Stimulus Trickles Down to Colorado River
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While the stimulus package is expected to boost the economy, we're learning that the programs to do that will go a long way toward improving the environment as well. In 1999, POGO wrote a report on the Atlas Corporation's uranium tailings pile near Moab, Utah, containing approximately 10.5 million tons of uranium mill wastes. The tailings pile is located only 750 feet from the Colorado River, and is seeping from the unlined site into the groundwater and ultimately into the river, a valuable drinking water supply.
After a decade of exposing the issue, POGO was pleased with the Department of Energy's (DOE) decision to relocate the uranium mill tailings predominantly by rail from the banks of the Colorado River to Crescent Junction, Utah. That project was estimated to take 10 or 20 years depending on the government's financial commitment.
Last week, the relocation of the uranium pile began following DOE's decision to try to move the pile sooner rather than later due to the infusion of stimulus money:
Moab ($108 million) - Accelerate removal of uranium mill tailings away from the Colorado River and dispose of an additional two million tons of mill tailings by 2011, accelerating site cleanup by several years. The Recovery Act work will be accomplished by increasing the number of railcars and shipments.
After years of slow progress, it looks like the government is finally doing the right thing. It now has the money to clean up the Atlas site and help restore the Colorado River. And if a few people keep their jobs in this struggling economy, that's an additional benefit. I guess it places an environmental spin on President Reagan's beloved theory of trickle-down economics. Well, with an anti-trickle-down ending...Atlas uranium waste won't be trickling down the Colorado River.
-- Scott Amey
Sweet! Good work POGO.
Posted on: May 13, 2009 at 02:23 PM