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(last updated 24 Dec 2011)
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A 71-year-old Navajo woman is partly to thank for the cleanup of an abandoned uranium mine that lies west of Utah's Monument Valley. Elsie Mae Begay has spent more than 30 years living among the remnants of the Skyline Mine, which she says have sickened and killed her family members. She took her story of the dangers of uranium across her reservation, to college campuses and Congress, along with a documentary outlining her family's plight. The federal government now is wrapping up a $7.5 million project that uses a cable system to take the contaminated waste up a mesa [Oljato Mesa] where it came from. The cleanup marks the first significant remediation of a mine site on the country's largest American Indian reservation where abandoned uranium mines number in the hundreds. (AP Sep. 5, 2011)
EPA wraps up cleanup of abandoned Skyline uranium mine:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has wrapped up a $7.5 million project that used a cable system to transport uranium waste back up a mesa where it came from.
The cleanup of the Skyline Mine near the Arizona-Utah border means residents living below Oljato Mesa no longer have to worry about continued exposure to radiation.
It also marks the first significant remediation of a mine on the Navajo Nation, where such sites number in the hundreds.
A lined repository atop the mesa now holds 25,000 cubic yards of uranium waste that was piled up on the valley floor and gathered from around an arroyo.
The EPA's Jason Musante says the agency is working with tribal officials on a monitoring plan to make sure the liner holds up as expected.
(AP Oct. 19, 2011)
Geology, Geochemistry, and Geophysics of the Fry Canyon Uranium/Copper Project Site, Southeastern Utah - Indications of Contaminant Migration ,
By James K. Otton, Robert A. Zielinski, and Robert J. Horton,
U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2010–5075, 39 p., Sep. 1, 2010
· Detail (annual Jeep Safari approaching Hey Joe mine) (Google Maps)
The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining will begin a project in September 2006 to close 22 abandoned uranium mines in Emery and Grand counties.
The mines are located in Labyrinth Canyon along the Green River northwest of Dead Horse Point State Park.
The project is an ongoing part of the division's Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program and is funded by a per ton tax on current coal production in Utah.
(Deseret News Sep. 7, 2006)
> Download related Division files
A proposed abandoned mine reclamation project that will seal 22 open
abandoned mines along the Labyrinth Canyon area of the Green River will be
discussed at an open house at the Moab Bureau of Land Management Office February 15, 2006.
The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining’s Abandoned Mine Reclamation
Program is proposing to conduct a reclamation project in the late summer and fall
of 2006.
> Download DOGM release Feb. 6, 2006 (PDF)
"A historic uranium mining area now riddled with hazardous abandoned mine openings is the target of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining's Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program. Construction activities this fall will close abandoned uranium mine openings and remove dump materials from the Cottonwood Creek drainage west of Blanding, Utah. The project, a partnership with the Bureau of Land Management and the USDA Forest Service, will improve the watershed area while protecting the public from radiation hazards associated with the mines. [...]"> FTP-Download Utah DOGM release (Oct 4, 2002)
(PDF)
· Appendix A+B (14.8M PDF) · Appendix C-H (9M PDF)
"During July and August of 2006, 117 solid-phase samples were collected from abandoned uranium waste dumps, geologic background sites, and adjacent streambeds in the San Rafael Swell, in southeastern Utah. The objective of this sampling program was to assess the nonpoint source chemical loading potential to ephemeral and perennial watersheds from uranium waste dumps on Bureau of Land Management property. [...]
Approximately 56 percent (48/85) of the leachate samples extracted from uranium waste dumps had one or more chemical constituents that exceeded aquatic life and drinking-water-quality standards. Most of the uranium waste dump sites with elevated trace-element concentrations in leachates were along Reds Canyon Road between Tomsich Butte and Family Butte. Twelve of the uranium waste dump sites with elevated trace-element concentrations in leachates contained three or more constituents that exceeded drinking-water-quality standards. Eighteen of the uranium waste dump sites had three or more constituents that exceeded trace-element concentrations for aquatic life water-quality standards. The proximity of the uranium waste dumps in the Tomsich Butte area near Muddy Creek, coupled with the elevated concentration of trace elements, increases the offsite impact potential to water resources. [...]"
Assessment of Nonpoint Source Chemical Loading Potential to Watersheds Containing Uranium Waste Dumps Associated with Uranium Exploration and Mining, San Rafael Swell, Utah , Prepared in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, by Michael L. Freeman, David L. Naftz, Terry Snyder, and Greg Johnson, U.S. Geological Survey, Scientific Investigations Report 2008-5110, July 2008
(PDF)
Sources and further information:
White Canyon Mill Site (DOE EIA)
Uranium Mill Tailings in the Colorado River Basin (Spring 2000, Glen Canyon Institute)
> View more recent issues
Federal Register: October 2, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 191) p. 56852-56853 (download full text )
"Plateau Resources, Ltd. is planning to decommission its uranium mill, referred to as the Shootaring Canyon Uranium Project. The mill is licensed to operate under a U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) source material license (SUA-1371). The mill operated for a very limited period of time and the tailings facility contains only 25,000 C.Y. of tailings material. An additional volume of 39,100 (18,907 tons Hanksville and 26,500 C.Y. Hydro-Jet) C.Y. of 11.e(2) material exist in the east and north dikes from the cleanup of the Hanksville buying station and the Hydro-Jet plant. Interim cover placed over the tailings is 39,310 C.Y. An additional 114,000 C.Y. of contaminated materials are planned to be added to the tailings cell."[1 C.Y. = 0.765 cubic meters]
> See Federal Register: December 23, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 246) p. 78262-78263 (download full text ):
Notice of Amendment Request and Consideration of Proposed Reclamation Plan for the Shootaring Canyon Uranium Project, Ticaboo, Utah, and Opportunity to Provide Comments and to Request a Hearing
> View older issues
Aerial view: Google Maps · MSRMaps
(PDF) (PDF)
)
"On the basis of the draft EA, NRC concluded that there would be no significant environmental impacts from the proposed action. Accordingly, the staff has determined that there is no need to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed action. A Finding of No Significant Impact will be published in the Federal Register if there are no significant concerns noted by the consulted agencies."By letter dated Feb. 3, 2004, NRC requested the Utah Department of the Environment to provide any comments within 30 days.
The Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was published in
Federal Register: April 23, 2004 (Vol. 69, No. 79) p. 22100-22101 (download full text )
The license amendment was issued on May 11, 2004.
> Download final Environmental Assessment (April 2004)
):
"SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received, by letter dated May 22, 2002, an application from Rio Algom Mining LLC (Rio Algom) to establish Alternate Concentration Limits and amend the Source Material License No. SUA-1119 for the Lisbon uranium mill facility. "A request for hearing must be filed within 30 days of July 24, 2002.
From Rio Algom's May 22, 2002, application:
"Results of this assessment indicate that aquifer restoration cannot be achieved in less than 28 years or for less than $23,000,000 given any active remedial scenario. In contrast, the cost to implement natural attenuation in conjunction with institutional controls is only about $ 388,000."
):
"SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received, by letter dated October 23, 1998, a request from Rio Algom Mining Corporation (Rio Algom) to amend License Condition (LC) 55 A.(3) of Source Material License SUA-1119 for the Lisbon, Utah, facility. The license amendment request proposes to modify LC 55 A.(3) to change the completion date for placement of the final radon barrier on the pile. The date proposed by Rio Algom would extend completion of the final radon barrier by 18 years."
> See: extra page
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