Spelled "Kerrmac" in Hillerman's 1980 novel THE PEOPLE OF DARKNESS, the Kermac Nuclear Fuels Corporation, was one of several national mining companies that invested in uranium extraction and processing in New Mexico between the 1950s and the 1990s. A partner company of Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc., Anderson Development Corp., and Pacific Uranium Mines Co., Kermac was a major employer in the Grants mineral belt in west-central New Mexico. Its large mill at Ambrosia Lake started operating in 1958. In 1983 uranium mining stopped, but uranium was still produced from water in underground existing mines. The mill closed down in 2002.
"Navajo uranium miners operating a mucking machine, 1953," photograph by Ralph Leubben. Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.
EPA Online
2014 Grants Mining District. http://www.epa.gov/region6/6sf/newmexico/grants/nm_grants_index.html, accessed February 28, 2015
McLemore, Virginia
2007 Uranium Resources in New mexico. New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM. Http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/mclemore/documents/07-111_18.pdf, accessed February 18, 2015.