EnergySolutions to Clean Up Moab Mill Tailings

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) EnergySolutions snagged a 98-million dollar government contract to remove uranium mill tailings from the banks of the Colorado River in Moab. The abandoned radioactive material will be moved by railcar to nearby Crescent Junction and stored permanently in ground cells similar to those EnergySolutions uses at its Tooele dump site.

"I'd say we have more experience than anyone in the country when it comes to disposal of this type of material," says EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker. "Protecting it from the environment - but also in the transportation of it - ensuring that the public is safe and the environment it is transported to is safe."

Walker says the Department of Energy contract is for the first phase of clean-up, which will remove only about one-eighth of the tailings pile by 2011.

On hearing the news, Congressman Jim Matheson issued a statement criticizing the D-O-E for not setting a more aggressive timeline to remove the 16-million tons of mill tailings.

Walker says design and planning for the project will take at least six months and removal of the tailings won't start until late 2008. EnergySolutions expects to employ about 150 people on the project.

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