Some information may be outdated.
Beginning the week of Feb. 4, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project increased mill tailing shipments from the UMTRA Site in Moab to a permanent disposal site in Crescent Junction. The project’s goal is to double weekly train shipments from two to four, shipping Monday through Thursday, enabling accelerated cleanup.
Project contractors hired 23 new employees to support the increase in production.
“The increased shipments are part of DOE’s mission, under the Office of Environmental
Management, to safely clean up contaminated facilities leftover from the nation’s Cold War
environmental legacy,” federal cleanup director Russell McCallister said. “Increasing
shipments is part of the project’s goal to safely remove tailings as quickly as possible.”
Each train can transport up to 144 containers and can carry approximately 4,700 tons of mill
tailings. Mill tailings are a sand-like material that remain from processing uranium ore. The
tailings are transported by rail in sealed metal containers, away from the Colorado River and the
Moab site, to the Crescent Junction site, located about 30 miles north.
The tailings are placed in a
DOE-constructed, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission-approved disposal cell. The Moab UMTRA Project began shipping activities in 2009 and is more than half way to completing its
mission of relocating 16 million tons of tailings.
23 new employees hired for energy remedial project
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