From: Carol_Snyder_Halberstadt@Dragonsys.com (by way of Robert Dorman
<redorman@theofficenet.com>)

(moderator's note: the attachment is not included with this post. I will
try to get it on my web site later)

By Donna Bassett

Carol,

The attachment (below) is photographic evidence of the radioactive
contamination
at the site and the obvious lack of clean-up.

The Geiger counter reading taken outside the school house at the relocation
site
by the makers of the documentary "Vanishing Prayer" (1999) was 700 rads per
minute.

Here is the material I have put together from the DOE thus far about the
cleanup
project. Note the specific mention of "Tribal lands." Also, note the
following:
"Tailings remediation and groundwater restoration of each site include a
Remedial Action Plan approved by the State or Tribe and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC); Environmental Assessment (EA) or Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS); design/engineering, construction, surveillance, and
maintenance; and licensing by the NRC."

============================================================================
====

SOURCE: "Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Five-Year Plan Fiscal
Years 1993-1997" by the United States Department of Energy, published August
1991.

Environmental restoration of the region is being run out of the Albuquerque
Field Office of the DOE. This falls under the "Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial
Action (UMTRA) and the Uranium Mill Tailings Groundwater Restoration (UMTGR)"
which are listed as "two Major System Acquisition Projects treated as an
installation under the nondefense Environmental Restoration (ER) Program. Work
on both projects was authorized in 1978 when Congress passed the Uranium Mill
Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) (Public Law 95-604), which directed
DOE
to provide for stabilization and control of the uranium mill tailings from
inactive sites in a safe and environmentally sound manner. The UMTRCA provides
for the States to pay 10 percent of remedial action (RA) costs at sites within
the States, while DOE ER pays the remaining cost. The sandlike tailings,
located
at 24 sites and 5,000 vicinity properties in 10 States and on Tribal lands,
are
the result of uranium production from the early 1950s until the early 1970s.
Tailings remediation and groundwater restoration of each site include a
Remedial
Action Plan approved by the State or Tribe and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission
(NRC); Environmental Assessment (EA) or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS);
design/engineering, construction, surveillance, and maintenance; and licensing
by the NRC.

Restoration was to have begun in 1992 and was scheduled to be finished as
of FY
2000. All surface sites to be certified by FY 2002. All groundwater
contamination was to have been cleaned up by FY2033. NRC licensing of all
surface sites was scheduled for FY2003.

HEALTH RISKS (as cited by the DOE, this volume)

The hazards that UMTRA is remediating include over 30 million yd3 of tailings
and ~ 5,000 vicinity properties where tailings were used in the foundations of
inhabited or commercial buildings or where tailings blew into open land from
mill sites. Hazards result from radon gas, gamma radiation decay products (214
Pb and 214 Bi), asbestos, other hazardous and mixed organic wastes at mill
sites, and RCRA-listed hazardous constituents in groundwater plus molybdenum,
radium, uranium, selenium, and nitrates.

* Unstable piles will continue to emanate radon gas and allow dispersal of
windblown contamination.

* Unremediated vicinity properties can expose occupants of residential and
commercial structures to unacceptable levels of radon gas.

* Unstabilized tailings piles will continue to contaminate groundwater through
infiltration of water.

REGULATORY DRIVERS (as cited by the DOE, this volume)

* PL 95-604, UMTRCA.

* 40 CFR 192: Due to Federal Court remand, the EPA has revised the portion of
its UMTRA standards dealing with groundwater protection and restoration.
Though
these standards have not been promulgated in final form, DOE must comply with
the proposed standard until they become final.

* PL 100-616 UMTRA's authorizing legislation, as amended in 1988, requires
that
RA for tailings be completed by September 1994 and provides unlimited time for
groundwater restoration.

* State regulations where they are applicable.

* RCRA.

* DOE Orders.

(See attached file: BefPea.htm)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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