“We’re selling fake things for real money,” says Ayngel Overson of her work hawking Second Life avatars online to make ends meet. It’s one of a number of money-making efforts she and her husband Ed pursue while waiting for the influx of jobs from the Piñon Ridge uranium mill that Energy Fuels plans to build in Paradox Valley, Colorado. Suzan Beraza’s documentary about the fight over the mill attests to the power of ideas—even, or especially, fake ones—to color people’s views of reality and influence their behavior.
The film takes its title from the drive-in theater popular in the area during the heyday of the Cold War uranium industry, which lasted until the 1984 Chernobyl disaster drove prices down. The now-defunct Uranium Drive-in stands for the area’s mythic past, when, according to older residents, jobs were plentiful, children whiled away the summer days swimming, and the town held communal cookouts and played baseball after the men returned from the mines. Beraza documents the contours and stubborn endurance of this myth, as well as the evidence—provided by the very same people who hold on to the myth—of its tenuous connection to reality.
In opposition to Naturita and Nucla, the communities that will benefit from the 1,200 jobs the new mill promises, is the Sheep Mountain Alliance, headquartered in nearby resort town Telluride. The Alliance is fighting the mill on the grounds that it’s an inappropriate business for an agricultural region. They also fear contamination of the soil and water table, and destruction of the landscape.
There are opponents among the residents, too. One participant in a public forum fears the mill will leave a “toxic footprint for thousands of years”. Workers became sick from exposure to radioactive material and residents drank contaminated well water for years. A man who lost his legs and suffered disfiguring damage to his skin when a tube exploded on site, covering him in uranium that turned him the color of a school bus, concludes: “I wish this place was never here. To me, it’s not worth the gamble.”
They seem to be outnumbered by proponents: Ayngel and Ed, and Howard Greager, who despite suffering from pulmonary fibrosis due to exposure to radiation, claims that because current regulations are so stringent, mining and milling uranium is much safer than it was. It’s a common refrain in the film. One man is so keen on the promise of the mill that while picking fruit to sell from his tomato garden he complains that he’d rather be “underground.”
Do proponents of the mine really believe the mill will usher in a golden age? Not likely. For them, the need for employment outweighs the risks. Old-timers admit the town was “cliquey” back then: divided by class into bosses, mill workers, and miners. Water was polluted by tailings the old mill used to dump directly into the local river. Inhabitants of the mill town of Uravan were evacuated and the town leveled. Abating the contamination took 20 years and now all that remains is a plaque on the fence that marks the flat expanse where the town stood. To this day, this area is still off limits. “I don’t think many people lose their home town,” says a former Uravan resident.
Beraza doesn’t choose sides and doesn’t preach. She lets the residents, activists, and industry representatives tell their stories, and leaves it up to the viewer to judge.
In an attempt to find common ground, Ayngel pays a visit to the Sheep Mountain Alliance office. When the conversation turns to how badly Naturita and Nucla need the jobs the mine will provide, the Sheep Mountain’s campaign coordinator Jennifer Thurston tells her, “Don’t sell yourselves short as a community for an industry that’s never treated you right.” It’s good advice. But you can’t blame Ed when he says “It’s worth the risk for us.” “We gotta eat,” Ayngel adds.
When the Uranium Drive-in sign — but not the theater itself — is restored, it’s a hollow celebration. “We’re still a town and we’re still trying to survive,” is all one resident can say. With the mill further delayed by legal action, the film closes with the fate of Naturita and Nucla still undecided.
DVD extras comprise brief excerpts of interviews with residents. It’s unclear why Beraza didn’t include them in the film, as short as it is at 70 minutes.