The Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at a uranium mill tailings pile near Moab, Utah has moved about 74% of the radioactive material to a disposal site 30 miles away, according to an update posted online this week.
In August, North Wind Portage shipped 73,923 tons of tailings and debris from the former Atlas Minerals uranium-ore processing facility at Moab to the disposal cell at Crescent Junction, according to the Moab website.
As a result, more than 11.8 million tons of the total 16 million tons of contaminated material at the Moab pile have been shipped to Crescent Junction for disposal.
As of October 2020, 11 million tons had been relocated from the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project pile and moved by train to the disposal cell at Grand Junction.
The tailings pile site is only a mile from the Arches National Park entrance and three miles northwest of downtown Moab in Grand County, Utah.
Uranium Reduction Co. built the Moab mill in 1956 and ran it until 1962 when the assets were sold to Atlas Minerals, according to a DOE fact sheet. The milling product, a uranium concentrate known as yellowcake, was sold to the Atomic Energy Commission through December 1970 for use in military programs. After 1970, the site’s production largely shifted to commercial sales to nuclear power plants.
Atlas ran the site, licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, until 1984 and then tore down the processing buildings and buried the structures in the southwestern corner of the tailings pile.
North Wind Portage has a five-year, $187-million contract, currently scheduled to expire Sept. 30. The DOE Office of Environmental Management issued a request for proposals for a new contract in February, and bids were due in March. No award had been made as of Friday and DOE declined comment as to whether an extension of the current contract will occur.
Portage, which was bought by North Wind in January 2017, took over as tailings contractor at Moab from EnergySolutions, which had the business from 2007 through 2011. Relocation of tailings started in April 2009.
Sometime between now and fiscal 2025, the contractor is expected to build a $3-million Mechanics Building, which will be an 18-month project, according to a five-year site plan for Moab.
However, a DOE spokesperson at Moab said there is no timeline for the construction project and the agency is still evaluating the need for it. “There are several factors that affect the need for a building of this type, such as future funding, contractor means and methods, and the Project’s estimated completion date,” the spokesperson said.
The Moab site is also featured in a just-released article in Popular Mechanics Magazine in which DOE said it hopes to finish environmental cleanup by 2029, rather than the previously-projected 2034 listed in the Biden administration’s budget justification for fiscal 2022.
