Rep. Jim Matheson says he is greatly concerned about lack of progress in removing a uranium-mill tailings pile in Moab, but the chief of the project maintains the U.S. Department of Energy has been working hard on it.

The comments by the Utah Democrat come in a letter he sent Thursday to Samuel Bodman, the department's secretary. The letter was forwarded to the Deseret Morning News by Matheson's office.

Donald Metzler, the department's project manager, could not be reached immediately for comment.

Matheson wrote that over the past several months, the department "has repeatedly extended the timeline for issuing contracting requirements without clearly explaining the rationale for this delay."

He said he found that worrisome, since the project must be fully budgeted and staffed in the 2008 fiscal year in order to meet the department's "own 2012 timeframe" to remove and relocate the pile.

Congress indicated that it supports the pile's removal and the remediation of the site, "and time is of the essence," Matheson added.

"In 2006, intense summer thunderstorms twice resulted in flash flooding that eroded the hillside adjacent to the tailings site and the top of the pile itself, possibly endangering the stability of the tailings," he wrote. He expressed concern that a flood could wash radioactive tailings into the nearby Colorado River.

In a recent interview, Metzler said the project needs "to bring down a new remedial-action contractor." The current contractor helped the department prepare an environmental-impact statement and do site maintenance and some water cleanup.

"We've been working hard all this year with headquarters to procure a new contractor," Metzler said. The department hopes to bring in the new contractor in the fall to begin work "so we can start moving the tailings."

He said the situation is, "so far, so good. The Secretary of Energy has given this project a lot of attention."

The pile amounts to 16 million tons of tailings, by far the largest that the department has tried to relocate, according to Metzler. The tailings are to be moved 30 miles, mostly by rail, to the vicinity of Crescent Junction, Colo. The department has about 100 people in Moab and Crescent Junction working on the project.

"The Secretary of Energy is fully committed to moving these tailings," he added.

Some contaminated material was moved onto the pile, shrinking the contaminated area, he said. The project has been bringing in offices, showers and a break room to the work sites at Moab and Crescent Junction.

"We've been cleaning up groundwater. We're now starting our fifth year of groundwater cleanup," he said.

The department is pumping groundwater contaminated with high ammonia content, pouring it onto the top of the pile, and catching water in a four-acre, lined pond, where it evaporates. That helps prevent thousands of pounds of ammonia and uranium from entering the Colorado River, he added.

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