Cibola County officials against EPA cleanup site

County officials in west-central New Mexico say federal environmental regulators should not turn a large creek basin near old uranium mines into a Superfund cleanup site.

Cibola County commissioners late last month expressed their opposition to an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to put the San Mateo Creek Basin on its Superfund National Priorities List, saying such a designation might foreclose the “potential of the return” of the uranium mining industry.

“The proposed listing … has the potential to negatively affect this activity before we have the opportunity to deliberate its future development,” commissioners wrote in a resolution.

The Cibola commissioners said that while they encouraged cleanup of unreclaimed mines in the 321-square-mile basin, “these issues have existed for over 50 years.”

“A rushed listing of the entire basin may have unintended consequences and may not be the best solution for our community,” the resolution states.

The EPA had not included the San Mateo Creek site on its list of proposed priorities as of late last month. A spokeswoman said Monday the agency has agreed to allow more time for “companies to develop alternative approaches.”

Groundwater in the San Mateo Creek Basin, which sits within the Rio San Jose drainage basin in both Cibola and McKinley counties, might have degraded as a result of 89 uranium mines and mill sites that comprised the Grants Mining District during its heyday from the 1950s through the 1990s, according to the EPA.

The county’s stance against cleanup provisions comes as environmental groups protest the state’s decision to allow the inactive Mount Taylor uranium mine near Grants to return to “active” status — a move the environmental groups say will allow the mine to avoid cleanup activities.

Cibola Commissioner Jack Moleres, a Democrat, said the county opposition to the prospective Superfund listing was not specific to any one mine, Mount Taylor included.

“It’s more general,” Moleres said. “It depends what arises. I believe it puts restrictions on the possibility of anything coming in. We wanted to have the conversations on if there is potential [for the mining business to return] and then go from there.”

Scott Pruitt, the embattled EPA administrator whose tenure has been criticized as overly industry-friendly by environmental groups, has nonetheless emphasized robust Superfund cleanup efforts as a priority he has pledged to “restore … to its rightful place at the center of the [EPA’s] core mission.”

There are 16 New Mexico sites listed as EPA Superfund priorities, according to the agency website, the most recent of which, in Roswell, was added in April 2016.

Contact Tripp Stelnicki at 505-428-7626 or tstelnicki@sfnewmexican.com.