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Cleaning Up Moab UMTRA Site Will Likely Top $1B By Chuck Harvey CEG CORRESPONDENT
A massive undertaking to remove and relocate uranium-ore tailings from a Moab, Utah, site is in its eighth year with materials continuing to be extracted and carried by train to a site in Grand Junction, Utah. It’s called the Moab UMTRA (Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action) Project. The project site — 3 mi. northwest of downtown Moab within Grand County — covers about 480 acres, with mill tailings sitting on 130 acres within the site. The site is near Arches National Park and the Colorado River The project is a long-term effort. Crews started shipping tailings in 2009. The current estimated completion date for the cleanup project is 2034. Initially the funding amount was $35 million, but over the last five years has averaged about $36 million per year. The total estimated lifecycle cost for the project is approximately $1 billion. The project involves excavation and removal of health-threatening uranium-ore mill tailings and other contaminated materials and transport of the materials in containers by train to a disposal site near Crescent Junction, Utah. Huge hauling trucks receive the materials and carry them to awaiting rail
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cars. An overpass was built across Potash Road at the Moab site, so haul trucks will not have to encounter highway traffic. A gantry crane is used to transfer containers of the contaminated materials to and from the train. Crews constructed an engineered disposal cell near Crescent Junction to receive the mill tailings. The mined uranium was used in making atomic bombs during the cold war era. The Moab UMTRA project also includes remediation of ground water at the mill site. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management in Grand Junction, Colo., manages the project. S&K Moab TAC Team, Contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy photo
A gantry crane is used on the rail bench to transfer containers to and from the train at the Moab site.
S&K Moab TAC Team, Contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy photo
Reach stackers are used at the Moab site to transfer containers to and from haul trucks and at the Crescent Junction site to transfer containers to and from the train.
The uranium mining mill operated at the site until 1984. In 2009, the federal government provided an initial $108 million in federal stimulus money to fast-track the clean up. The funding was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Most of the money was used to accelerate tailings shipments from the Moab site to the Crescent Junction disposal site. Part of the annual $36 million in
funding goes toward covering the disposal cell near Crescent Junction. Crews will cover about 50 acres of the disposal site with clay and rock material. Engineers have designed protective berms to keep the water away from the radioactive dirt. Multiple Contractors Portage Inc., which is owned by Northwind, both of Idaho Falls, Idaho, is the prime contractor for see UMTRA page 6
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