Its time to rewrite the history books. In Situ Leach Mining (ISL), or Solution Mining, was not first commercially started in Bruni, Texas in 1973 by Westinghouse, a consortium of oil companies and others. The birthplace of ISL was never South Texas, as some have claimed. It was begun in Wyoming, about 16 years before an ISL operation was started in Texas. Why there has been a whitewash over the true history of ISL is not our concern. This series is an in-depth investigation into how and why ISL mining came about, how it has been tested over a period of nearly 50 years, and why this type of uranium mining will play an important role in providing U.S. utilities with the raw fuel to power nuclear reactors for the next few decades.
In this modern era of uranium mining, extremely skilled engineers, hydrologists and geologists establish ISL mining operations. Most insiders compare an ISL operation to a water treatment plant. Its really that simple to understand. However, as with every modern industrial operation, the roots of ISL mining came about in a less genteel or sophisticated manner. In 1958, Charles Don Snow, a uranium mining and exploration geologist employed by the...