The Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project was created by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to monitor the cleanup of uranium mill tailings, a by-product of the uranium concentration process that poses risks to the public health and environment. The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act passed by Congress in 1978 gave the DOE the authority to regulate tailings disposal sites and shifted disposal practices to more engineered designs.
Uranium tailings are the waste material produced from the process of uranium milling which converts mined uranium ore into uranium concentrate, also known as yellowcake uranium. They are initially produced in a slurry material before being deposited in settling ponds and drying into a sand-like material. These tailings make up the large quantity of the uranium originally mined, with only 2.4 pounds of concentrated yellowcake uranium for every 2,000 pounds of uranium ore used in the process. [1]
Uranium milling from 1947 to 1971 largely supported nuclear weapon development and naval reactors, producing 20-35 million pounds of uranium concentrate annually in that period. Production after 1971 supported civilian nuclear power which saw an increase as 59 nuclear reactors came online between 1970 and 1979 but then a decrease to only four million pounds of uranium concentrate in 2000. [1]
The aspects associated with tailings disposal have raised several public health and environmental effects four of which have been identified by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If tailings are used in construction materials, diffusion of radon gas indoors increases the risk of lung cancer as would inhalation or ingestion of small particles emitted into the atmosphere directly from the mill piles. The gamma radiation from radioactive decay in the tailings poses risk to exposure as well. Trace metals and radionuclides can move from tailings into groundwater or surface water following physical or geochemical mechanisms. There the hazards associated with them may persist for hundreds of thousands of years. [1]
Federal agencies issued a "Joint Federal Agency Position Regarding Control of Uranium Mill Tailings" in 1966 to urge individual owners of mills to take it upon themselves to plan for the management and stabilization of the mill tailings. The actions stemming from this Joint Statement were without a legally binding regulatory program, and so they were largely unsatisfactory. [1]
In 1978 the US Congress passed the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) which was tasked the DOE with the responsibility of stabilizing, disposing, and controlling uranium mill tailings and other contaminated material at uranium mill processing spread across 10 states and at approximately 5,200 associated properties. [2] Under UMTRCA, the DOE created UMTRA to decommission 24 uranium mills and dispose of their residual mill tailings. [3] These are typically stored in an engineered disposal cell, described in the 1995 40 CFR 192 (60 FR 2854). designed to reduce groundwater contamination, as well as withstanding precipitation and flood events, withstanding "maximum credible earthquakes", and preferably having a design lifespan of 1000 years. The covers are also designed to substantially reduce radon gas emission. The disposal cells are located at the mill site or within 5 miles, if possible. [4] [5]
Title I of UMTRCA addressed the environmental and public health risks at uranium mills operating during the federal uranium procurement period from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Title I sites are regulated in accordance to regulation 10 CFR 40.27 known as the "General license for custody and long-term care of residual radioactive material disposal sites.". Under these regulations, proper monitoring, maintenance and precautionary measures in the case of an emergency are mandatory for the remediation of Title I sites. Disposal of radioactive material is allocated to various disposal sites approved by the United States Department of Energy. Within these Title I classifications, the United States Department of Energy approved of an action plan which targeted groundwater contamination and allowed for Native American Tribes and the state to discuss future plans to remove contamination from groundwater. Sites who have contained all radioactive and contaminated material will be approved with a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) General License. [6] [7] [1]
Title II concerned the regulation of licensed uranium mills after the passing of UMTRCA. It contains the mechanism by which land and mill tailings are transferred to the federal government and the way costs concerning long-term management are arranged with licensees. Under these licenses, sites will receive funding towards surveillance and maintenance from the United States Department of Justice (DOE) as well as the development of Long Term Surveillance Plans (LTSP). After approval, these sites will be taken into the custody of the United States department of energy and held in accordance with regulation 10 CFR 40.28 known as the “General License for Custody and Long-Term Care of Uranium or Thorium Byproduct Materials Disposal Sites.” [1] [7] [8]
UMTRCA was amended in 1988 in response to DOE concerns of ongoing groundwater contamination issues at several sites. The amendment gave the DOE to perform groundwater remediation at these Title I sites indefinitely. [1]
UMTRCA has allowed federal law and regulatory agencies authority to regulate tailings and has provided for the replacement of inactive uranium mill tailings piles susceptible to natural dispersal with engineered repositories designed to stabilize tailings for hundreds of years. [1]
In 2021, a yearly review was provided by the United States Department of Energy, which highlighted multiple breakthroughs from the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action in Moab, Utah. Result from these highlights include a removal of over 12 million tons of radioactive material which have been sent to disposal, diverting about 970,000 pounds of ammonia and over 5,000 pounds of uranium from the Colorado river and disposed of a sizeable amount of building debris from the southern end of the tilling within Moab, Utah. [9]
As of 2023, the Department of Energy claims that the remedial footprint of these actions have been reduced by 90%, or from 3,300 square miles to 300 square miles. Within the strategic visions published by the Department of Energy, there are listed priorities for the next ten years which include the protection of people and the environment, treatment and stabilization of radioactive material and radioactive storages, the further remediation of groundwater and decommissioning "excess facilities". [10]
In 1978, congress passed Public law 95-604, known as the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act, which attempted to remove uranium from inactive uranium mill sites that have been discontinued since the 1960s. This act does not apply to mills passed this era and instead allow the private owners to deal with them in any way they see fit. As a result of this act, the Department of Energy located within Albuquerque, New Mexico created the UMTRCA Project office in an attempt to better carry out these projects. Around 97% of remedial action in all of these areas has been complete with 18 UMTRCA sites around the United States. [1]
Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons reprocessing. The storage and disposal of radioactive waste is regulated by government agencies in order to protect human health and the environment.
The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste in the United States. The site is on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site in Nye County, Nevada, about 80 mi (130 km) northwest of the Las Vegas Valley.
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Low-level waste (LLW) or Low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) is nuclear waste that does not fit into the categorical definitions for intermediate-level waste (ILW), high-level waste (HLW), spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transuranic waste (TRU), or certain byproduct materials known as 11e(2) wastes, such as uranium mill tailings. In essence, it is a definition by exclusion, and LLW is that category of radioactive wastes that do not fit into the other categories. If LLW is mixed with hazardous wastes as classified by RCRA, then it has a special status as mixed low-level waste (MLLW) and must satisfy treatment, storage, and disposal regulations both as LLW and as hazardous waste. While the bulk of LLW is not highly radioactive, the definition of LLW does not include references to its activity, and some LLW may be quite radioactive, as in the case of radioactive sources used in industry and medicine.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), formerly known as Rocketdyne, is a complex of industrial research and development facilities located on a 2,668-acre (1,080 ha) portion of Southern California in an unincorporated area of Ventura County in the Simi Hills between Simi Valley and Los Angeles. The site is located approximately 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Hollywood and approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Sage Ranch Park is adjacent on part of the northern boundary and the community of Bell Canyon is along the entire southern boundary.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 is a United States federal law which established a comprehensive national program for the safe, permanent disposal of highly radioactive wastes.
A deep geological repository is a way of storing hazardous or radioactive waste within a stable geologic environment. It entails a combination of waste form, waste package, engineered seals and geology that is suited to provide a high level of long-term isolation and containment without future maintenance. This will prevent any radioactive dangers. A number of mercury, cyanide and arsenic waste repositories are operating worldwide including Canada and Germany and a number of radioactive waste storage sites are under construction with the Onkalo in Finland being the most advanced.
The Moab uranium mill tailings pile is a uranium mill waste pond situated alongside the Colorado River, currently under the control of the U.S. Department of Energy. Locals refer to it as the Moab Tailings Pile. In 1952 U.S. geologist Charles Steen found the largest uranium deposit in the United States near Moab, Utah. The uranium was processed by the Uranium Reduction Company and the waste slurry was stored in an unlined pond adjacent to the river. The Uranium Reduction Company was sold in 1962 and renamed the Atlas Uranium Mill.
Uranium tailings or uranium tails are a radioactive waste byproduct (tailings) of conventional uranium mining and uranium enrichment. They contain the radioactive decay products from the uranium decay chains, mainly the U-238 chain, and heavy metals. Long-term storage or disposal of tailings may pose a danger for public health and safety.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, that previously produced enriched uranium, including highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the U.S. nuclear weapons program and Navy nuclear propulsion; in later years, it produced low-enriched uranium for fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The site never hosted an operating nuclear reactor.
Nuclear power has various environmental impacts, both positive and negative, including the construction and operation of the plant, the nuclear fuel cycle, and the effects of nuclear accidents. Nuclear power plants do not burn fossil fuels and so do not directly emit carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide emitted during mining, enrichment, fabrication and transport of fuel is small when compared with the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuels of similar energy yield, however, these plants still produce other environmentally damaging wastes. Nuclear energy and renewable energy have reduced environmental costs by decreasing CO2 emissions resulting from energy consumption.
The Church Rock uranium mill spill occurred in the U.S. state of New Mexico on July 16, 1979, when United Nuclear Corporation's tailings disposal pond at its uranium mill in Church Rock breached its dam. The accident remains the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history, having released more radioactivity than the Three Mile Island accident four months earlier.
Ambrosia Lake is a uranium mining district in McKinley and Cibola counties in New Mexico north of Grants that was heavily mined for uranium starting in the 1950s. It is in an anticlinal dome.
Climax Uranium Mill is a decommissioned uranium mill near Grand Junction, CO.
Radioactive waste is generated from the nuclear weapons program, commercial nuclear power, medical applications, and corporate and university-based research programs. Some of the materials LLW consists of are: "gloves and other protective clothing, glass and plastic laboratory supplies, machine parts and tools, and disposable medical items that have come in contact with radioactive materials". Waste is generally categorized as high level waste (HLW) and low-level waste (LLW). LLW contains materials such as irradiated tools, lab clothing, ion exchanger resins, animal carcasses, and trash from defense, commercial nuclear power, medical, and research activities. These materials usually have radioactivity that have short half lives—from ranges of multiple days to several hundred years. In 1990, 1.1 million cubic feet of LLW was produced. Currently, U.S. reactors generate about 40,000 cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste per year, including contaminated components and materials resulting from reactor decommissioning.
The nuclear energy policy of the United States began in 1954 and continued with the ongoing building of nuclear power plants, the enactment of numerous pieces of legislation such as the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and the implementation of countless policies which have guided the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy in the regulation and growth of nuclear energy companies. This includes, but is not limited to, regulations of nuclear facilities, waste storage, decommissioning of weapons-grade materials, uranium mining, and funding for nuclear companies, along with an increase in power plant building. Both legislation and bureaucratic regulations of nuclear energy in the United States have been shaped by scientific research, private industries' wishes, and public opinion, which has shifted over time and as a result of different nuclear disasters.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) is an independent adjudicatory division of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, authorized under the Atomic Energy Act. The ASLBP consists of administrative judges that differ from other administrative law judges in other Federal agencies, most notably that Licensing Boards have technical judges who are experts in their relative field of study. Licensing Boards hear claims by petitioners who seek to intervene in a licensing action before the NRC. The ASLBP's jurisdiction is limited to the scope of the licensing action before the NRC, commonly outlined in the Federal Register when a licensing action is published to give notice of the pending action and calls for petitions. Licensing Boards commonly hear matters arising under the Atomic Energy Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and the NRC's regulations in Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations. Licensing Boards hear licensing matters concerning the licensing matters of nuclear power plants, in situ leach uranium mining, spent fuel storage facilities, and enforcement matters of individuals who hold an NRC-issued license.
The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (1978) is a United States environmental law that amended the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to establish health and environmental standards for the stabilization, restoration, and disposal of uranium mill waste. Title 1 of the Act required the EPA to set environmental protection standards consistent with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, including groundwater protection limits; the Department of Energy to implement EPA standards and provide perpetual care for some sites; and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review cleanups and license sites to states or the DOE for perpetual care. Title 1 established a uranium mill remedial action program jointly funded by the federal government and the state. Title 1 of the Act also designated 22 inactive uranium mill sites for remediation, resulting in the containment of 40 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive material in UMTRCA Title 1 holding cells.
The Lakeview Mining Company was a uranium reduction plant 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of Lakeview, Lake County, Oregon. The mill began operating in February 1958 and operating until November 1960. The site covered 258 acres (104 ha); 130,000 short tons (120,000 t) of ore were processed, leaving behind large amounts of residual radioactive material. These were moved to an engineered disposal cell in 1986–1988.
The United Nuclear Corporation (UNC) was a diversified nuclear mining, development, and applications company based out of the United States. Formed in 1961 as a joint venture between the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation, the Mallinckrodt Corporation of America, and the Nuclear Development Corporation of America, the company is most well known today as the company behind the Church Rock uranium mill spill. In 1996 the company was acquired by General Electric, and remains to oversee the decommissioning of its former sites.
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