MOAB, Utah - EM’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project recently marked 10 years of shipping uranium mill tailings to a disposal site. On April 20, 2009, the first train carrying mill tailings departed the Moab Site in southern Utah. Ten years later, more than 9.5 million tons of the estimated 16 million tons of tailings have been shipped to the project’s Crescent Junction disposal cell. “I want to take the opportunity to thank each and every employee for their commitment and hard work," EM Federal Cleanup Director Russell McCallister said. “We will continue to focus on safety, environmental stewardship, and moving the project forward." North Wind Portage, the project’s remedial action contractor, provided lunch to employees as a way to thank them and commemorate the progress.
Containers loaded with mill tailings at the Moab Site are shipped by train about 30 miles north to the Crescent Junction disposal cell. There, they are transferred to trucks and taken to the disposal cell dumping area. The tailings are emptied into the cell and the containers are then loaded back onto the railcars and returned to the Moab Site. When complete, the rectangular cell will be about a mile long by 2,400 feet wide. It’s being excavated in phases.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
