The removal and cleanup of the 16 million ton tailings pile has received a $108 million boost from the federal economic stimulus fund, the Department of Energy announced on Tuesday.

“This is good news on two fronts,” said Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah.) “First, it adds to the Department of Energy’s budget to accomplish the long-overdue remediation of this project. Secondly, it means my deadline for completion of the cleanup by 2019 is being backed up by the resources necessary to meet it… Rather than use lack of funding as an excuse to continue delaying the project, [the Department of Energy] – with new leadership – will now be able to concentrate on getting it done within the 12-year time frame,” Matheson said, referring to a 2019 timeframe for completion imposed by an amendment he included in the 2007 defense authorization bill.

Matheson has pointed out that the DOE’s record of decision – issued in 2005 – included a seven to 10-year timeframe for cleanup. “Yet the agency has continued to delay, saying as recently as February that it won’t finish before 2028,” according to a news release from his office.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the funding on Tuesday, as part of a $6 billion stimulus fund package aimed at accelerating environmental cleanup efforts for “shovel-ready” projects across the country. Matheson’s office said the additional funds will “facilitate an additional 2 million tons of tailings removal by 2011 – the end of the current [five]-year contract.”

The two-year acceleration will shorten the record of decision’s planned completion date by a few years from 2028. But without continued additional funding the 2019 deadline cannot be met, Moab Project spokeswoman Wendee Ryan said.

DOE’s report to Congress last June made it clear that additional funding of $70 to $100 million would be needed every year to meet Congress’ 2019 deadline, Ryan said.

What the $108 million in stimulus funds will do, Ryan said, is allow the project to increase the size of each daily train and increase the workweek from four to seven days later this year rather than in 2011 as originally planned.

Don Metzler, DOE project manager for the Moab cleanup, said that the community insisted the tailings be moved by rail and not by trucks on the highway. But physical constraints, notably the rail siding where the train cars will be loaded, prohibit the movement of more than one train per day, Metzler said.

DOE officials are investigating the possibility of increasing the train size even more than the planned increase to 34 cars, Ryan said.

“But I don’t know how feasible that is,” she said.