http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_22624956/removing-uraniu...

http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_22624956/removing-uranium-tailings-would-cost-895-million-cotter

We can see why the greenies are so against uranium milling.

However, if ablation can be proved successful in the next 3-4 months, it will change the entire game. No mill required for hansen, and many more deposits globally?

Not only that, there is a chance that ablation can be used for clean up too! may take a few more years to proved that but it is a possibility.

Hoping to get more good news flow after this week.

All the best


Removing uranium tailings would cost $895 million, Cotter Corp. says
Posted: 02/20/2013 12:01:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/20/2013 09:15:14 AM MST
By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
Workers crush the concrete floor of the extraction building at Cotter Corp.'s uranium mill in Cañon City. The facility was declared a Superfund site in 1984. (Joe Amon, The Denver Post file)

CAÑON CITY — Cotter Corp. has told Colorado public health overseers it would cost more than $895 million to remove the 15 million tons of radioactive uranium tailings from the company's dismantled mill along the Arkansas River.

Disposing of the tailings elsewhere would require 455 trucks a day for 5½ years hauling 100-ton hazardous loads through Cañon City, according to an analysis Cotter sent Nov. 6 at the request of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Gov. John Hickenlooper's office is in the process of forming a 15-member Community Advisory Group to help guide cleanup at the mill, which in 1984 was declared a Superfund environmental disaster.

Hickenlooper
Extras

Read the Tailing Impoundment Analysis (PDF, 10 pages).

said this week he has not made a decision on whether the tailings should stay or go.

Underground plumes of contaminated groundwater may still be spreading from the mill, which sits about 2 miles south of Cañon City. Most tailings have been heaped in two impoundment ponds, but Cotter officials say 551,000 cubic yards must be excavated, including scattered, windblown material.

Federal overseers at 24 other private uranium mills around the nation never required a private mill owner to move tailings because removal "poses significant risks to public health and communities and is prohibitively expensive," Cotter's report said.

CDPHE officials for years have assured Cotter on-site disposal is their wish and changing that would be unfair, said John Hamrick, Cotter's vice president for milling operations.

"It would be a complete about-face — not just for CDPHE but for the EPA," Hamrick said in an interview Tuesday. "If they choose to move it, we will probably seek some relief through the courts ... A lot of money could be saved if we leave the material here."

CDPHE spokesman Warren Smith on Tuesday confirmed current plans call for tailings to be stored in place and capped to prevent
leaching by snowmelt and rain.

Cañon City residents, however, worry that the impoundments may be leaking — or will in the future.

"We'd like the radioactive tailings moved to a safe location — not close to ground water. We need a study," said Sharyn Cunningham, a member of the advisory group and director of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, which has challenged Cotter for years. "Follow the formal way you deal with a thing like this. We need to look at all the options. We don't know what all the options are.

"If somebody walked into your house and dumped a bunch of trash into your living room — and then said they wouldn't clean it up because it costs too much — nobody would accept that."

Hickenlooper said he has not made a decision. "I don't think we have sufficient information to make that decision yet," he said focusing on the community meetings scheduled to begin Feb. 28.

"Let's got through the process and see what that says," Hickenlooper said Monday.

Cotter is owned by San Diego-based defense contractor General Atomics. The mill opened in 1958, processing uranium for nuclear weapons and fuel.

Liquid waste laced with radioactive material and heavy metals was discharged into 11 unlined ponds until 1978. Those were replaced in 1982 with the impoundments. Well tests in Cañon City showed contamination. Federal Environmental Protection Agency authorities eventually handed off cleanup oversight to the CDPHE.

A required community health study wasn't done initially as required, and only in recent years did federal health officials conduct a review of state health documents about the site.

CDPHE officials have said any leakage from impoundments is trivial and estimated cleanup, with disposal of tailings on-site, could cost as much as $40 million. They required Cotter to deposit $20.8 million into a surety fund as insurance if the company fails to complete the work.

Hickenlooper last year directed officials from his office to get involved and declared a pause for development of a roadmap for final cleanup. The 15-member advisory group includes Fremont County health authorities and elected officials.

Cotter's mill "is still a federal Superfund site," said Fremont County Commissioner Tim Payne, who lives in the Lincoln Park area where contamination ruined drinking water wells.

"I'd like to get more information from the EPA," Payne said. "Having them decommission and not do further damage is a first step. Now it's just a matter of cleanup."

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, twitter.com/finleybruce or [email protected]

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