Legislators aim to restore uranium cleanup funds

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 10:46 a.m.

Although the Bush administration removed a budget item to clean up radioactive uranium tailings leaking into the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, the Nevada congressional delegation plans to help restore the funding.

Last year Congress gave the Department of Energy responsibility for removing 13 million tons of uranium mill tailings that leak about 16,000 gallons of contaminated water a day into the river, the major drinking water source for Nevada, Arizona and California.

A $2.8 million line item in the DOE's Grand Junction, Colo., budget would allow the federal agency to begin overseeing the project. Some officials estimated it would cost up to $300 million to remove the tailings left after Atlas Mining Corp., the bankrupt Denver-based company, quit mining uranium after the Cold War. Atlas filed for bankruptcy in 1997, leaving the cleanup to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But after the NRC decided to cap the leaky tailings in place for $100 million, former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson stepped in and pledged to remove the tailings piled 750 feet from the river's edge.

Utah and Nevada water officials feared a flash flood or other disaster could wash the entire pile of tailings into the Colorado, contaminating the river downstream.