Dec. 14--CRAWFORD, Neb. -- From a distance, Nebraska's only uranium mine looks a lot like a cemetery.

White barrels and black boxes cover the wellheads of the 5,000 wells that pump water 500 to 800 feet underground so that uranium can be dissolved and pumped back to the surface.

The well covers that dot the hillsides below historic Crow Butte give the appearance of widely spaced tombstones.

That's either unfortunate or prophetic, depending on which side of the debate you stand on the future of the mine -- and the nuclear power plants fueled by uranium.

Interest in nuclear power and uranium mining is rising as the nation looks for cleaner, cheaper forms of energy that can be produced domestically. The debate in western Nebraska plays out over the Crow Butte mine, which produces about 800,000 pounds of yellowcake uranium each year.

Crow Butte is currently on course to greatly expand near this town of 1,000 people and to renew its 10-year operating license -- proposals that local environmental groups oppose. The environmentalists fear that scarce local drinking water supplies are being contaminated.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing a proposed 2,100-acre expansion on a site north of Crawford called the North Trend.

The mine also has notified the NRC that it is looking at two more expansions in Nebraska: south of Fort Robinson State Park and east of Crawford.

The mine provides 66 jobs with an annual payroll of $3.6 million in a region where good-paying jobs are often hard to find.

Over the 17 years the mine has operated, most people who live here have grown accustomed to the "Caution . . . radioactive material" signs on roadside fence posts.

"It's a great thing for our economy. I don't know what we'd do without it," said Bev Witt of Crawford, a clerk at the town's grocery store.

Crow Butte officials say the mine operates safely and is constantly monitored to prevent any mixing of the water used in mining with surface or underground water used for livestock and humans.

"We're the greatest recyclers of water in the world," said Jim Stokey, general manager of the mine.

Crow Butte, one of about a dozen such uranium mines in the country, recirculates 9,000 gallons of water a minute from the deep aquifers in a process called in-situ leachate mining, Stokey said.

These aquifers, he said, are isolated from aquifers used for drinking water by 100 to 200 feet of impermeable materials.

Gary Homrighausen, a former rancher who's worked at the mine for 12 years, said he was skeptical of its safety before he took the job.