FREDONIA, Ariz. After a 15 year hiatus, uranium mining is set to resume in northern Arizona.

Denison Mines of Canada, the owner of the nearest uranium processing mill in southern Utah, announced plans to reopen a uranium mine southwest of Fredonia on the Arizona Strip.

The Bureau of Land Management says the number of uranium claims on the Strip has doubled over the past two years, increasing to about four-thousand.

But no mines have opened yet.

Meanwhile, another company has plans to conduct exploratory uranium drilling in the Kaibab (KEYE’-bab) National Forest south of the Grand Canyon.

Uranium prices are up from a low of about seven dollars a pound in 1990 to 95 dollars per pound last week.

KOLD