Plans for Mary Ann: At the Mary Ann site, Disa Tech plans to process approximately 1,656 cubic meters of AUM waste, with about 1,839 tons of fines concentrates (material containing the concentrated uranium and thorium) resulting from HPSA processing. The company also plans to establish a radiologically restricted area that will include the HPSA treatment equipment, a fines concentrates storage area, the Mary Ann AUM waste pile, and a crushed rock stockpile.
Disa Tech describes its HPSA technology as “a patented, modular mineral liberation platform that uses high-velocity slurry collisions to selectively separate target minerals from host material.”
Before the HPSA equipment is used, a rock crusher will pre-crush all or part of the rock pile. As noted in the NRC’s EA/FONSI, Disa plans to install air monitoring equipment, use water as a dust suppressant, and construct secondary containment structures to ensure that any spilled water is contained within the restricted area. The HPSA process itself will require the use of 5,000 gallons of water per day, as well as about 276 kilograms of an anionic, polyacrylamide flocculant.
The fines concentrates will be stored temporarily in the restricted area. The company expects that one truckload of fines concentrates containers will be transported off-site every day to a permitted facility, such as Disa’s planned storage facility in Naturita, Colo.
Disa Uranium: To carry out its HPSA work and to “recover and produce domestic uranium and remediate the nation’s legacy uranium sites,” Disa Tech has launched subsidiary Disa Uranium Corp., headquartered in Casper, Wyo. The new company has acquired IsoEnergy’s portfolio of permitted, past-producing uranium mines and projects in Utah.
Disa Uranium CEO Greyson Buckingham stressed the company’s goal of rebuilding a secure domestic fuel supply. “It starts with our first priority: cleaning up the thousands of abandoned uranium mine sites across the West that no one else has been positioned to address, and recovering the uranium and vanadium held in that waste,” he said.
