(contemplative music) - [Lauren] A remote corner of Utah is finding itself in the middle of a controversy.

- [Protestors] Keep it in the ground!

- What all comes out of it?

It's money, power, land.

- [Lauren] All centered around the country's only conventional uranium mill.

- So there's definitely two sides to the mill.

One is economic development in our county, but then you have the other aspect of uranium, which scares a lot of people.

- [Lauren] The mill is praised for putting Utah on the global energy map and playing a crucial role in our everyday technology.

- That has brought a lot of attention to Utah and the resources that we have here.

- [Lauren] At the same time, an additional operation at the mill is drawing criticism and concern over community health and safety.

- This waste is coming from all the way around the world.

- I don't want our community to be destroyed.

- [Lauren] As the industry keeps up with the demand of modern society.

- Think about where those minerals come from that you're using in your smartphones and your cars and your household.

- [Lauren] Some say it comes at a cost.

- It's all spelled out in there like, this stuff is gonna be here forever.

- What do local leaders and community members believe is the best way to move forward, and what could that look like for both the uranium mill and the community nearby?

I'm Lauren Steinbrecher, and this is "Utah Insight."

(gentle music) (birds chirping) (children chattering) - You know, the kids are usually out here playing ball.

They're usually, you know, riding their bikes.

- [Lauren] For the families living in White Mesa, Utah, this place isn't just home.

- [Yolanda] You know, we're in a sacred area.

- [Lauren] For Yolanda Badback, it's a place with thousands of years of ancestral history with culture and tradition passed down through the generations.

- We had sacred burial sites that our ancestors used to travel from a summer camp to a winter camp.

- [Lauren] A place Badback and her mom, Thelma Whiskers, consider themselves stewards of.

- I love these people here and the children.

- That's where our grandparents had made our home for us and that's what we wanna continue.

- [Lauren] White Mesa sits within the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Reservation in San Juan County, Utah, near Bears Ears National Monument.

It also sits five miles down the highway from the White Mesa uranium mill in the heart of Utah's uranium mine belt.

The mill was originally built in 1980 to process uranium ore from nearby mines for weapons and nuclear fuel.

- We used to be a county that was full of drilling and mining.

- [Lauren] San Juan County Commissioner Lori Maughan has seen the mills boom and bust like the uranium mining industry itself.

- I also remember growing up that mill has opened and shut and opened and shut many times, changed a lot of hands.

- [Lauren] But that hasn't been the case with current owner, Colorado-based Energy Fuels.

- It's been steady, it's been very steady.

- [Lauren] In the absence of an abundance of uranium ore, the mill also takes in and processes other kinds of radioactive material called alternate feeds from various locations.

- Which are basically when you have, you know, contaminated soils from industrial sites and other things that they could process there.

- [Lauren] Utah Mining Association President Brian Somers says recently the mill expanded to a one of a kind operation for the US, producing rare earth elements used to make high tech devices.

- Rare earths are in all kinds of things that you use every single day, in everything from, you know, wind turbines to electric cars, to the little things that make your cell phone vibrate.

(phone vibrating) - [Lauren] The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and environmental groups aren't sold on Energy Fuels' business model.

- It's a radioactive waste disposal facility more than a milling facility.

- [Lauren] Scott Clow is the tribe's environmental programs director.

He wants to make sure what's happening on site isn't making its way into White Mesa.

- The overlying concern is public health.

The public water supply in White Mesa is a groundwater supply.

So there's also concern that it's impacted by the mill.

- You know, we don't want our water to be contaminated.

- [Lauren] Badback and Whiskers worry about what they drink and what they breathe.

- When you pass Energy Fuels, you could really smell it real bad.

- [Lauren] On an October morning... - Good morning everybody.

- [Lauren] the mother and daughter welcome a crowd to talk about those concerns.

- And I get wary about my grandchildren, my children.

- [Lauren] They organize an annual conference and spiritual walk to protest the mill, drawing in people from all over the region.

In addition to the mill facility, Whiskers brings up trucks hauling ore through town using the same roads as their school buses.

- When they're on a bus in the morning, there comes the trucks, two or three trucks they go by.

They zoom by really fast.

- It scares people.

I mean, are we gonna have a spill?

Are we gonna have a wreck?

- [Lauren] Maughan explains worries largely stem from past lack of regulation in the uranium mining and milling industry.

- People didn't know what it did as much then.

Everyone mined and then all of a sudden they're realizing, "Okay, this causes cancer."

- [Lauren] For Whiskers it's personal.

- Well, I had a brother, he was my oldest brother.

When this White Mesa mill just opened, that's where he used to work.

He got sick.

- But the state of Utah says things are different now.

The mill is regulated by the Utah Department of Environmental Qualities Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control, or DWMRC, meaning the state is in charge of the standards here and part of that is monitoring both air and groundwater for any potential contamination.

- So one of the things that we try to do is prevent wind-blown dust.

- [Lauren] Adam Wingate is the DWMRC Uranium Recovery Section manager.

Simply said, he makes sure Energy Fuels follows state standards, both for employee safety and the environment.

- These red dots make up the locations of all of our various monitoring wells.

- [Lauren] Wingate described how groundwater samples regularly collected from more than two dozen wells in and around the mill are tested for a long list of metals, elements and chemical compounds, especially around the large lined tailings impoundment ponds.

- The major concern then would be if that had some kind of leak or failure of the liner system, these very acidic, very high metal concentration liquids and sands could penetrate into the groundwater and then contaminate the groundwater.

And that is why we collect 900 points of monitoring every sampling period.

- [Lauren] He says the DWMRC expanded testing over the years and found contamination in the past.

The first, about 25 years ago, the second, a decade later, - There was a legacy contamination from an old laboratory that was on site.

So we have a corrective action plan for both plumes.

We have monitoring networks.

We also have a pumping program in place.

- [Lauren] As he closely follows the cleanup, Wingate says the data doesn't show contamination beyond the mill site.

- We don't have any evidence that either of these plumes have any impact on that lower drinking water supply aquifer.

It's all isolated in this upper aquifer.

But that doesn't mean it's not a problem, right?

Like the responsibility is to protect the air, land, and water.

- Well, you can see some chemical storage tanks here.

- [Lauren] Clow constantly follows the data himself.

He says the state of Utah has raised the bar on monitoring.

- We appreciate what the state of Utah has done in that regard in getting real on the quality of the data that's collected.

- [Lauren] But he does take issue with some of the methodology and results.

- There are increasing concentrations of uranium that are much higher than what we observe in all of these other wells around the mesa.

So something's going on there.

- [Lauren] The tribe runs its own testing network with an air monitor in White Mesa and groundwater wells nearby.

What they found... - We have those data and we're on top of that.

So yeah, there's nothing alarming there.

- And nothing hazardous picked up in air quality tests, he indicated.

Clow explains, it's not just about the measurements coming from these wells.

For the tribe, it's also about the context of culture and thousands of years of history on this land.

- This whole landscape is very important to the people here and to have thousands of acre feet of toxic waste and this facility now being an international dumping ground is profoundly disturbing to people here.

- [Lauren] Clow is worried about a potential expansion.

- [Scott] The direction of expansion is south towards the community.

- [Lauren] Energy Fuels declined to interview, but they've stated in multiple recent press releases, the company has ramped up production and many people see that as a good thing, like Brian Somers over at the Utah Mining Association.

- That's a huge asset for us to have that mill here in the state.

- [Lauren] Somers described how it's the only conventional uranium mill left standing in the country because the US switched to mainly importing uranium from overseas, meaning the US still uses uranium, it's just coming from somewhere else.

- And we've got very stringent laws and regulations around mining and around mineral processing here in this country.

You shift production to countries that don't have the same environmental and labor standards, and you can do it more cheaply, but you're also not doing it responsibly.

- [Lauren] Somers explains the US wants to bring local uranium production back, citing global events like the invasion of Ukraine and the push for nuclear power and US energy independence.

- The nuclear industry provides about 20% of the electricity that we use in the US and so the energy demand is increasing substantially.

- [Lauren] Utah state lawmakers and Governor Spencer Cox are also focused on nuclear and the rare earth elements that Energy Fuels recently began producing that fuel our modern technology.

- So we're not relying on China and other global adversaries.

We can do that work here.

- [Lauren] Recent legislation aims to fast track critical mineral production in Utah.

- And that will make us safer and make energy cheaper for everyone.

- [Lauren] The resurgence of uranium paired with the emergence of rare earth elements is putting the White Mesa Mill in the national spotlight.

- I think that Utah really especially has an opportunity to be an energy and critical minerals hub for the entire country.

- [Lauren] Both Somers and Maughan say today's strict regulations mean the industry is safer than ever before.

- So when I hear people say it's a toxic waste dump, I don't agree with that.

They have to meet some high standards in order to do what they're doing.

- She sees quite a bit of local support for the mill, including from some tribal members.

- A lot of those people that live there actually work and have jobs at the mill.

- According to state data, Energy Fuels is one of the larger private employers in San Juan County.

And for a county that ranks last in the state for per capita income, Maughan sees the dozens of jobs provided here as an asset to the local economy.

- We've got to look for ways we can survive down here and make, you know, it affordable and also jobs, create jobs, but also opportunities for growth.

- [Lauren] Back at the White Mesa Community Center.

- I'm against this mill.

I will always be against it.

- [Lauren] The spiritual walk group led by Whiskers and Badback wonders what an expansion could mean for the community.

- If the mill expands any longer, you know, bigger, then we might not even, this might not even be White Mesa again.

It might be, you know, empty.

(people chanting) - [Lauren] Marching five miles up the highway from town to the mill, the dozens here, including members from neighboring tribes and Ute Mountain Ute Tribal council members demand the mill be shut down.

- They should move this mill.

There is other places they can put it at.

If it's so clean, if it's not dangerous, then put in front of the White House and prove everybody wrong.

We don't want it.

- [Lauren] Standing outside of Energy Fuels, (protestors chanting) the group raises concerns over land, water, and the wellbeing of the community.

- So I wish they would clean up this place up so we can live good, we'll have good water.

- [Lauren] Whiskers doesn't want anyone else getting sick like what happened to her brother.

- We care for our people no matter what.

We still care for them and the kids.

- [Lauren] Clow says the tribe is embarking on an epidemiological study to understand the full picture of the community's health and what could be impacting it.

- The best case scenario is if there is no causation and we can identify other things that are impacting people's health.

- [Lauren] He'll stay on top of water and air reports for any sign of alarm.

- So yeah, we're just gonna keep fighting the good fight.

- [Lauren] Maughan sees a way forward through open communication and working together.

- The hard part is when we come in and one is just on one side of the fence and one is on the other and not willing to budge for anything.

And that's when we make zero progress.

- [Lauren] As a county commissioner, she'll continue working to balance community concern with opportunity.

- The main key is to be very transparent in everything we're looking at and everything we're trying to do and making that connection with our citizens.

You can't please everyone, but you can do the best that you can.

- Badback will continue to advocate for tribal voices and the future of her community.

- Yes, I want this community to be safe because, you know, this is home.

(singer vocalizing) (drum beating) - [Lauren] In a place where the history and people will always be most important to her.

(people chanting) - Just keep fighting no matter what, I mean, it gets hard, but we still gotta stand for what we think it's right for our community.

(people chanting) (birds chirping) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (triumphant music)