The Energy Department has removed about 57 percent of the tailings from an old uranium concentrate production mill 3 miles northwest of Moab, Utah, according to the latest available figures.
At the end of March, the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project had moved about 9.06 million tons of the estimated 16 million tons to be shipped away from the Colorado River, according to Grand County, Utah, UMTRA Liaison Lee Shenton.
Moab UMTRA has on average shipped more than 39,000 tons per month for the last six months, Shenton said. “At this rate the last of the tailings would be shipped in late-2032 but some additional time will be required to complete other aspects of the project so I’m saying they’ll finish around 2034,” Shenton said by email.
The tailings are being taken by train about 32 miles north, to a permanent disposal cell near Crescent Junction, Utah. There are two shipments per week in lidded containers.
The 130-acre tailings pile, which sits on a larger 400-acre tract, was the location of an Atlas Minerals Corp. uranium-ore processing facility, which operated from the 1950s until the 1980s.
The UMTRA project’s goals include moving the uranium tailings away from Colorado River and using defensive wells to protect the river from contaminants.
Idaho-based North Wind, through its January 2017 acquisition of Portage, is the cleanup contractor at UMTRA, through 2021. In April 2016, Portage got a five-year, $153.8 million follow-on task order to its initial five-year contract.
