The final 1 million tons of uranium mill tailings from a pile near the Colorado River at Moab, Utah has been removed, the Department of Energy said this week.
In a Tuesday announcement, DOE said work crews for contractor North Wind Portage have successfully removed all 16 million tons of tailings and other contaminated material from its Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project site.
Since 2009, workers have been shipping contaminated material by rail to an engineered disposal cell 30 miles north at Crescent Junction, Utah.
“Safely relocating 16 million tons and completing excavation of the tailings pile is a major milestone in risk reduction and protection of public health and the environment,” Moab UMTRA Project Federal Cleanup Director Matt Udovitsch said in the statement.
Final closure is expected in 2029, DOE has said. The Moab site is a 480-acre tract in Grand County, Utah that includes a former privately owned uranium-ore processing facility that operated from 1956 to 1984. The tailings pile sits on about one-third of the tract. In the 1960s, Atlas Minerals Corporation bought the property that is now being cleaned up by DOE.
North Wind has a 10-year, $613-million environmental contract to remediate Moab. It started in February 2022 and is scheduled to run through February 2032. That is according to a DOE contract chart.
Between now and 2029, DOE and the contractor will finish the Moab work, North Wind said in its Sept. 29 press release.
Remaining tasks implementing the final groundwater compliance action plan, removing contaminated soils in the sub-pile and off-pile areas and revegetation, North Wind said. Sub-pile refers to the contaminated soil beneath the surface tailings pile, and off-pile refers to the additional contaminated soil and debris adjacent to the surface pile.
More details on recent Moab work can be found here.