Huntsman wants Moab tailings moved now

Move 'em — pronto!

That's the message from Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to the U.S. Department of Energy concerning the hazardous uranium mill tailings piled beside the Colorado River near Moab.

Huntsman sent a letter this past week to Don Metzler of the DOE's Moab Project Office, warning that a flood could sweep radioactive material into the river and along its banks.

"Recent flooding in the St. George and Santa Clara regions of Utah also demonstrated the swift and immense force of moving water in the desert," he wrote in the letter, which was copied to Utah media outlets.

"We cannot afford to assume the risks associated with having uranium tailings strewn along river banks and bars of the Colorado River below Moab. Good science and good sense tell us the tailings must be moved."

He called for the construction of a repository at Klondike Flats, near Moab, which could be reached by the existing rail line.

The mill site should be cleaned up and groundwater should be treated at the site to ensure contamination doesn't move off-site or into the Colorado River, Huntsman wrote.

"This work should be commenced immediately, and federal funding should be sought to complete the work as promptly as possible," he wrote.

"Now is the time to act — to move the tailings pile."

Studies show the Colorado has migrated and that at both a maximum flood event and a 100-year flood it "will generate forces sufficient to erode the adjacent banks of the river and undercut the tailings pile," Huntsman added.

Diane Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said in 1993 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said there would be no significant impacts if the tailings were left where they were. (Since then, studies have indicated otherwise.)

After all these years, to finally have DOE issue a draft environmental impact statement considering options to move the pile, she said, "We are thrilled."

Her department hopes the DOE "will understand the importance of moving the tailings off the bank of the Colorado River," Nielson told the Deseret Morning News.

The DOE has been accepting comments on a draft identified impact statement concerning the tailings pile. Alternatives it has considered include doing nothing; disposing of the tailings where they are; or moving them to one of three off-site disposal areas.

Disposal facilities could be at Klondike Flats; Crescent Junction, near the town by that name in Grand County, about 20 miles east of Green River; and the White Mesa Mill near Blanding. DOE officials have not yet chosen a preferred option.

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com