New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants

Going Underground in the Mining Museum

It is an unexpected experience - this is set up exactly like a uranium mine and the miners were the consultants. There are stations along the way where an actual miner talks about the different aspects of the process of mining. Lights go on to highlight the verbally presented information.

Your mind may tell you that you're not in an underground mine, but all around me were warning signs and the detritus of mining operations. Although the focus seems to be on uranium, the process is probably similar for any type of ore that has to be wrested out of the ground.

Before heading below, sit in one of the comfortable chairs and watch the video on mining. It provides background that will be useful when you put that red buttons that activate the narrative.

Uranium Disasters

The only thing the museum doesn’t do is talk about uranium disasters. Thus, it becomes a fascinating, but one-sided view of nuclear power. And the handout of the discovery and production of uranium further supports the unspoken idea that it’s all about technology.

And that attitude probably explains why there is not a word about the Church Rock disaster – the uranium mill spill that occurred in New Mexico in 1979 when United Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock uranium mill tailings disposal pond breached its dam.

Over 1,000 tons of radioactive mill waste and millions of gallons of mine effluent flowed into the Puerco River. Local residents used river water for irrigation and livestock and were not immediately aware of the toxic danger. In terms of the amount of radiation released the accident was comparable in magnitude to the Three Mile Island accident of the same year and has been reported as the largest radioactive accident in U.S. History.(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Rock_uranium_mill_spill

Read more about the consequences of the Church Rock disaster, the no one talks about http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1963288/