Boom-and-bust cycles aren’t new to the West. Prospectors, miners, speculators and dreamers have headed into the mountains and mineral zones in the past to make their fortunes.

Now, uranium is on the rebound and tattered mineral maps are getting hauled out of storage, old mines are being re-opened and new claims being staked along the yellow ore deposits that run through the sandstone from Utah down to New Mexico.

This isn’t the first time these seams have been un-earthed. The uranium mining and milling industry operated for more than 30 years fueling the development of atomic weapons during the Cold War. Plus, uranium is the vital element in nuclear fuel (processed uranium is turned into yellowcake which is used as source fuel for nuclear reactors.) But the demand for uranium plummeted as the Cold War wound down and the public turned against nuclear energy after the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Interest in nuclear power is accelerating now as nations look for alternatives to high carbon-emitting coal and oil-based energy. While new nuclear plants are on the drawing board, the uranium inventory required to feed them has been depleted over the past decades. That high demand-low supply condition has propelled the price of uranium from near $7 per pound in 2001 to well above $100 per pound now. Miners, millers and moneymakers are heading into the hills to extract ore to fuel the next round of nuclear facilities and processors are following suit. Uranium Resources, Inc. plans to open the old Ambrosia Lake uranium mill in New Mexico.

Slideshow: Uranium Mining

But many Westerners are wary of a new round of uranium mining: they say they’re still suffering the effects of the previous ore rush. “We’re just beginning to understand what it means to live in a contaminated area” says Chris Shuey, who heads up the Uranium Impact Assessment Program at the Southwest Research and Information Center. “We’re finding that environmental exposure, such as living within a mile of a (uranium) mine waste dump, or having spent time as a kid or adult going through mining sites or eating animals that may have been exposed to mine waste…are statistically significantly associated with excess kidney disease in these communities.”

Navajo rancher Teddy Nez lives next to a pile of uranium tailings. He’s been exposed to dust and run-off from the pile for decades. “The contamination’s not only here, but it’s all over.”

The revival of the uranium industry in the West holds the promise of royalty payments and new jobs, but opponents say there’s still a job to do cleaning up the last uranium boom.