A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management program that verifies and validates the condition of mines that provided uranium ore to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission during the Cold War had a busy year in 2022.
The Defense-Related Uranium Mines (DRUM) program conducted inventories of 332 mines, submitted 215 verification and validation reports and facilitated 276 safeguarding projects, a Jan. 4 news release said.
“We could not have successfully completed the 2022 field work without the superb cooperation and collaboration of our partner agencies, over the many months of preparation prior to the field teams’ mobilization in March and throughout the 2022 field season,” Mine Team Supervisor Gordon Clark said in the release. “Another major factor in the success DRUM enjoyed over the 2022 field season is the professionalism, ‘Can Do’ attitude and enthusiasm of our LMS partner and specifically the DRUM field teams.”
The program is a partnership between the Department of Energy, federal land management agencies, state abandoned mine lands programs and Tribal governments, according to the release.
The DRUM field teams are preparing now for the next field season, the release said.
“Looking ahead, in the 2023 field season, the DRUM teams will start to work their magic in more geographically separated sites, across six additional states, all the while continuing to methodically execute the work in the Navajo Nation and wrapping up the final few, and hardest to access, sites in Colorado and Utah,” Clark said in the release. “It will be a challenging season, but I’m confident that, with the outstanding support of our partners, the DRUM team will continue to set the standard for field verification and reporting of abandoned mines across the federal government.”
