Tailings aren't hot topic

MOAB — Sort through the river runners, rock climbers, base jumpers, mountain bikers, four wheelers and the Europeans on their way to national parks, skip right past the environmental activists and politicians, and steer clear of anyone affiliated with the company that's fixing to make $100 million hauling the dirt to Crescent Junction, and when you finally run into a longtime local and ask them what they think of moving the mountain of uranium tailings from the edge of town, they look at you with a kind of bemused stare.

They're not sorry to see it go, but the problem hasn't been keeping them up nights, either.

I walked down Moab's Center Street and found three "locals" to talk to.

The first was sitting on a bench outside the office of the Times-Independent, Moab's 113-year-old newspaper.

Tom Taylor is part of the family that's owned the paper ever since his grandfather, Loren L. "Bish" Taylor, bought it nearly 100 years ago.

Born in Moab in 1961 and a resident ever since, Tom can remember back to a time when mountain bikes didn't exist and uranium mining did.

In the '50s and '60s, instead of tourists, the streets were full of mining trucks hauling uranium to the mill.

"As schoolkids we didn't even think about the uranium dust or if it was hurting anything," said Taylor. "All we knew was it was a good thing to be a miner. That meant you were making good money."

That good money translated into millions of tons of dirt piled up on the south end of town on the far bank of the Colorado River.

Fears that the still radioactive dirt might be a danger to Moab residents, or, worse, seep into the river and cause problems for those downstream (read: California) prompted the $98.7 million contract recently awarded to EnergySolutions to haul it 30 miles via railroad and dump it at a remote desert site. (Sixteen million tons of dirt is a lot of railroad containers. If all goes as planned, the pile should be gone by 2019).

"I think the majority of people around here have been waiting to see it moved," Taylor continued. "But I know there are some who think it's a waste of tax money. Why not leave it where it is and cap it?"

Being a good newspaper man, the irony of the situation does not escape Taylor. "What made the town, they're now hauling away," he observes wryly.

Across the street from the newspaper office is Norm's barber shop, where the one and only barber on the staff said, sure, he'd be happy to talk.