Coloradans frustrated with an unfinished 25-year Superfund cleanup at a uranium mill are pushing to tighten state standards and prevent future disasters.
The Colorado Medical Society, Fremont County commissioners and an array of economic and activist groups have endorsed legislation — up for discussion by state lawmakers this week — that would require uranium-processing companies to clean up existing toxic waste before launching new or expanded operations.
The legislation also would:
• Require companies to notify residents within 1 mile of a mill when groundwater may be contaminated
• Give communities a voice in the review of company bond money assurance for a cleanup and plans to import radioactive materials.
“We want to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated when it comes to uranium mining in our state,” said Sharyn Cunningham, leader of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste.
“There’s contamination right now that has not been cleaned up, and it needs to be cleaned up before we put our trust in the companies to do it differently this time,” said Cunningham, whose family suffered health problems that she links to contamination from the shuttered Cotter Corp. uranium mill south of Cañon City.
“If our state’s going to support creating fuel for nuclear reactors, then we need strong laws to protect the environment and people of the state.”
The Colorado Mining Association and Cotter have hired lobbyists to try to persuade legislators to kill the bill.
“It’s a legislative fix to a technical problem, and generally those things don’t work out well,” Cotter vice president John Hamrick said. “Under this bill, no mill would be able to operate in this state.”
Fremont County authorities back the legislation because groundwater contamination from the Cotter mill is spreading toward Cañon City, and Cotter plans to reopen, said County Commissioner Mike Stiehl.
“There will be other mill sites, if nuclear takes off,” Stiehl said. “State health officials are driven to do cleanups, but they just can’t. They’re prohibited by not having enough arrows in their quiver. This would be another arrow.”
State Sens. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, and Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, and Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, embraced the effort.
Cotter and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment overseers “didn’t always get things done,” Kester said. “This legislation is just going to put some teeth into what they should do.”
The health department “is neutral on this bill,” spokesman Mark Salley said.
A state-supervised Superfund cleanup of the Cotter mill has lagged after repeated violations with toxic tailings leaching into groundwater. The “dewatering” of impoundment ponds at the mill, intended to stop contamination of groundwater, has left toxic tailings exposed to the air.
A federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry public health assessment, required by law since 1985, still has not been completed.
Cotter executives notified state regulators a year ago that they plan to reopen in 2014, to crush and chemically leach 500,000 tons per year of uranium hauled by train from a mountain in New Mexico, for 25 years.
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com
