The Department of Energy expects priority work at the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah to be largely done within four years, officials with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a virtual briefing Wednesday.
“We are getting close to closure,” at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings project, said Russell McCallister, federal cleanup director for the project. By October, DOE contractor North Wind Portage will have removed 13 million of the 16 million tons of tailings near the intersection of the Colorado River and the Moab Wash.
Moving the remaining tailings from the old Atlas Mineral Corp. uranium ore processing site 30 miles north to DOE-built engineered disposal facility near Crescent Junction, Utah should take about four years, according to slides presented at the briefing. Backend work at Crescent Junction, including design and work on development of a seven-foot cover suitable for arid climates, should take several more years, McCallister said.
“The success of Moab is really getting the tailings out,” McCallister said. The DOE will have more time to address the issues at the Crescent Junction disposal site, he added.
In February, the DOE awarded incumbent North Wind Portage a new contract that could run 10 years and be worth up to $614 million. The contract, which could be extended to run up to 15 years, should take the project into closure, McCallister said.
About a quarter of the Moab site is in a flood and could be subject to flooding from the Colorado River under peak conditions, DOE officials said. Uranium and ammonia at the site pose a groundwater risk, they added.
Officially dubbed an observation meeting, the session was to update Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials on progress at the site as DOE solicits NRC comments on a groundwater corrective action plan, which the Office of Environmental Management hopes to conclude in 2025, participants said.
Atlas closed down the NRC-licensed uranium ore processing site in 1984. Atlas has since filed for bankruptcy and cleanup responsibility was assigned to DOE.
