DENVER—A company that owns a closed uranium mill in southern Colorado wants to leave 15 million tons of radioactive tailings at the site along the Arkansas River that could cost as much as $895 million to clean up, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
An analysis by Cotter Corp. for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also found that it would take 5 1/2 years to remove the hazardous waste using trucks that would pass through Canon City, The Denver Post ( ) reported.
The company and the health department have long assumed the waste would stay at the mill following a cleanup, but residents are now worried that ponds holding the tailings could leak at the Superfund site.
Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office is forming a 15-member community advisory group to help guide cleanup at the mill, which was declared an environmental disaster site in 1984. He hasn’t decided yet whether the waste should be removed.
Forcing Cotter to move the waste would be a “complete about-face,” said John Hamrick, company vice president for milling operations.
“If they choose to move it, we will probably seek some relief through the courts,” he said.
Sharyn Cunningham, a member of the governor’s group and director of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, favors moving the waste to avoid any threat to groundwater.
“If somebody walked into your house and dumped a bunch of trash in your living room—and then said they wouldn’t clean it up because it costs too much—nobody would accept that,” she said.
Community meetings on the issue begin Feb. 28.
———
Information from: The Denver Post,
