By Amy Joi O'Donoghue
Deseret News
Published: Monday, May 4, 2009 4:53 p.m. MDT
MOAB — Against the backdrop of the Colorado River and amid much fanfare, a celebration of the removal of the Moab tailings "pile" got under way Monday, featuring remarks by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
Huntsman told a crowd of federal, state and local representatives, as well as contractors involved with the project, that the removal of the tailings represents the combination of years of hard work and cooperative efforts by a variety of people.
"The people of Moab and Grand County so cared about this issue that they made it their priority," he said.
Stressing that the removal of the tailings is not a matter of pride, but a matter of environmental necessity, the governor said this day happened because of people in the area "going nuclear on this issue — because that is what it took to make the wheels of government move."
Monday's event also included remarks from U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., who was one of the instrumental congressional players behind getting the tailings cleaned up.
"It is a new day," Napolitano said, reflecting that she had stood at that same site eight years ago, when clean-up efforts first began. She became involved in the issue, despite it being outside her state, because the Colorado River is important to the entire West.
"We drink your water. It's that simple," she said.
The official start of the tailings removal — rail cars hauling the waste to Crescent Junction 30 miles to the north actually began operations two weeks ago, to make sure everything would work as planned — capped a legacy carved more than a half century ago, when an unemployed geologist stumbled across the country's largest deposit of high-grade uranium. That led to a uranium-mining boom, which would fuel the local economy until the 1980s, when prices fell and overseas ore became cheaper to harvest.
The uranium mine has since gone bankrupt, but the remnants remain, and with it, the hazards posed by 16 million tons of mining waste that threaten the Colorado River.
Remediation of the site landed in the hands of the Department of Energy, and cleanup has been contracted to Utah-based EnergySolutions.
The celebration was a time to mark one more step in the process to try to return the 439-acre site to some semblance of is former pristine self.
"It's huge," said Donald Metzler, project manager with the Department of Energy, prior to the ceremony. "There's been a lot of interest, a lot of pressure, to get this done."
It has taken decades of environmental review, litigation, finger-pointing and congressional intervention to get to this point.
"It is a long time coming," said Loren Morton, an environmental manager with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Morton has spent the better part of the last 10 years entrenched in all that goes along with a project of this magnitude, with millions spent already and millions left to spend.
It was just this year that a $108 million infusion of federal stimulus money was directed to accelerate cleanup of the site on the west bank of the Colorado River.
About 130 acres of the site is covered with the uranium-tailings pile, which at one point was destined to remain put — until flooding and worries about potential contamination of the river changed the government's mind.
Four years ago, Huntsman was joined by other governors from Western states in his firm call to the Department of Energy that the tailings be moved. Otherwise, the drinking water of more than 25 million people would be threatened.
Today, that call is answered.
E-MAIL: amyjoi@desnews.com
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