Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
5/9/2014
Government agencies have increased their overall efforts to address uranium mine contamination on the Navajo Reservation, but more still needs to be done, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. The extent of contamination and total scope of work still remains unknown, and federal funding for cleanup work has begun to shrink in recent years, the report says. The GAO recommended Congressional direction and funding to make sure the agencies do the work necessary while interacting in a way that maximizes resources. “From 2008 through 2012, six federal agencies increased their overall efforts to address the legacy of uranium contamination that remained on the Navajo reservation after uranium mining and processing ceased, spending more than $120 million on various actions, including assessments of abandoned mines and cleanups of contaminated homes and other sites,” the report says. “However, nearly 30 years since the last active uranium mine on the Navajo reservation ceased production, federal agencies do not have comprehensive information about the extent of the contamination or the total scope of work—and associated time frames and costs—required to fully address it, especially the contamination found at the abandoned mines.”
The report indicates that the ability to characterize the work needed is doable, but the agencies involved are unlikely to do it without Congressional intervention. “While many uncertainties exist, it is possible to generate useful, high-level estimates of the work, time frames, and costs in a short period of time based on the information the federal agencies currently possess,” the GAO said. “However, absent a statutory requirement to develop such a comprehensive estimate, it appears unlikely that the agencies will undertake such an effort.”
2008 Five-Year Plan Met Six of Eight Objectives
Much of the GAO’s report analyzed the five-year plan put together in 2008 to address some of the most pressing issues involved with the cleanup. The plan was successful in six out of eight points, including groundwater treatment and house contamination assessment. “Federal agencies met the targets in six of the eight objectives they established in the 2008 5-year plan, but they did not meet the targets in two of the eight objectives,” the GAO said. “Reasons the agencies met the targets in five objectives were primarily because additional federal resources, including funding and staff time, were dedicated to their efforts. DOE met the targets in a sixth objective because the agency set targets that represented a continuation of previously required activities. By contrast, the reasons federal agencies did not meet the targets in two objectives were, in part, because of decisions to conduct additional assessment and outreach activities before identifying final cleanup actions.”
The two objectives not completed were the cleanup of the Northeast Church Rock mine and the Tuba City Dump. The GAO said the Environmental Protection Agency was ambitious in listing this as an objective so as to highlight the importance of the cleanup. “Officials from both agencies said they deliberately created ambitious schedules for these sites, in part, to acknowledge the threats they posed and to make it clear that the agencies were committed to cleaning them up,” the report says. “Work remains for both agencies to complete the cleanups at the two sites, and the agencies expect that time frames will likely extend beyond the agencies’ 2014 5-year plan and that federal costs will be in the tens of millions of dollars at each site.”
More Federal Funding Needed
The GAO concluded that if current funding levels for the cleanup were to remain the same, the cleanup would take decades to complete. “Over the 2008 5-year plan period (i.e., 2008 through 2012), EPA funded the removal action at the Skyline mine from Region 9’s Superfund removal budget, spending about $7 million,” the report says. “Assuming Region 9’s Superfund removal budget funding levels from the 2008 5-year plan period continued, it would take EPA 105 years to fund the removal actions at 21 of the highest priority mines. According to our rough estimate, it would take even longer to also address the unknown number of mines without potentially responsible parties that will also need cleanup, but which have not been identified.”
To complete the project, the GAO said the federal price tag will be in hundreds of millions of dollars. “For the significant amount of remaining work to address uranium contamination that federal agencies recognize is needed, it appears that associated costs could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars,” the report said. “For example, in the absence of a cost estimate from EPA for work at the abandoned mines, our rough estimate based on previously incurred costs by EPA at the Skyline mine indicates that EPA’s costs to fund removal actions at just half of the highest priority mines, or 21 mines, could be a minimum of about $150 million.” This does not account for waste transport and disposal, an amount that could raise the price tag even further.
The cleanup effort has the support of some lawmakers, who vowed this week to help increase the funding levels. “The pervasive uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation is an American tragedy,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who was one of the lawmakers to request the report. “GAO’s report confirms that federal agencies have made progress in addressing this shameful legacy but that a huge amount of work remains to be done. The federal government has a moral obligation to sustain its commitment to right this wrong.” Other lawmakers, such as Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ranking Member of Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Frank Pallone, Jr., said they would continue to fight for funding for this cleanup as well.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Settlement Has No Bearing
The recent Anadarko Petroleum Corp. settlement, which gave the Navajo Nation approximately $1 billion to aid in its cleanup of the mine sites, does not affect the federal government’s responsibilities to the cleanup, the GAO said. “The settlement does not change our analysis of the potential future time frames and costs to clean up the highest priority abandoned uranium mines on or near the Navajo reservation,” GAO Director of Natural Resources & Environment Alfredo Gomez said. “This is because we estimated the time frames and costs associated with cleaning up 21 highest priority mines that EPA officials expect will need to be paid for with federal funds. Federal funds will be needed for these mines because EPA does not expect to identify a viable nonfederal potentially responsible party (such as Anadarko) to contribute to their cleanup.”