A recent letter in the Deseret News from a Salt Lake City resident portrayed the restart of the Velvet-Wood uranium-vanadium mine in San Juan County as a dangerous, hastily approved project that threatens water, wildlife, livestock and the Navajo Aquifer. The author claims the Bureau of Land Management rubber-stamped the mine after a mere “11-day” review that ignored public input and science. Residents of southeastern Utah who actually live near the project know better.

The facts, drawn from Anfield Energy filings; Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM) records; BLM documents; and decades of site history, tell a very different story. The “11-day” or “14-day” permitting myth refers only to the final federal environmental assessment completed in May 2025. That short window was poss

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