Moab tailings cleanup gets contracts

The Department of Energy awarded a contract Wednesday to jump-start the removal of radioactive sludge near the Colorado River in southern Utah, but the agreement will not run nearly long enough to complete to often-delayed project.

The federal money will allow crews to begin improving rail lines and loading and unloading docks for the 16 tons of uranium tailings to be moved from Moab to Crescent Junction, about 30 miles to the north.

"This is the avenue that we were looking for and now we can start moving the tailings up to their final location," said Don Metzler, DOE federal projects manager.

EnergySolutions of Salt Lake City received the $98.4 million contract, which runs through September 2011. Metzler said he hoped to have 2 tons of the tailings moved to Crescent Junction by then and that the contract could be renewed to keep the project going.

EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said there could be six months of planning and another six months of construction work before the waste shipments begin, which the company hopes will happen by late 2008.

The job was supposed to be finished by 2012, but the Energy Department earlier this year estimated it could take until 2028.

The waste comes from a uranium mill that processed the radioactive material taken from deposits in the Moab area. The tailings sit on the flood plain of the Colorado River, which is a major source of drinking water in the West.

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has called for a 2019 deadline to have the cleanup completed and said Wednesday he will stick with that date. The uranium plant that produced the waste has been closed for 23 years, and the company that used to run it went bankrupt in 1998.

Matheson, whose district includes Moab, said the Energy Department needs to commit to an actual date to have the project finished.

"I don't think it's really a positive step. They have underperformed time and time again on this project," Matheson said. "They're just nickel and diming us with the short-term contracts at this point, and they haven't offered a rationale for that."

The Moab site near the banks of the Colorado River is the only decommissioned uranium mill overseen by the Energy Department that has yet to be cleaned up. The Energy Department took over the site in 2001 and since then has pumped away 75 million gallons of contaminated water to keep it from reaching the river.

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On the Net:

www.doe.gov

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