Grand County’s new “UMTRA liaison” presented the Grand County Council this week with a comprehensive overview of the current status of the Atlas uranium mill tailings cleanup project. In his presentation, Lee Shenton emphasized radiation hazard monitoring and safety measures currently implemented at the project site.

In recent years the county council has received frequent updates on particular issues regarding the project, being overseen by the Department of Energy, to remove 16 million tons of radioactive waste from the old Atlas mill site north of Moab. Shenton’s presentation is the first overview designed to communicate the whole picture to the public.

Shenton is employed by the county under a grant from the DOE. He described his job requirements as providing community outreach, monitoring the project sites for compliance with the conditional use permit issued to DOE by the county, facilitating communication with the project team, analyzing and interpreting technical information, and reporting project status and incidents.

Shenton this week presented a slideshow he prepared from the DOE and county websites. The presentation includes several displays of air monitoring results, and he said it is designed and consolidated to make it easier for ordinary people to have access to the information that is of the most interest.

“Understandable chunks,” is how Shenton described his analysis of thousands of data points of air quality measurement.

As of Nov. 30, nearly one-half million tons of tailings have been moved from Moab to a permanent repository near Crescent Junction. That is 3 percent of the pile, according to the DOE.

The expected completion date for the project has been accelerated from 2029 to 2025 with the advent of federal stimulus funds. DOE officials say they hope to move that date up to 2022 by incorporating “efficiencies” to speed up the cleanup. If the stimulus funds were maintained for the life of the project it could be completed by 2019.

After going through the time schedule, Shenton threw a little cold water on the gathering by pointing out that the project will not be complete when all the tailings are gone. A considerable amount of contaminated ground water will still be in place that must be “remediated,” he said.

“They can’t just spray it on the existing grade,” once the pile is gone, Shenton said when asked how that job will be done. The plan for how the remaining water will be remediated – treated to remove radon gas – is still in the works, he said.

Already 152 million gallons have been extracted from the ground via 41 wells. By evaporating that water on top of the tailings pile, the project has removed 627,000 pounds of ammonia, and 2,750 pounds of uranium from the aquifer.

About a dozen air quality monitoring stations are in operation near the site, the repository, and in Moab. According to Shenton’s presentation, the highest annual average radon measurement was obtained at the station on the south side of the tailings site. It was just below the DOE indoor guideline.

Shenton said all gamma measurements were well below the DOE public limit. Both average and maximum worker exposures were also well below DOE limits for annual dosages.

“DOE sets control limits well below federal standards,” Shenton said. There was a peak at the tailings site, but “the levels of radon have retreated from that,” he said.

An ammonia spike occurred last spring in the Colorado River about 20 feet from its bank and running about 200 feet downstream. Steps will be taken to prevent that from happening again, Shenton said.

Two accidents in October involving a broken leg and a truck rollover have been thoroughly dissected by the project teams and Grand County responders. Steps have been taken to prevent similar events.

“They were clearly more interested in the well-being of workers and the public,” Shenton said as he praised the response teams and the lack of finger-pointing or attempt to blame somebody.

So far, the project has cost $55 million. The cleanup project employs 326 people, including 29 Grand Junction staff. Of those employees 295 were hired from within 150 miles of Moab, DOE officials have said.

At the completion of the slideshow council chairman Bob Greenberg asked Shenton to make the presentation available to the public on the county’s website.