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October 21, 2002 

NEWS RELEASE 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                         

Contact:

Steve Erickson
Citizens Education Project
(801) 359-4929 (home)
(801) 554-9029 (Cell)                                                                                 

Bill Hedden
Grand Canyon Trust
(435) 259-5284 

WILL INITIATIVE 1 STYMIE TAILINGS REMOVAL?

Voter approval of Initiative 1 could torpedo removal of the Moab Atlas tailings from the banks of the Colorado River by driving the cost beyond what the federal government is willing to pay, according to the Citizens Education Project (CEP) and the Grand Canyon Trust.

“The efforts of the citizens of Southeastern Utah and their elected representatives to remove the leaking radioactive Atlas tailings from the edge of the river that is the lifeblood of four down-river states could be thwarted if this initiative passes”, according to Steve Erickson, director of the CEP.

“This Initiative will have unintended consequences, but the worst of those could result in leaving the Atlas tailings poisoning the Colorado for generations to come,” Bill Hedden, director of the Glen Canyon Trust said.  “The federal government, strictly to save money, is considering capping the tailings in place instead of moving them off the river to a safer location.  Adding a huge new tax to a removal and disposal plan would make it much more likely that the pile would be capped.”

“Moving the tailings pile has heavy support in Grand and San Juan Counties and among Utah’s elected representatives,” Hedden said.  “The Department of Energy under the Clinton Administration favored off-site disposal, but that plan has been shelved by the Bush Administration.”  The DOE is now initiating an environmental impact statement to evaluate the options of capping or moving the pile.  Scoping hearings are scheduled to begin in January.

Erickson estimates that the Initiative 1 $4 per cubic foot tax on radioactive materials, if applied to the 13 million tons (approximately 351 million cubic feet) of Atlas tailings, would cost over $1.3 billion.  “That’s more than five times the $250 million the DOE estimates it would cost to move and bury the tailings to the closest site under consideration, the Klondike site 18 miles north of Moab.  The DOE simply won’t swallow those costs when they can cap the pile in place for around $150 million and pay no state radiation waste tax in the process,” he said. 

There is some question, however, if the taxes proposed under the initiative would apply to the Moab tailings, Erickson conceded.  “Our read of the Initiative text is that, if the DOE contracts the removal and disposal to a private company, the taxes would apply.  If DOE handles the job itself, the feds would likely not pay state taxes,” he said.

Further complicating the situation is the interest in the Atlas tailings of International Uranium Corporation, which operates a uranium mill near Blanding.  IUC could argue that it would recycle the tailings to recover salable uranium, making the tailings “alternate feed materials” exempt from the proposed tax.  At least three other private companies, including Utah-based Envirocare and East Carbon Development Company (ECDC) have expressed an interest in disposing of the tailings.  “The only sure thing is that application of the tax to disposing of the Atlas tailings will be subject to litigation,” Erickson said.

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