Officials fear floods could cause radioactive contamination of water

Friday, July 30, 1999 | 11:43 a.m.

Environmentalists and congressional members from the West have worried for years that uranium tailings in Utah along the Colorado River could contaminate the Southwest's major water supply with radiation.

Now congressional members and the Environmental Protection Agency are warning their colleagues that a 426-million-gallon pool of water in the middle of the tailings increases the danger of contamination downstream in Lake Mead and other reservoirs.

The water is runoff from 1993 spring storms that left the tailings standing in 7 feet of river water. This summer's heavy rains could pose a greater chance that the contamination could get into the water supply, officials say.

In the wake of flash flooding in neighboring states this summer, state and federal scientists fear that a flood across the site could dump much of the highly contaminated runoff from the pile into the Colorado River, a drinking water source for 25 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.

In addition to providing about 7 percent of the nation's drinking water, the river supplies water to farms and businesses throughout the region.

Worried congressional members, including Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., were briefed today by the EPA about the threat from the massive pile of radioactive tailings near Moab, Utah.

For more than 30 years Atlas Corp., a federal government contractor, milled and deposited 10.5 million tons of uranium tailings at an unlined site 750 feet from the river.

The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has documented that the radiation is already finding its way into the river, though not yet at dangerous levels. About 50 gallons of the polluted water enters the river every minute now.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on May 28 approved a plan to cap the tailings for $19 million, an amount the Atlas Corp., which has filed for bankruptcy, said it could afford.

After the piles are capped, Oak Ridge scientists estimate that the polluted water still will leak into the river at the rate of four gallons per minute for more than 200 years. That's 5,760 gallons a day of radioactive water going into the river.

The company estimated it would cost $150 million to remove the tailings.

However, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and state officials have urged Congress to transfer responsibility for the Moab site to the DOE, an agency with the technology, experience and resources to clean up the tailings.

They argue that the NRC does not have the expertise to clean up such contaminated sites.

Under commission regulations the owner of a site like the one at Moab is responsible for cleaning it up. The DOE has cleared hundreds of sites in the West left contaminated after the Cold War nuclear weapons race.

Two bills have been introduced in the House to effect the transfer. Reps. George Miller, D-Calif., Bob Filner, D-Calif., Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., and Berkley submitted one. The other is sponsored by Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah.

"We are steadfast in our resolve to bring about immediate action on this issue," Miller and Filner said.

Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson promised to investigate the Utah tailings situation in June after he learned of Babbitt's concerns.

The National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and downstream water agencies such as the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have expressed serious concerns over the decision to allow the tailings to be capped.