     The owner of the proposed Dewey Burdock in-situ recovery uranium mine north of Edgemont, is holding two community open houses and dinners.
The first is tonight at the Edgemont Senior Center with the second tomorrow night in Hot Springs at the Mueller Center. Both run from 5-7:00.
EnCore Energy got the Dewey Burdock project in January when it acquired all the outstanding shares of Azarga Uranium, which had taken over the original developer Powertech. The Azarga deal also brought existing in-situ uranium mines in Wyoming and New Mexico to enCore, which wants to be the larges in-situ producer in the U-S.
Opponents of the Dewey Burdock project conducted a petition drive this year to put on the November ballot in Fall River County a measure banning uranium mining in the county as a nuisance.
Their advertising campaign has made several allegations that enCore says are wrong or misleading, and that the company is expected to address at the open houses tonight and tomorrow night.
The in-situ recovery mining method, used at the Crow Butte Mine east of Crawford since the late 1980s, injects a water-based solution similar to bicarbonate of soda into the aquifer, where it dissolves the uranium so it can be pumped back to the surface with the water to process out the uranium and recycle the water.
The Dewey Burdock project began the permit process in 2008 with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approving permits in 2014 and the EPA in 2020. A federal appeals court last month denied the latest challenge to the NRC approval.
The project still needs approval by the South Dakota Dept of Energy and Natural Resources. Agency staff recommended the approval of the key state permits in 2013, but the process was tabled until challenges to the federal permits were decided.