Moab Tailings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is uncategorized.
Please help improve this article by adding it to one or more categories, so it may be associated with related articles (how?). Please remove this tag after categorizing. |
Moab Tailings is a uranium mill waste pond situated alongside the Colorado River, currently under the control of the US Department of Energy. Locals refer to it as the Moab Tailings Pile. In 1952 Charlie Steen found the largest uranium deposit in the United States near Moab, Utah. The uranium was processed by his Uranium Reduction Company and the waste slurry was stored in an unlined pond adjacent to the river. The Uranium Reduction Company was sold in 1962 and renamed the Atlas Uranium Mill.
After the mill was closed in 1984 the pond was capped. It is believed that the waste is leaching into the river, inferred from the lethal effect on fish, primarily from high concentrations of ammonia. In August 2005 the Department of Energy announced that 11.9 million short tons of radioactive tailings would be moved, mostly by rail, and buried in a lined hole. The proposed holding site is public land at Crescent Junction, Utah, about 30 miles from the Colorado River. In February 2006 a final Environmental Impact Statement meet with Environmental Protection Agency approval. The cost of the relocation is estimated to be $300 million dollars.
