by Megan Kelly, Energy Associate
It’s that time of year, folks. Houses are adorned with lights and stockings and Santa’s helpers are getting together presents galore. And oddly enough, a long-standing name on the naughty list, the White Mesa uranium mill, has received an early present: over 10,000 tons of radioactive waste.
While that's good news for the company that owns and operates the mill, it’s definitely not a gift for the Ute Mountain Ute tribal community of White Mesa, situated only a few miles away from the only remaining conventional uranium mill in the United States. Outdated single liners underlie much of the 275 acres of waste pits at the mill and are the only barrier between groundwater and the mill's toxic waste. White Mesa community members have fought for decades to protect their drinking water source, which lies beneath the mill, from contamination. Over 90 percent of the uranium mills that ever existed in the U.S. have been on or near tribal lands.
In late November, the last of 511 truckloads of this toxic package was driven nearly 1,000 miles from the Sequoyah Fuels facility in Gore, Oklahoma to its final resting place at the doorstep of the Ute Mountain Ute tribal community. Ironically, the occasion also marked the end of a 15-year battle by the Cherokee Nation to remove this danger from their home. Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. told the Tulsa World, “It is a historic day for the Cherokee Nation and the state of Oklahoma. Our lands are safe again, now that we have removed a risk that would have threatened our communities forever.” The Sequoyah Fuels waste is particularly troubling because the sludge contains levels of radioactive materials that are higher than most other substances the White Mesa Mill has processed.
Why is this toxic waste being passed from one tribal community to another? Due to the low price of uranium, the White Mesa Mill turned to processing “alternate feed” — radioactive wastes from other industrial operations and contaminated places — as a source of additional revenue. The company grossed over $6 million processing alternate feeds in 2017. Although these toxic slurries can be processed at the mill, they are not natural ores, and the mill’s ability to accept them is the result of policy decisions made not by Congress with extensive and open debate, but by a handful of government officials with minimal public scrutiny.
When the sludge is sent through the mill, small amounts of uranium are extracted while a toxic and radioactive gumbo of other substances comes out the other side and is dumped into the mill’s waste pits, which were never meant to be used for this sort of waste-disposal business.
This isn’t the first time the mill has been allowed to process radioactive waste — more than a dozen different feeds have been approved for acceptance at the mill.
Exactly what’s in alternate feeds varies, but the bottom line is the feed from Sequoyah Fuels is nasty. So nasty, in fact, that the company couldn’t get other facilities to accept it because its concentrations of radioactive substances exceed acceptable thresholds. While it added a temporary bump to the White Mesa Mill owner’s bottom line, the waste will remain at the mill in perpetuity. And someday, when the mill is finally shuttered, the waste is “capped” in place, and the mill’s operators walk away, it will be the community of White Mesa that’s left testing its water and hoping the day doesn’t arrive when its residents can no longer drink it.
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