PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASESaturday, November 02, 2002
Contacts:
Hazel Merritt, Utah Navajo Downwinders
(435) 651-3402
Lori Goodman, Diné CARE
(970) 259-0199NAVAJO GROUPS QUESTION WHY THE INTERNATIONAL URANIUM CORPORATION MILL IN BLANDING – UTAH’S COVERT DUMP - IS NOT INCLUDED IN INITIATIVE 1
Initiative 1 would raise the dumping fees on Class A hazardous waste and would ban the dumping of Class B and C wastes in Utah. However it appears that the initiative would also remove taxes from waste that is permanently disposed at the International Uranium Corporation’s (IUC) Blanding mill and disposal site.
Utah Navajo Downwinders, an Aneth Navajo citizens group and Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment (Diné CARE), question why Initiative 1 seems to play favorites among Utah’s hazardous waste dumps.
The IUC License from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission permits the mill to process radioactive waste and to permanently dispose of the resulting tailings in the mill's tailings facility. There are no limits stated in the mill's License as to the total quantities that may be accepted by the mill annually. The mill License also imposes no restrictions on the jurisdictions from which the waste may originate. So Hazel Merritt of Navajo Utah Downwinders wonders “This permanent disposal sure sounds like a dump to us. So we don’t understand why Initiative 1 would treat this dump, and its operator, differently than other hazardous waste dumps in the state.”
According to Lori Goodman, of Diné CARE, “IUC can accept and process materials containing natural uranium in any form and associated products from relatively low grade material to very high grade materials - IUC has handled material grading at over 40% U3O8”. Ms. Goodman notes that IUC practically admits that it is a dump, stating on its website (http://www.intluranium.com) that the mill “is [only] different from disposal-only facilities in its ability to process uranium-bearing materials for recycling and extraction of uranium and other commercially valuable metals.”
Since 1993, the IUC mill has accepted and permanently disposed of radionuclide-contaminated soils, refinery-related organic compounds, organic solvents, calcium fluoride waste, potassium duranate solids, filter ash, mono- and di-butyl phosphate and other hazardous wastes from New York, California, Ontario and several other locations.
In addition, the IUC mill has had groundwater contamination problems since at least 1999 – problems which have not been cleaned up.
“We believe that the IUC mill should not be allowed to operate a covert dump, by hiding behind the smokescreen that it is “only” a mill”, said Ms. Merritt. “Therefore, we would urge that Utah treat all its hazardous waste dumps and operators equally, so that, whether by accident or design, our communities do not bear the sole burden of the impacts from these dumps.”