Fear & Hope
In uranium country, life goes on despite contamination
fears
TUBA CITY, Ariz. — Its legs bound and
its fate sealed, the lone sheep lying on Shirley Charley’s
wood porch took quick, sharp breaths in the early afternoon
heat. Amid a network of anonymous dirt roads a half-dozen
miles north east of Tuba City, only its occasional,
noisy attempts at escape disturbed the tranquil scene.
In a few hours, Charley and
her extended family would butcher the sheep to help
fuel a long night of cattle branding. They’ve herded
their livestock across this land for generations. And
like the sheep lying on Charley’s porch Saturday, they’ve
watered them at a well about a mile to the east for
just as long.
Five weeks ago, the company that used
to own the uranium mill on the other side of the nearest
paved road, U.S. Highway 160, reached an agreement with
the Navajo Nation to test nearby wells it may have contaminated.
El Paso Natural Gas hasn’t named the wells it will test
yet, so Charley can only wonder if it will include the
well her family has been using all these years.
Busy with preparations for the evening’s
meal, her hands already caked with flour, Charley reluctantly
admits she’s worried.
“We don’t know what’s out there,” she
said, staring contemplatively into a storm cloud slipping
quietly across the eastern skyline.
Unfinished business
The area’s troubles began when the Rare Metals Corporation
started processing uranium at the mill in 1956. Off
and on for the next 10 years, it processed some 800,000
tons of ore, all of it for the federal government’s
nuclear weapons program. Following the federal regulations
of the time, Rare Metals dumped the damp tailings, the
waste product of milling, into unlined evaporation ponds
on site. Unfortunately, not all the water evaporated.
Much of the water seeped into the ground, taking uranium
and other contaminants in the tailings with it.
Again with federal approval, El Paso,
which eventually bought Rare Metals, did some modest
reclamation around the mill and packed up in 1968. It
wasn’t for another two decades that the U.S. Department
of Energy started cleaning up the surface contamination
the companies left behind. But that did nothing to address
the radioactive plume of groundwater below. The Energy
Department only started cleaning that up in 2002.
According to Randy Richardson, site
superintendent for SM Stoller, the company the Energy
Department hired to clean up the plume, between 1 billion
and 2 billions gallons of contaminated water flowed
be low the mill in 2002. Five years on, the company
has cleaned only 240 million of those gallons, he said,
“so we’ve got a ways to go.”
Thirty-seven wells dot the site, pumping
dirty water out of the ground around the clock. Distillers
and softeners clean the water before the wells send
most of it back. The rest ends up in a double-lined
pond to bake in the sun. As the water evaporates, the
contaminants get left behind. Briny mounds, holding
the excess nitrates in the water, poke out of the emerald
brew like little is lands in a salty sea. The uranium,
which comes in much lower concentrations, is harder
to see. But even a little uranium, Richardson said,
“goes a long way.”
When Stoller got started, it hoped to
have all the contaminants back below federal drinking
limits within 20 years. Richardson has his doubts.
”If nothing changes,” he said, “it could
take a little longer.”
For all the mill site’s problems,
however, the Navajo Nation’s current worries lie elsewhere.
According to Richardson, most of the plume from the
mill, all but its southern edge, lies directly beneath
the 145 acres the company has fenced off, out of the
way of any public wells. What troubles the tribe most
these days is the waste Rare Metals allegedly dumped
off the site illegally.
Unfinished business
The area’s troubles began when
the Rare Metals Corporation started processing uranium
at the mill in 1956. Off and on for the next 10 years,
it processed some 800,000 tons of ore, all of it for
the federal government’s nuclear weapons program. Following
the federal regulations of the time, Rare Metals dumped
the damp tailings, the waste product of milling, into
unlined evaporation ponds on site. Unfortunately, not
all the water evaporated. Much of the water seeped into
the ground, taking uranium and other contaminants in
the tailings with it.
Again with federal approval, El Paso,
which eventually bought Rare Metals, did some modest
reclamation around the mill and packed up in 1968. It
wasn’t for another two decades that the U.S. Department
of Energy started cleaning up the surface contamination
the companies left behind. But that did nothing to address
the radioactive plume of groundwater below. The Energy
Department only started cleaning that up in 2002.
According to Randy Richardson, site
superintendent for SM Stoller, the company the Energy
Department hired to clean up the plume, between 1 billion
and 2 billions gallons of contaminated water flowed
be low the mill in 2002. Five years on, the company
has cleaned only 240 million of those gallons, he said,
“so we’ve got a ways to go.”
Thirty-seven wells dot the site, pumping
dirty water out of the ground around the clock. Distillers
and softeners clean the water before the wells send
most of it back. The rest ends up in a double-lined
pond to bake in the sun. As the water evaporates, the
contaminants get left behind. Briny mounds, holding
the excess nitrates in the water, poke out of the emerald
brew like little is lands in a salty sea. The uranium,
which comes in much lower concentrations, is harder
to see. But even a little uranium, Richardson said,
“goes a long way.”
When Stoller got started, it hoped to
have all the contaminants back below federal drinking
limits within 20 years. Richardson has his doubts.
”If nothing changes,” he said, “it could
take a little longer.”
For all the mill site’s problems, however,
the Navajo Nation’s current worries lie elsewhere. According
to Richardson, most of the plume from the mill, all
but its southern edge, lies directly beneath the 145
acres the company has fenced off, out of the way of
any public wells. What troubles the tribe most these
days is the waste Rare Metals allegedly dumped off the
site illegally.
Out of bounds
Mavis Saganitso, Charley’s mother,
grew up where her daughter’s trailer sits today. She
remembers back to the 1960s when Rare Metals crews used
to show up with big black barrels and bury them. She
can still pick out the spot from Charley’s porch by
looking for the dusty patch a few hundred yards off
where the native shrubbery has never quite filled back
in.
”They didn’t say it was harmful,” she
said. “They told us not to worry about it. Later on
we found out it was hot.”
They still don’t know exactly what is — or was — in
the barrels.
“They don’t tell us nothing,” Charley
said.
The Navajo Nation claims Rare Metals
illegally dumped some waste from the mill there, and
at an old communal landfill on the other side of U.S.
160 halfway to Tuba City. And just as with the tailings
at the mill, it believes that waste is leaking contaminants
into the groundwater below, threatening nearby wells.
Bill Walker, a private geologist on
the tribe’s payroll, says he’s linked the waste at the
dumps to the mill with the help of some telltale chemicals
Rare Metals used in the milling process. He’s found
the same chemicals in the dumps. He’s also found a plume
of contaminated water beneath the old landfill, but
is still working on linking the two.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
which could bring its considerable weight to bear of
El Paso if convinced, is playing it safe. It’s neither
denying nor confirming any connection between the mill
and dump sites.
El Paso, meanwhile, is admitting nothing.
But with the Navajo Nation threatening to sue, it has
agreed to take some modest steps.
Let’s make a deal
El Paso signed off on a “cooperative
agreement” with the tribe June 25. Before getting into
what the tribe and company agree to, though, it makes
clear what they don’t: Neither gives up its claims to
what Rare Metals did or did not do during its operation
of the mill.
That said, El Paso agreed to investigate
the 5 acre dump site by Charley’s home for surface contamination,
fence off the “affected area,” and apply a spray-on
polymer to keep the soil from blowing away.
It also agreed to test all “potentially
affected” wells and springs around the dump and mill
for contamination. If it finds levels above government
limits, it will take “reasonable measures ... to reduce
risk,” including the provision of an alternative water
supply.
El Paso spokesman Richard Wheatley said
the company was still identifying the wells and springs
it will test.
”I think we’re talking under 100 here,” said David Taylor,
the Navajo Nation’s lead attorney on uranium matters.
“Whether we’re talking about 50 or 25 I can’t say at
this point.”
El Paso agreed to reimburse the Navajo
Nation for any costs it incurs conducting its own investigation
and cleanup of the sites as well, up to $350,000.
And lest anyone forget about the federal
government, El Paso and the tribe agreed to work together
in convincing the U.S. Department of Energy to chip
in. Specifically, they want Congress to amend the Uranium
Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act so that the Energy
Department can start spending its own money cleaning
up the dump sites.
The last time the tribe appealed to
the Energy Department, Land and Site Management Director
Donna Bergman-Tabbert turned it down. Because the tribe
failed to raise its concerns about the dump sites before
UMTRCA expired in 1998, she wrote Navajo Nation President
Joe Shirley Jr. in 2004, they failed to qualify.
Taylor thinks they have a better chance
this time. Although the agreement requires El Paso and
the tribe to team up for only 60 consecutive congressional
work days — the clock started ticking June 25 — they
expect federal lawmakers to take up another UMTRCA site
near Moab, Utah, soon. If Congress starts talking about
Moab, they hope it won’t mind taking another look at
Tuba City as well.
”You strike when the iron’s hot, and
we hope the iron is not in these 60 days,” said Taylor.
El Paso says the Energy Department still
bears some responsibility for the mill and its waste.
After all, every pound of yellowcake the mill ever produced
went to feed the country’s Cold War nuclear arsenal.
”It was done for the benefit of the
federal government,” Wheatley said.
Whether Rare Metals dumped contaminated
waste off site for the benefit of the federal government
as well is a matter for the courts. El Paso sued the
Energy Department insisting it take responsibility for
the dump sites in May. The government has yet to file
a formal response.
Only the beginning
For everything El Paso has agreed
to do, Taylor said will only be scratching the surface.
“This is not a cleanup in any sense
agreement; this is an emergency response type agreement,”
he said. “They’re important early steps that need to
be taken.”
The tribe and its researchers haven’t
detected any contamination levels above federal limits
in area wells yet. But if the underground plumes of
contaminated water aren’t checked, they say, that could
change.
Per its agreement with the Navajo Nation,
El Paso need only provide an alternative water supply.
Actually cleaning up any plumes would cost millions.
Walker said animals may already be feeding on plants
soaking them up.
”So any of those animals that were slaughtered
could get contaminants into the body,” he said.
As for the plume beneath the old landfill,
Walker is already convinced it’s moving toward wells
that serve the Hopi villages of Upper and Lower Moenkopi.
If it sinks deep enough, he added, it could even contaminate
the aquifer serving Tuba City. But because 90 percent
of the landfill sits on Hopi land, Taylor said the tribe’s
agreement with El Paso doesn’t even address it.
Rosemary Williams, who lives about a
mile southwest of her sister Charley’s home, has her
doubts about just how dangerous the area is.
Her husband, Daniel, laughs it off:
“Our Hopi friends joke with us. They say, ‘You glow
in the dark.’”
Still, if there’s more contaminated land and water out
there, they want it taken care of.
“Our cattle graze here. Our sheep graze
here. We live off of the land,” Rosemary Williams said.
“I just want them to clean it up.”
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