U.S. Water News Online
SALT LAKE CITY -- More than 12 million tons of radioactive waste will be moved away from the Colorado River, which provides drinking water for more than 25 million people across the West.
The Department of Energy said the radioactive tailings about 750 feet from the river near Moab in southeastern Utah will be moved, predominantly by rail, to a proposed holding site at Crescent Junction, Utah, about 30 miles from the Colorado River.
"The only way we can look at this is good news," said Energy Department spokesman Mike Waldron. "We have identified a solution that will help to ensure the environmental quality of the region for generations to come."
The department's decision was announced in the final environmental impact statement for the tailings site. It will become final after being published in the Federal Register.
The 94-foot-tall waste pile came from Moab's rich uranium deposits, which were mined in the 1950s for nuclear bombs. The Uranium Reduction Co. sold its mill in 1962 to Atlas Corp., which ran it sporadically until declaring bankruptcy in 1998. The Energy Department took over the site in 2001.
"Taking all the facts into account, we believe the recommendations issued today provide the best solution to cleaning up Moab and protecting the river," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a prepared statement. "The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the Southwest."
The Energy Department "made the right decision to move this pile to a safe location," said U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
The tailings are now mostly stored in the open air on bare ground, surrounded only by a chain-link fence.
At the storage facility in Crescent Junction, the waste would be covered and buried in a hole, lined with a protective layer to keep the material from seeping into the groundwater. Cleanup and moving the pile has been estimated to cost more than $300 million.
The waste began piling up in the 1950s after the dawn of the Atomic Age turned sleepy communities in Utah into uranium mining boom towns. The department took control of the site in 2001 after the most recent owner of the mill, Denver-based Atlas Corp., declared bankruptcy in 1998.
In November, the Energy Department outlined four options for the site. Three of them called for moving the waste and burying it anywhere from 17 to 85 miles away in a hole. Option No. 4, which would have cost only half as much, called for leaving the pile in place but covering it over with dirt and rocks.
Critics of moving the waste argued that it has been there for decades with little effect. They contended the area is rich in uranium, leading to natural erosion and leaching of radioactive materials into the water, to which the waste added little.
But Gov. Jon Huntsman, Utah's congressional delegation, scores of activists and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned that waste is too dangerous to leave it so close to the Colorado River.
The EPA in March told energy officials it would be "environmentally unsatisfactory" to leave the waste near the river.
And Bodman assured Huntsman during a private meeting last month the radioactive tailings pile on the Colorado River near Moab would be moved.
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