Slow work on tailings worries Matheson - He says he doesn't want project to 'slip through the cracks'

Friday, December 8, 2006

(Deseret Morning News)

Deseret Morning News, Friday, December 08, 2006

Slow work on tailings worries Matheson

He says he doesn't want project to 'slip through the cracks'

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News

A Utah congressman wants to know why the U.S. Department of Energy is taking so long to clean up the Moab uranium mill tailings.

"I just want to make sure that this project doesn't get delayed and really just sort of slip through the cracks," Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said Thursday in a telephone interview.

The project, approved by Congress, is to move the 16 tons of radioactive uranium mill tailings from their present site near the Colorado River, north of Moab, to a location near Grand Junction, Colo. They are to be shipped the 30 miles by rail car.

On Sept. 28, Matheson wrote to Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman about concerns that the agency was not acting swiftly enough. On Nov. 29, Bodman replied, saying a request for task proposals was issued on Oct. 29, with proposals due on Jan. 9, 2007.

"The department believes the time spent to develop the RTP (request for task proposals) will pay dividends in improved overall project cost, schedule and protection of the safety and health of the workers, public and environment," Bodman wrote.

"The department is committed to completing this project and returning the Moab site to an environmentally sound condition."

Bodman added that the agency is continuing to progress through actions like completion of a network of injection and extraction wells, which are capturing and treating 100 gallons per minute of contaminated groundwater. Also, it has cleaned up 41,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil covering 28 acres along State Route 191 north of Moab, he added.

For the 2008 fiscal year, "we are factoring in this project, along with other cleanup priorities, as part of our program planning and budgeting process."

A Matheson staff member noted that the date when project proposals were due to DOE had slipped from Dec. 12 this year to Jan. 9, 2007.

Matheson told the Deseret Morning News he would like to know why the request for contracts covered only a fraction of the total cost and was to move only part of the pile.

He said the DOE "funding stream" incorporated in the task order was for $102 million while the DOE has acknowledged the total cost would be at least $500 million. Also, the work in the request is only to excavate 2.25 million tons, rather than the full 16 million tons.

"The department is committed to making progress at Moab and by seeking a contractor to build the transport infrastructure and begin safely moving the mill tailings, we are another step closer to safe cleanup," said DOE spokeswoman Megan Barnett in agency headquarters, Washington, D.C.

Matheson was disappointed that the department did not ask for a contract to remove all the tailings.

"If the DOE wants to outwait us, that isn't going to happen," said Matheson, "because I'm not going to leave this alone."

He said he does not know why DOE would set out a fraction of the project in the contract. If it were done by function — such as excavation cost or transportation cost — he could understand that, he said. "But I only see a dollar amount, and I see an amount of dirt that says 2.25 million tons, and the dirt is 16 million tons of material."

E-mail: bau@desnews.com