radioactive waste Archives

radioactive waste

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October 19, 2022

Utah tribe wants polluting uranium mill closed

by Shannon Kelleher

This Saturday the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in southeastern Utah is planning a rally to protest the last functioning uranium mill in the United States. The White Mesa Mill, which sits on sacred ancestral tribal lands, has been polluting the environment and jeopardizing the health of local communities for decades.

“We keep fighting and fighting to get it to either shut down or get it to move,” said Michael Badback, a tribal member and longtime White Mesa resident.

More than 700 million pounds of radioactive waste from across the US are buried in the White Mesa Uranium Mill’s waste pits, according to a report by Grand Canyon Trust. And the site may soon become a dumping ground for radioactive materials from around the world, with waste streams from Canada, Japan, and Europe approved for shipment to the mill.

While the mill was designed to accept crushed uranium ore from mines, it can also accept waste streams as long as they contain uranium or thorium.

“Really what we have is a uranium mill that’s essentially functioning as a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility without being regulated like one,” said Tim Peterson, cultural landscapes director at Grand Canyon Trust. “It’s accepting this sort of stew or cocktail of materials that has all kinds of other components in it. We don’t have any other facility in the United States that has this particular mix in its waste pits, so we don’t really know how these things interact and what they might do together.”

October 6, 2022

Hunters Point Superfund Site May Not Get Full Cleanup

by Shannon Kelleher

A full cleanup may not materialize for the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, a Superfund site since 1989, according to a memo the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released on September 30th. The memo, which was directed to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and other groups, implied that the site may remain unfit for unrestricted residential use after the cleanup concludes. The radioactive waste-contaminated shipyard is located within Bayview-Hunters Point, a low-income community of color with high asthma and cancer rates.

PEER said in a press release that the memo indicates the cleanup would violate Proposition P, a voter initiative calling for the agency to fully clean the shipyard. Instead, the memo suggests the cleanup plan may entail relying on land use restrictions and covering contamination with caps.

“Regarding your recommendation that soil radiological cleanup goals be based on an unrestricted use scenario consistent with the City/County of San Francisco’s Proposition P, broadly, EPA’s policy is to achieve protective remedies consistent with reasonably anticipated future land use,” said the EPA memo. “Institutional controls, like land use restrictions, are a common component of Superfund remedies nationwide to ensure protection of human health but also to ensure the integrity of remedies in the long term.”

“They’re sort of tacitly conceding the point that what’s going to be left is well above what should be left according to EPA’s own guidance on Superfund matters,” said PEER Pacific Director Jeff Ruch. “Hunters Point was supposed to be the biggest commercial redevelopment since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. If it’s not cleared for unrestricted use, it’s not clear to what extent it’s going to be usable.”