GREELEY -- The city of Greeley joined a handful of other municipalities in making a statement against uranium mining.

The Greeley City Council voted Tuesday to pass a resolution opposing potential uranium mining operations near Nunn. The item was scheduled for the consent agenda but was pulled off for discussion. The council vote was 5-2 with Mayor Ed Clark and Councilman Chuck Archibeque dissenting. Assistant City Clerk Jerry Hubbard explained that Clark and Archibeque were concerned with the wording of the resolution.

"Generally, they both felt the resolution wasn't clear enough and that it might be too early," he said.

He added that the resolution is largely symbolic, as the Weld County Commissioners would consider any applications filed by Canada-based Powertech Uranium Corp. Powertech is hoping to extract about 9.7 million pounds of U3O8 over the next decade and is expected to file mining permits by the end of the year.

The company has presented plans to extract uranium on a 5,700-acre site a few miles west of Nunn and east of the Larimer County line. The southern tip of the site is estimated to be about six miles from Fort Collins.

A handful of citizen groups, the Larimer County and Colorado medical societies, the city of Fort Collins, the towns of Timnath and Wellington and a bipartisan group of area legislators have already expressed opposition to the proposed operations.