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Work to remove 16 million tons of radioactive waste away from the tourist town of Moab is about to go a little faster. The U.S. Department of Energy says it plans to double the amount of uranium tailings removed each day from the shores of the Colorado River. Right now, rail cars take about 2,800 tons of tailings a day to a dump site 30 miles away, where they're placed in specially designed cells. The DOE says a second train will be added in mid-August.

Work to remove 16 million tons of radioactive waste away from the tourist town of Moab is about to go a little faster. The U.S. Department of Energy says it plans to double the amount of uranium tailings removed each day from the shores of the Colorado River. Right now, rail cars take about 2,800 tons of tailings a day to a dump site 30 miles away, where they're placed in specially designed cells. The DOE says a second train will be added in mid-August.

Work to remove 16 million tons of radioactive waste away from the tourist town of Moab is about to go a little faster. The U.S. Department of Energy says it plans to double the amount of uranium tailings removed each day from the shores of the Colorado River. Right now, rail cars take about 2,800 tons of tailings a day to a dump site 30 miles away, where they're placed in specially designed cells. The DOE says a second train will be added in mid-August.

The first trainload of radioactive uranium tailings has been taken from a dump site near Moab and moved to a disposal cell 30 miles away. Cleanup of the 16 million-ton tailings pile was accelerated with a $108 million infusion from the Obama administration's economic-stimulus package last month. The tailings, from the now-defunct Atlas uranium mill, have posed a threat of leaching radioactive waste into the Colorado River, prompting urgent requests for removal by Utah's congressional delegation. An announcement Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Energy said the first trainload of tailings departed from the 439-acre site Monday for Crescent Junction. The tailings cover about 139 acres.

A truck carrying uranium mill tailings from a Moab cleanup project headed by EnergySolutions tipped over and spilled some of the radioactive dirt last Wednesday. The multimillion-dollar cleanup project directed at properly disposing of the 16 million tons of uranium tailings was suspended until Tuesday for a safety evaluation, EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said. "Safety is always our first priority," Walker said. "It's a self-imposed shutdown." EnergySolutions, which was awarded the project nearly 18 months ago to haul the tailings 30 miles north of Moab, had been carting dirt up a haul road at the site Wednesday evening when the driver came too close to the shoulder and the truck tipped over, Walker said.

A truck carrying uranium mill tailings from a Moab cleanup project headed by EnergySolutions tipped over and spilled some of the radioactive dirt last Wednesday. The multimillion-dollar cleanup project directed at properly disposing of the 16 million tons of uranium tailings was suspended until Tuesday for a safety evaluation, EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said. "Safety is always our first priority," Walker said. "It's a self-imposed shutdown." EnergySolutions, which was awarded the project nearly 18 months ago to haul the tailings 30 miles north of Moab, had been carting dirt up a haul road at the site Wednesday evening when the driver came too close to the shoulder and the truck tipped over, Walker said.

Crews have taken the first bites out of the old uranium mill-tailings pile in Moab, Utah, beginning a yearslong process of transferring it far from the Colorado River. Abut 630,000 tons will have been moved from Moab to the disposal cell near Crescent Junction by year's end, said Wendee Ryan of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Energy Department and its contractor, Energy Solutions Corp., began moving the tailings pile this year. Moab residents and downstream water providers lobbied for years to have the 16-million-ton pile of mill tailings moved from its spot along the north bank of the Colorado River to a cell up against the Bookcliff Mountains at Crescent Junction that is deemed less likely to contaminate the river. The pile is being moved by train from Moab to the disposal cell 30 miles north.

Crews have taken the first bites out of the old uranium mill-tailings pile in Moab, Utah, beginning a yearslong process of transferring it far from the Colorado River. Abut 630,000 tons will have been moved from Moab to the disposal cell near Crescent Junction by year's end, said Wendee Ryan of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Energy Department and its contractor, Energy Solutions Corp., began moving the tailings pile this year. Moab residents and downstream water providers lobbied for years to have the 16-million-ton pile of mill tailings moved from its spot along the north bank of the Colorado River to a cell up against the Bookcliff Mountains at Crescent Junction that is deemed less likely to contaminate the river. The pile is being moved by train from Moab to the disposal cell 30 miles north.

About 16 million tons of mill tailings abutting the Colorado River near Moab will be moved by rail to a permanent disposal site, the Department of Energy said Tuesday, reaffirming a decision not to ship the contaminated uranium mill tailings by truck along rural roads. "After evaluating the alternatives for safely transporting the mill tailings from Moab and considering input received from citizens in the Moab community and surrounding areas, [the Department of Energy] has decided to ship the tailings using the existing Union Pacific Railroad track," Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management James A. Rispoli said in a news release. "We believe our decision will be most protective of the community over the long term."

EnergySolutions, Inc. (NYSE: ES) announced today that $22.9 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding has been allocated to the Moab UMTRA project. The total amount of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the Moab project is $108 million. The funding is being used to accelerate removal of uranium mill tailings away from the banks of the Colorado River. Thus far 160 jobs have been created this year as a result of Recovery Act funding. "We are thrilled that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated sufficient funding to the Moab project to accelerate the cleanup of the site. This is great news for the community and for all who use the Colorado River and Lake Powell," said Steve Creamer, CEO and Chairman of EnergySolutions. The Recovery Act funding is being used to excavate, transport and dispose of additional mill tailings from the Moab site to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission-approved disposal cell at Crescent Junction. This additional work began in June and will continue through September 2011. Additionally, this additional funding supports increasing the size of the disposal cell as well as crushing, transporting, and placing final rock cover on the disposal cell. This portion of the work began in August and continues through September 2011. Sixteen million tons of uranium mill tailings will eventually be relocated 30 miles north of Moab to a location designated by the DOE.

EnergySolutions, Inc. (NYSE: ES) announced today that $22.9 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding has been allocated to the Moab UMTRA project. The total amount of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the Moab project is $108 million. The funding is being used to accelerate removal of uranium mill tailings away from the banks of the Colorado River. Thus far 160 jobs have been created this year as a result of Recovery Act funding. "We are thrilled that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated sufficient funding to the Moab project to accelerate the cleanup of the site. This is great news for the community and for all who use the Colorado River and Lake Powell," said Steve Creamer, CEO and Chairman of EnergySolutions. The Recovery Act funding is being used to excavate, transport and dispose of additional mill tailings from the Moab site to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission-approved disposal cell at Crescent Junction. This additional work began in June and will continue through September 2011. Additionally, this additional funding supports increasing the size of the disposal cell as well as crushing, transporting, and placing final rock cover on the disposal cell. This portion of the work began in August and continues through September 2011. Sixteen million tons of uranium mill tailings will eventually be relocated 30 miles north of Moab to a location designated by the DOE.

MOAB, Utah - Although millions of tons of Uranium tailings have been removed, some citizens of Moab are concerned that the remaining tailings may contaminate the nearby Colorado river. The river runs through town and a potential contaminatino could jeapordize drinking water. Energy Solutions were contracted to remove the mounds of tailings in 2007. "Were were moving it is to an environmentally stable location, 30 miles north of the town of Moab to a stable environment where that material can sit for thousands of years," says Energy Solutions' Project Manager, Larry Brede.

Whose responsibility is it to notify prospective homebuyers when there is radioactive uranium mill tailings on a property? Erin Toll, director of Colorado's Division of Real Estate, said it's the responsibility of real estate agents. The Division of Real Estate is the licensing, regulation and enforcement agency for the real estate industry in Colorado. Mill tailings are "absolutely an adverse material fact that brokers would be required to disclose if they knew about it," Toll said. And if they don't know they should, Toll said. "Most brokers are aware of environmental impacts of the region they serve, even without the training," that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is currently conducting, Toll said.

Whose responsibility is it to notify prospective homebuyers when there is radioactive uranium mill tailings on a property? Erin Toll, director of Colorado's Division of Real Estate, said it's the responsibility of real estate agents. The Division of Real Estate is the licensing, regulation and enforcement agency for the real estate industry in Colorado. Mill tailings are "absolutely an adverse material fact that brokers would be required to disclose if they knew about it," Toll said. And if they don't know they should, Toll said. "Most brokers are aware of environmental impacts of the region they serve, even without the training," that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is currently conducting, Toll said.

"The city of Grand Junction and private property owners are not held to the same regulations regarding the removal of uranium mill tailings uncovered during construction projects. FCI Constructors Inc. is dealing with radioactive waste as they dig up Main Street for the Downtown Uplift restoration project. The sand-like mill tailings were widely used in the Grand Valley during the 1950s and 1960s as fill dirt until federal officials halted the practice, citing health risks from exposure to gamma radiation and radon gas. FCI employees have hauled nearly 500 cubic yards of tailings to the temporary storage facility at the city yard along West Avenue, where the material awaits permanent disposal at the Cheney disposal cell, south of Grand Junction. "

"A June update by the U.S. Department of Energy said that 1.5 million tons of uranium mill tailings have been removed from near the banks of the Colorado River and buried in a disposal site 30 miles away. Federal stimulus funding of $108 million has accelerated the cleanup, which will tackle an additional 1.2 million tons of tailings between now and September 2011."

Plans to clean up the Atlas tailings pile outside Moab are the subject of a meeting planned Thursday by the U.S. Energy Department. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at Moab's Grand Center, 182 N. 500 West. The public will be updated about what is being done to begin hauling the 16 million tons of tailings and other uranium-ore-processing waste from the banks of the Colorado north of Moab to a newly constructed disposal site 32 miles north at Crescent Junction. - Judy Fahys Advertisement Return to Top

nergySolutions and Union Pacific Railroad struck an agreement Monday for rail services and upgrades to an existing line that will support moving about 16 million tons of uranium-mill tailings over the next 20 years away from their current location near the Colorado River and Moab. The Department of Energy announced Tuesday that the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to ready a rail line between the tailings pile and the new 250-acre disposal site at Crescent Junction 30 miles away in time to start moving the waste next spring.

The leader of the Navajo Nation marked the 30th anniversary of a massive uranium tailings spill by reaffirming the tribe's ban on future uranium mining. Speaking in Navajo and English, President Joe Shirley Jr. addressed about 100 people who made a seven-mile walk to the site of the July 16, 1979 spill and to the land of Navajo ranchers who live near another contaminated site. What Shirley called "the largest peacetime accidental release of radioactive contaminated materials in the history of the United States" occurred when 94 million gallons of acidic water poured into the north fork of the Rio Puerco after an earthen uranium tailings dam failed. Within days, contaminated tailings liquid was found 50 miles downstream in Arizona.

More than half a century ago, an unemployed geologist stumbled across the country's largest deposit of high-grade uranium in southeastern Utah. The result of that discovery fueled a thriving industry for Moab at the time, but left a legacy of 16 million tons of uranium tailings that currently threaten the Colorado River. Today is a celebratory landmark in the cleanup process at the former Atlas mill site, where 22 rail cars hauling 88 containers of the waste will head 30 miles north to Crescent Junction to a disposal site. The site is 1700 feet longs, 1800 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. Trucks carrying the material dump it into the disposal site, where a front end loader make several passes to pack the bright red dirt, which is full of tailings.

The Energy Department's Carlsbad Field Office has reached an agreement to sell salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., to a Hereford company that will use it as a livestock feed supplement. In 2008, Washington TRU Solutions issued a request for interest in salt tailings that have accumulated on the surface at the WIPP site since mining began in the 1970s. Through the years, uncontaminated salt has been mined from the WIPP Plant, which stores radioactive waste in rooms mined from ancient salt formations 2,150 feet below the surface, according to information from the Department of Energy. WIPP, which began waste-disposal operations in 1999, is 26 miles outside Carlsbad. Hereford-based Magnum Minerals, which is owned and operated by Tim and Keith Ann Gearn and sons Jason and Dustin Gearn, specializes in providing minerals for the livestock industry. DOE officials said the project will save taxpayers money and benefit private industry. The salt tailings normally would be disposed of in a landfill. Magnum Minerals will pay the government about $600,00 for the contract, which could have cost the government $4.5 million in disposal costs, said Tim Gearn, president of Magnum Minerals.

The Energy Department's Carlsbad Field Office has reached an agreement to sell salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., to a Hereford company that will use it as a livestock feed supplement. In 2008, Washington TRU Solutions issued a request for interest in salt tailings that have accumulated on the surface at the WIPP site since mining began in the 1970s. Through the years, uncontaminated salt has been mined from the WIPP Plant, which stores radioactive waste in rooms mined from ancient salt formations 2,150 feet below the surface, according to information from the Department of Energy. WIPP, which began waste-disposal operations in 1999, is 26 miles outside Carlsbad. Hereford-based Magnum Minerals, which is owned and operated by Tim and Keith Ann Gearn and sons Jason and Dustin Gearn, specializes in providing minerals for the livestock industry. DOE officials said the project will save taxpayers money and benefit private industry. The salt tailings normally would be disposed of in a landfill. Magnum Minerals will pay the government about $600,00 for the contract, which could have cost the government $4.5 million in disposal costs, said Tim Gearn, president of Magnum Minerals.

"Establishment of the U.S. Department of Energy as the Long-Term Custodian of the Maybell West Uranium Mill Tailings Site in Moffatt County, CO. and Notice of Termination of the Umetco Minerals Corporation Colorado Radioactive Materials License Number 660-01 for the Maybell West Site AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of establishment of the U.S. Department of Energy as the long-term custodian of the Maybell West uranium mill tailings site in Moffatt County, Colorado, under the general license provisions of 10 CFR 40.28, and [[Page 18552]] termination of the Umetco Minerals Corporation Colorado Radioactive Materials License Number 660-01 for the Maybell West site. "

"For nearly 20 years, Monticello was a Uranium boomtown. It started in I941 when the government opened a Uranium Mill in town to feed the Manhattan Project. The Vanadium Corporation of America mill produced the "yellowcake" that Robert Oppenheimer and his team would use to create the first atomic bombs. The mill paid good wages and the workers felt patriotic. Fritz Pipkin remembers his dad working in the mill. "I feel like my father was a hero," he said. "It was no different than the soldiers in Germany or Japan. They gave their lives to create this product that was used for the Manhattan project and the bombs that ended the war." Pipkin also remembers playing in the piles of radioactive tailings at the mill. "As kids we'd go on down the canyon right here and we'd camp out and drink from the water that came through the tailings ponds. Nobody knew of any danger. It's a wonder kids in Monticello don't glow in the dark from all the hours we spent down here on these tailings piles.""

The Commonwealth supervising scientist of the Ranger uranium mine at Kakadu National Park says investigations are continuing into water contamination at the site. Alan Hughes has told a Senate estimates committee that Energy Resources of Australia has conducted geophysical surveys to determine the impact and extent of leaking from a tailings dam at the mine. Mr Hughes says the company has only preliminary results from the surveys and is not sure if ERA will make the findings public. "I understand that they are having significant discussions with the traditional owners and the Northern Land Council about tailings and seepage issues on an ongoing basis," he said.

The Commonwealth supervising scientist of the Ranger uranium mine at Kakadu National Park says investigations are continuing into water contamination at the site. Alan Hughes has told a Senate estimates committee that Energy Resources of Australia has conducted geophysical surveys to determine the impact and extent of leaking from a tailings dam at the mine. Mr Hughes says the company has only preliminary results from the surveys and is not sure if ERA will make the findings public. "I understand that they are having significant discussions with the traditional owners and the Northern Land Council about tailings and seepage issues on an ongoing basis," he said.

"An evaporation pond and land farm adjacent to the uranium mill tailings disposal site south of Whitewater won preliminary approval Tuesday from the Mesa County Commission. The commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the proposed 160-acre Indian Mesa solid-waste disposal facility that commissioners said was in a nearly perfect location. Residents of Bean Ranch Road, about two miles away, begged to differ. "I am concerned that Whitewater is being perceived as a dumping ground," Bean Ranch Road resident Doris Janowski said, citing the proximity of the Mesa County Landfill, a mill-tailings site, Mesa State College's body farm and the Indian Mesa solid-waste disposal facility. "As a landowner, I don't think that bodes well for me.""

Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) reaffirmed its prior decision to relocate the uranium mill tailings predominantly by rail from Moab, Utah. The tailings will be trained from the banks of the Colorado River 30 miles north to Crescent Junction, Utah. DOE may still consider using truck transport under certain circumstances, but it won't be the primary mode of transportation for the contaminated pile.