In New Jersey: A Uranium Boom Goes Bust

By Peter Stoler

Back in the '50s, it seemed as if everybody from clerks and college boys to teachers and truckers was off traipsing through the deserts of the Southwest and the forests of the northern Midwest, hoping to hear the staccato clicking of a brand-new Geiger counter. Homeowners all across America daydreamed of discovering uranium in their backyards and living on Easy Street forever. In New Jersey's Jefferson Township, a small (pop. 16,000) community nestled in green hills about an hour's drive from Manhattan, that old dream is a present reality. The rock beneath is veined with high-grade uranium ore that could be worth millions to those who own the land or win the rights to mine and process it. Which was precisely why, when some 500 residents jammed the high school auditorium on a sweltering night this summer, many of them wore brown and yellow buttons reading URANIUM--LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND. Many more agreed when Schoolteacher Henry Flynn said, "I can't think of anything that would be worse for this community than uranium mining. It would be a disaster."

The hills around Jefferson Township are honeycombed with old iron mines. Geologists have long known that some uranium must be there too, since it is often found in rock formations that yield iron. But the first hint that there might be enough to make mining worthwhile came only four years ago, when a retired contractor named Joseph Riggio received a letter from Pennzoil saying it had reason to believe there were "good amounts" of uranium on his property. Riggio reacted by getting in touch with Exxon, a Pennzoil rival. Exxon reacted by drilling some test holes on Riggio's land and two other tracts in the area. "The results," said J. Wiley Bragg, a spokesman for Exxon Co. U.S.A., "were not discouraging."

Soon Sohio and Chevron were also afield. Jersey City promptly gave permission to explore land the municipality had acquired for a potential water supply. The mayor of West Milford (pop. 23,000) declared that jobs created by mining would be good for his town, adding that he trusted the state's department of environmental protection to work out any ecological problems. The department in turn said that it was relying on the oil companies to prevent environmental damage. Declared Bragg: "We know that people are concerned with the environment. So are we." Twenty years ago, most citizens would have been satisfied with such statements. But, like other Americans, Jefferson Township inhabitants are now haunted by memories of things like the Santa Barbara Channel spill, charges of oil price manipulation and a deep suspicion of uranium itself, a substance once so devoutly sought after.

The oil firms' stance turned out to be anything but reassuring. "There are risks," Bragg admitted. But, he insisted, "they are manageable. If mining were carried out under the proper safeguards, the element of implication to John Q. Citizen outside the area would be measured in probable matters of days off one's life expectancy rather than months or years." Snapped a Jefferson Township resident: "I don't think that any oil company has a right to tell me that I can spare a few days off my life expectancy." Avidly, the audience listened as Princeton Researcher Peter Montague described his studies, beginning in 1970, of uranium mining in Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Public Health Service statistics, Montague says, show that underground uranium miners are four times more likely to get lung cancer than the average citizen.

Complicating things in Jefferson Township is the problem of water. For nearly ten years a number of residents have been unable to drink their water because it is contaminated by sewage. For the past two years an even larger group, some 550 families who get their water out of 83-acre Lake Shawnee, have been able to drink their tap water only after boiling it for ten minutes. The water is a bacterial bouillabaisse that contains coliform bacteria and chloroform. The affected families, who have formed an organization known as Jug Luggers because they often haul their own water, refer to the discolored lake water as "Jefferson Township crude."

Preliminary studies have shown there is plenty of water in the rock under the northern New Jersey hills, and lawsuits have been initiated to force town officials to tap it. But townsfolk fear this water could be contaminated if uranium mining, or even exploratory drilling, is permitted. Montague's researches confirm that mining and exploration can contaminate ground water for miles around, as it has in the mineral belt around Grants, N. Mex. Said Evelyn Witt, president of the Jefferson Township Jug Luggers, during the high school meeting: "We're not against progress. But we can live without uranium. Not without water."

The debate has raged for months. Neither the oil companies' case nor their credibility was much enhanced by a recent Sohio company field trip for residents. During the trip, a company officer kept saying that the uranium in the ground was so hazardous, the company would be doing the locals a real favor by taking it away. Many residents figured resistance was futile. As one put it, "In this country, whatever the oil companies want they get."

The view proved unnecessarily cynical. Feeling that the state was unlikely to act swiftly on behalf of Jefferson Township, the council finally passed a local ordinance forbidding uranium mining or processing within the township limits. For better or for worse, that seemed to settle the matter. At least for now: some New Jerseyites remain convinced that the prospectors may try again later, and intend to keep their protest arsenal at ready alert.

--By Peter Staler

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