Cleanup office, DOE Legacy Management already talking Moab handoff

PHOENIX —With remediation of an old uranium tailings pile along the Colorado River in Utah entering the home stretch, a Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management executive said Monday that closure plans are already being discussed.

With only one million tons left to be removed from a tailings pile near the Colorado River, Environmental Management is already doing some discussions with the DOE Office of Legacy Management about eventually taking over long-term monitoring, said Kristen Ellis. Ellis, who heads Environmental Management’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Affairs, made her comment here Monday during a panel discussion at the annual Waste Management Symposia.

Legacy Management handles monitoring and other post-closure chores for DOE after Environmental Management finishes the nuclear cleanup.

Ellis cited Moab as an example of a DOE nuclear cleanup site that is within sight of final remediation, she said during the panel. DOE has said the major Moab, Utah cleanup should be done by around 2029.

Contractor North Wind has removed 15 million of the 16 million tons of tailings from the Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project in Moab and relocated the material 30 miles away to an engineered landfill in Crescent Junction, Utah.

DOE and its contractor began moving the tailings from Moab in 2009z