Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
8/1/2014
Work at the Moab uranium mill tailings remediation project is almost halfway complete, the Department of Energy said this week. The project involves the removal of a total of approximately 16 million tons of uranium mill tailings from a former uranium-ore processing facility near Moab, Utah, on the west bank of the Colorado River to a disposal site approximately 30 miles away. This week, DOE announced that approximately 7 million tons of material have been shipped to the disposal site to date. “We’re nearly 45 percent complete in relocating the 16-million-ton uranium mill tailings pile away from the Colorado River,” Federal Project Director Donald Metzler said in a release. “I’m proud to say that this has been accomplished while keeping the focus on safety.”
Work at the Moab site is currently being performed by Portage under a five-year contract awarded in late 2011. Prior to Portage taking over responsibility for the work, the Moab project was conducted by EnergySolutions. Along with the removal of the tailings, work has begun to segregate and size debris from the former ore mill buildings that were buried in the southern corner of the tailings pile, according to DOE. “We plan to begin shipping the debris to the disposal cell, mostly by rail, in fiscal year 2015,” Portage Project Manager Jeff Biagini said in the release.
