Testing begins at Moab uranium-waste pile

Comment: move tailings from one place and put it in another hole, think this will protect the environment!

Trains begin hauling the tailings next month.

By Judy Fahys

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 04/21/2009 06:12:49 PM MDT

The U.S. Energy Department began late Monday to test its system for hauling the Atlas uranium mill debris from Moab to a permanent disposal site.

"They're moving some dirt, so that's good," said Moab Mayor Dave Sakrison. "We're happy."

Full-scale removal isn't expected to begin until May 4, around the time of an inauguration celebration that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is expected to attend.

It's also when shipments of 88-railcars officially begin transporting the tailings about 32 miles to Crescent Junction four nights a week for at least a decade.

The tailings, leftovers from more than a decade of uranium-ore processing, are heaped on 130 acres in the flood plain of the Colorado River. The Energy Department estimates it will spend about $1 billion to protect more than 30 million downstream users from contaminants that include ammonia and uranium.

"These first mill tailings shipments," said DOE project director Donald Metzler, " ... will be used as an additional operational check to ensure all equipment and processes are working in a manner that protects the environment and emphasizes our focus on worker safety."

EnergySolutions Inc., the lead contractor for the project, has built a 25-foot deep, 40-acre disposal cell at Crescent Junction, 32 miles north of the current site. It also has constructed a haul road to the rail loading area, lowered the rail bench to attain a safe grade, improved drainage and erosion control systems and built an area where loaded shipping containers can have lids put on.

This summer shipments will increase to seven days a week, thanks to a $108 million infusion of Obama administration stimulus money.

Sakrison's city pushed to have the Energy Department take over the tailings pile from a bankruptcy trustee, then dogged the federal government to remove the tailings from the river's edge.

Over the years, Moab residents have seen the swift river cut into the pile and have gulped the fine dust blowing off the pile, so the beginning of the removal is welcomed news to them. (is this our future, if they do not ban uranium mining!)

"It's been a long, hard-fought battle," said Sakrison. "We've got a lot of people to thank."

fahys@sltrib.com

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