From the North Forty News (Dan MacArthur):
Powertech president and chief executive officer Richard Clement recanted his earlier statement that the new rules would be “fatal” to in-situ leach uranium mining operations such as its proposed Centennial Project between Wellington and Nunn. “We can live with them,” Clement said in a recent telephone interview. “They are not fatal to the project.”[…]
Clement maintained that permitting work on the proposed Centennial mine is proceeding toward an anticipated application for a mining permit in 2011…
Clement said most of the pre-application work is completed and data is being collated. “We have the majority of information needed,” he said. A required pump test remains to be completed, Clement said. The test is necessary to determine whether Powertech’s recently proposed “aquifer enhancement” is viable. The plan calls for injecting fresh water into the aquifer beneath the mine site to facilitate extraction of the uranium ore. Clement blamed the delay on the Environmental Protection Agency, which must approve the test…
Based on an independent primary economic assessment to determine the project’s viability, Clement in an Aug. 20 press release asserted that “the project is one of the best undeveloped uranium deposits in the (United States).” “Centennial is the centerpiece of a new (in-situ recovery) uranium district and has all the earmarks of becoming a new large production center around which many other uranium deposits will be developed,” he continued.