008

Anyone who doesn’t understand the concern of residents of Weld County for the proposed in situ uranium mining simply needs to read the Monday article on oil well pit citations. If the oil industry could be relied on to regulate itself, the article would not have existed. One government official suggests that the oil industry has made big steps in improving their practices, going from violations in 70% of inspections to just 10 to 15% today. The violations were not caught by government oil regulators but by U S Fish and Wildlife personnel and then investigated by state regulators. If the oil industry cannot regulate itself, the regulators must depend on other agencies to catch violations, and the government regulators think a 10 to 15% violation rate is progress, why should I believe that in situ uranium mining will be any different? I do believe that mineral rights owners should have the ability to extract those minerals, but they have an obligation to insure that their efforts do no harm to their neighbors in the present and the future. Until such time as the extraction industry and the government can demonstrate that regulations can protect the people and the environment, and that those regulations will be successfully obeyed and enforced, I will be opposed to the proposal to mine uranium in northern Weld County.

John Dudley lives in Ault

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