Pact signed to remove uranium from path of Colorado River

Saturday, Feb. 12, 2000 | 9:56 a.m.

Government officials and members of Utah's Ute Indian tribe signed an agreement to move the 150-acre pile of contaminants to a safer location and return 80,000 acres taken from the tribe during World War I. In exchange for the oil- and gas-rich land, the Utes agreed to return a portion of royalties to help pay for the cleanup.

The federal government will pay more than half the $300 million removal cost because 56 percent of the uranium went to weapons programs.

The agreement still needs congressional approval.

"I believe this a regional problem that represents a national responsibility," U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said.

Richardson and representatives of the Ute tribe signed the agreement at La Verne's Weymouth Filtration Plant, 25 miles east of Los Angeles. Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, who was not present, signed it earlier Friday.

They chose the location because the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to 17 million people, lobbied heavily to remove the uranium after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a plan to drain and cap the tailings on site.

The 40-foot-high pile is the byproduct of a mine that operated from 1956 to 1984 and sits about 750 feet from the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.

More than 57,600 gallons of water leak every year from the tailings, releasing high levels of uranium, ammonia, nitrates, selenium and other pollutants, according to federal studies. The contamination is jeopardizing four species of endangered fish, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found.

Officials have identified no immediate health risk to domestic water users in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah, but MWD officials said the long-term potential risk presents enough concern to remove the pile.

"It makes a whole lot more sense to just keep it out" of the river, said Phillip Pace, chairman of the MWD's board of directors.

Once approved, the agreement calls for moving the tailings to a plateau 18 miles away on federally administered land.

The mine's operator, Atlas Corp., declared bankruptcy and is free of liability. It earlier had posted a $6.5 million reclamation bond, which will cover only a fraction of the total cleanup costs.

The tribe estimates it will transfer $80 million to $100 million in royalties to the federal government. It also agreed to give added protection to the 75 miles of the Green River that make up its reservation's western boundary.

Some environmentalists expressed concern about the agreement, saying about a quarter of the land going to the Ute tribe should be protected as wilderness. But environmental groups have pledged to work with the tribe on conservation measures, said Bill Hedden, Utah conservation director of the Grand Canyon Trust.

"There's a tremendous amount of justice in seeing that land returned to the tribe," he said.