LM Uranium Mine Projects Keep People and Wildlife Safe

In fall 2022, the Defense-Related Uranium Mines (DRUM) Program and their strategic partners safeguarded 80 abandoned uranium mine features in eastern Utah.

From mid-November to mid-December, Office of Legacy Management (LM) DRUM partners, Utah Abandoned Mine Lands Reclamation Program (AMRP) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Moab Field Office, closed hazardous openings at the mines to protect the public. The mines pose a safety risk to people, but can be ideal habitat for bats.

DRUM team member Mary Young said biological surveys were performed to determine whether bats were using the mines or if they would provide suitable habitat. Wherever biologists found evidence of bats, grates were installed at the adits that keep people out but allow bats to come and go freely, Young said.

“If it’s an opening that doesn’t provide any significant habitat for bats, that’s when they’ll close them off completely,” she said.

Young was with the team members while they sealed mine openings in the lower Kane Creek area near Moab. Staff from the BLM and Utah AMRP accompanied Young.

Young took photos of the work at 13 of the mines features in the Buster, Atomic King and Canary groups. The photos on the left side of the screen show the adits in their original state. The photos on the right show the same adits after DRUM teams completed their work.

DRUM is a partnership between DOE, federal land management agencies, state abandoned mine land programs, and tribal governments to inventory and safeguard uranium mines that provided ore for the nation’s nuclear weapons production complex.

Kane Creek Before/After Photos