Reclamation and Remediation of the Tailings at Moab, Utah Mining Site

Our thanks to Karen and to Jack Dunavant for bringing the information below to our attention. It's a term paper on a tailings pile at a uranium mining site at Moab, Utah written by a student at Brigham Young University's Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology.

The .pdf file is 15 pages long but the type is large and well-spaced with graphs and pictures. It's not a tedious read...in fact, it's quite interesting. Even if you skip the parts that you don't quite understand, you'll come away from it with a better understanding of tailings and government intervention than you had before.

Jack states that it's a "short and concise study" with "more meat in it than I've seen to date". Karen adds that it "gives an overview of the issues surrounding a tailings pile" and cautions readers to take special note of "how long it takes [government entities] to reach decisions to mitigate environmental damages.

If you need an Adobe Reader in order to access the file, you can download one here:

http://www.tucows.com/preview/194959

This is the link to the term paper. I promise that you'll be amazed at some of its findings. Here's a little taste from the conclusion:

The site is a time bomb waiting to explode. An earthquake could cause to pond to
fail and dump its contents into the Colorado River. The Fish and Wildlife Service has
determined that the tailings present a threat to four endangered species of fish. Groundwater is currently being contaminated by the site, and the future does not present any hope of this changing. Assuming the cap did work, it would still take a minimum of 60 years to see any change in concentrations of hazardous materials in the leachate.

http://www.et. byu.edu/groups/ ce540/syllabus/ termpaper/ 1997-F/garner. pdf