URANIUM'S DEADLY LEGACY
At the gateway of one of America's most popular and
ecologically fragile wilderness recreation areas
lies what some are calling a ticking time bomb. The
Colorado River's blue line of water winds around
Moab, Utah to Lake Mead, Arizona. It carries
drinking water to millions of people in southern
Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Southern California but,
according to Utah's Division of Radiation Control,
it also carries "radiological contaminants."
An abandoned Atlas Corporation
uranium mill near Moab, which left behind 10.5
million tons of uranium waste, or "tailings," is
slowly and steadily leaking toxins into the river.
Atlas began shutting down the mill (next door to the
Arches National Park and directly across the river
from an 875-acre wetlands preserve) in the 1980s,
and closed it completely in 1988. Two years later,
Atlas began pumping water out of the tailings pile
to prevent it from entering the river, but the
company has only slowed the rate of leakage.
"Groundwater monitoring wells on
the site reveal levels of uranium that exceed
water-quality standards by a factor of 800," says
Mark Peterson of the National Parks and Conservation
Association. "There is 6,000 times more ammonia in
the river bank near the pile than in the upstream
river water." The tailings are also releasing radon,
which can cause lung cancer.
Although there is no indication that
the pollution has moved downriver to threaten the
water supply, there is some concern about the bottom
sediments and the fish in whose tissue some
contaminants are showing up. "These toxins go into
Lake Powell, Lake Mead, Las Vegas and even the Sea
of Cortez," says Peterson. "The geographical spread
of this thing is enormous."
Atlas Vice President Richard Blubaugh says that
"changes in regulatory requirements and manpower
availability" slowed the cleanup, which Atlas is not
in a financial position to complete.
Environmentalists want to see the tailings pile
moved to a site about 14 miles north of Moab, out of
the river course, but Blubaugh says that option
would cost $150 million, compared to the $16 million
cost of capping it in place to prevent further radon
emissions. But there's worry that the capped
tailings pile could be readily compromised by
floods, erosion or seismic activity. Joe Holonich,
chief of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Uranium
Branch, admits, "The long-term impacts would be less
if the tailings were moved," though he calls capping
the pile "within the range of environmental
acceptability."
A growing community of 7,000
people live less than three miles downstream, and
many are watching and waiting to see what happens
next.
CONTACT
National Parks and Conservation
Association
100 Eagle Lake Drive
Fort Collins, CO 80524
Tel. (970) 493-2545
--Giselle Steele