July 10, 2009 07:36 PM UTC

Mercury Misgivings in Mesa? More Toxic Waste in Grand Jct?

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• by: ClubTwitty

( – promoted by ClubTwitty)

Formerly: “Storage and Management of Elemental Mercury (DOE/EIS-0423)” Updated with some political musings and relevance…

Grand Junction, Colorado is one of several sites being considered by the U.S. Department of Energy for the disposal of mercury waste from around the nation, according to the Grand Junction Sentinel (props to Gary Harmon for the story) and other information on the Intertubes.  

The Sentinel reports:

Mesa County is one of seven locations around the United States being considered for storing mercury, an element deemed by Congress too hazardous to export.

The Department of Energy website has this listed on their public meetings calendar:

07.21.09   Public Scoping Meeting for the Long-Term Management and Storage of Elemental Mercury EIS (DOE/EIS-0423)  

Two Rivers Convention Center, 159 Main Street, Grand Junction, CO 81501, from 5:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.

The Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement was published on the DOE website July 2.  

The Grand Junction meeting is one of several scoping meetings being held around the country near potential sites.  Scoping serves a specific National Environmental Policy Act purpose: to gather input on the ‘scope’ of issues the EIS should cover.  

Judging from the Sentinel article, they are liable to get an earful in Grand Junction at least:

“I’ve got a long way to go before I’d welcome a truck full of mercury to this town,” said Paul Nelson, a Grand Junction city councilman in the 1980s and 1990s, when the city and Mesa County negotiated the agreement under which a disposal cell for uranium mill tailings could be built in the desert south of Grand Junction.

…The disposal cell “wasn’t meant to be a catchall for everything,” said former Councilman Reford Theobold.

“You’re kidding,” said Kathy Hall, a former Mesa County commissioner. “That was absolutely not the purpose” of the disposal cell. “It was for mill tailings and mill tailings only. The big fear was that they would try to do something else with it.”

…”I’d like to know who thought that would be a good site” for hazardous-materials storage, said Don Pettygrove, chairman of the Uranium Mill Tailings Citizens Advisory Committee, which worked with local officials on the cleanup and decisions about how to transport the tailings to the disposal site.

Grand Junction, of course, has a well-known toxic past, to which the quotes above allude.  It was, afterall, the western center (pdf) of the Atomic Energy Commission (now DOE) during the west’s uranium boom, and selected then by the government as the regional milling site.  

The Sentinel article fills in a few of the details.

That cell, now known as the Grand Junction Disposal Site, was built to contain the remnants of the uranium-milling legacy of Grand Junction going back to the 1940s.

…The cell was intended to hold mill tailings and related waste only, former officials with the city and Mesa County said.

…Tailings were what was left behind after uranium was processed in the mill in downtown Grand Junction. The sandy material was used in foundations, roads, streets, curbs and other public works during the 1950s and 1960s.

…The site holds more than 4.4 million cubic yards of contaminated materials in a cell between U.S. Highway 50 and Grand Mesa, south of Grand Junction.

Indeed, millions in taxpayer dollars were spent to clean up Grand Junction’s toxic legacy.  

The scoping period is the first of at least two public comment periods, as the agency first prepares its draft EIS.  Then it will take  public comment again, then issue a final EIS and decision.

The article didn’t mention where Mesa’s current elected officials are at, and its early enough in the process that the state and congressional offices haven’t issued any statements of which I am aware.

Few states appreciate being the nation’s dumping ground.  Even Utah beat back a proposal to store high-level radioactive waste there. Certainly there are a lot of details yet unknown.  An active state and congressional delegation can make a big difference in making sure questions are answered and issues addressed.      

In the 1950s,60s and 70s county and city leaders were happy to take the free fill material from the uranium mill, now–judging at least from the initial reactions in the Sentinel article–they are a bit more skeptical.  Other folks in Colorado–and current elected officials–should follow their lead.